FLORIDA PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION
NEWSLETTER 2013
Contents
The 59th Annual Meeting of the FPA
Page 1
About the Florida Philosophical Association
Page 2
Conferences, Lectures, and Department News
Pages 3-5
Members’ News
Pages 5-7
The 59th Annual Meeting of the FPA
November 15-16, 2013
DeLand, Florida
Host: Stetson University
Conference Organizers:
Scott Kimbrough (JU), FPA President
Piers Rawling (FSU), FPA Vice President, Program Coordinator
Joshua Rust (Stetson), FPA Secretary/Treasurer
Joshua Rust and Ron Hall (Stetson), Site Coordinators
ABOUT THE FPA
HISTORY AND MISSION
The FPA was founded in 1955. With a membership of approximately 300, the FPA is one of the largest
and most active regional philosophy organizations in the United States. The mission of the FPA is to
promote philosophy in Florida by facilitating the exchange of ideas among those engaged in this field of
inquiry, by encouraging investigation, by fostering the educational function of philosophy, and by
improving the academic status of philosophy. To this end there is an Annual Conference at which a variety
of professional activities are sponsored. The Conference is held in November and is located at a Florida
college or university.
THE FLORIDA PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW
The Florida Philosophical Review is the official journal of the FPA. This peer-reviewed electronic journal
features selected papers from annual FPA conferences, as well as special issues. It is published by the
Department of Philosophy of the University of Central Florida.
MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
Full Membership in the FPA is open to anyone who (i) has a degree from or has been teaching at a Florida
college or university, or is professionally active in philosophy in Florida; (ii) holds an MA or PhD in
philosophy or else has had substantial equivalent training; (iii) has some teaching experience in philosophy
at a college or university; and (iv) has made written application to the Secretary-Treasurer on an official
application form which bears the endorsement of a member of the FPA who is in good standing.
Associate Membership is open to anyone who is pursuing or has pursued graduate or undergraduate study in
philosophy (or who has had substantial equivalent training).
Dues are currently $15 annually for full members, $10 annually for associate members, payable at the
Annual Conference or by mail. Members maintain their good standing by keeping current with the dues
owed to the Association.
Applying for Membership. Application for membership may be made on-line, by mail, or in person at an
FPA meeting. For further information, see the FPA’s website: http://www.phil.ufl.edu/fpa
OFFICERS
Scott Kimbrough (JU), President
Piers Rawling (FSU), Vice President
Nancy Stanlick (UCF), Past President
Greg Ray (UF), Technical Secretary
Joshua Rust (Stetson), Secretary/Treasurer
Jaime Ahlberg (UF), Member-at-Large
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CONFERENCES, LECTURES, AND DEPARTMENT NEWS
FLORIDA GULF COAST UNIVERSITY
The Department of Philosophy will co-host the Heidegger Circle Meeting with the University of South
Florida, May 8th-11th. The conference will take place in downtown St. Petersburg at the Bayfront Hilton.
FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
The Department of Philosophy is pleased to announce that Dr. John Schwenkler has been hired as an
Assistant Professor (formerly Assistant Professor at Mount St. Mary’s University). Dr. Schwenkler’s
research interests lie in epistemology and philosophy of mind and action.
The Program in the History and Philosophy of Science hosted the conference, “Science without God:
Religion, Naturalism and the Sciences” February 15th-16th, 2013. The conference was to honor Ronald L.
Numbers.
The Department of Philosophy will host the “Big Questions in Free Will Conference: Free Will and Science”
as part of the Big Questions in Free Will Project that is directed by Dr. Al Mele, William H. and Lucyle T.
Werkmeister. The conference will take place December 6th-8th.
MORAVIAN COLLEGE
The Department of Philosophy hosted the Moravian College Undergraduate Philosophy Conference on March
16th, 2013. The plenary speaker was Dr. Roslyn Weiss (Lehigh University).
STETSON UNIVERSITY
The Department of Philosophy is pleased to announce that Dr. Melinda Hall (Ph.D. Vanderbilt) has been
hired as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Hall’s areas of specialization include ethics, bioethics, continental
philosophy, disability studies, and social and political philosophy.
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
The Department of Philosophy had one colloquium this Fall:
• November 1st: Dr. Peter Olen (UCF), “Two Paths to Ontological Commitment”
And sponsored the following talk:
• November 7th: Alexander J. Kurien (Director, Office of Strategic Planning, U.S. Department
of State), “The Art of Diplomacy in International Negotiation”
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UNIVERSITY
OF
FLORIDA
The Department of Philosophy had one colloquium in November:
• November 6th: Drs. Gene Witmer (UF) and Peter Westmoreland (UF), “Who Does Philosophy?
And Why Them? Questions of Diversity in the Discipline”
And has two forthcoming this fall:
• November 25th: Dr. Andrew Alwood (Virginia Commonwealth), “What Makes Your Life
Go Well?
• December 6th: Dr. Kelly Trogdon (Virginia Tech), “The Translucent Nature of Phenomenal
Concepts”
In the spring it will host the Southeast Graduate Philosophy Conference. The keynote speaker for the event
will be Dr. Joseph Levine (UMass Amherst). A CFP is forthcoming.
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA
The Department held three talks this spring and fall:
• March 28th: Dr. Jeremy Waldron (NYU), “Dignity, Offense, Hate Speech”
• 5th Annual John C. Maraldo Lecture in Comparative Philosophy, April 4 th:
Dr. Roger T. Ames (University of Hawai’i), “Confucian Role Ethics: A Challenge to the Ideology
of Individualism”
• UNF Asian Council Talk, October 24th: Dr. Peimin Ni (Grand Valley State): “The Gongfu [Kung
Fu] of Dancing with Brush and Ink”
In addition, the Department hosted the 5th Annual A. David Kline Symposium in Public Philosophy. The
conference theme this year was Municipal Ethics, and it took place March 29 th-30th.
The Department will host the 17th Annual Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Conference, which will take
place on February 15th, 2014. The conference this coming year will feature high quality undergraduate work
in any area of philosophy (analytic, continental, comparative). The keynote speaker will be Dr. Mitch
Haney (UNF).
Also, the department would like to announce that it now has a Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/UNF.Philosophy
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA
The Department of Philosophy held two talks this Fall:
• September 27th: Dr. Richard Manning (USF), “Can a This-Such be a Reason?”
• The Baumgarder Gelbart Lecture, October 3rd: Christine Hayes, “Divine Law: A Tale of Two
Concepts (and three responses)”
The Department also hosted the Eastern Regional Conference of the Society for Christian Philosophers,
“Theistic Metaphysics and Naturalism”, October 24-26.
The Department plans to host the following events in the Spring of 2014:
• The PGSO Annual Graduate Conference in the Spring. Details TBA.
• March 1-2nd: Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy
• April 24-27th: The 14th annual meeting of the Ancient Philosophy Society
• May 8th-11th: The 48th annual meeting of the Heidegger Circle, co-hosted with Florida Gulf Coast
University
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UNIVERSITY OF W E S T FLORIDA
The Department of Philosophy and School of Science and Engineering sponsored two talks:
• January 23rd: Dr. Colin Allen (Indiana University), “Moral Machines: Teaching (Ro)Bots Right from Wrong” and
“Fish Cognition and Fish Consciousness”
MEMBERS' NEWS
FLORIDA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Andrew Aberdein, Associate Professor of Logic and Humanities, spent the last academic year on sabbatical.
He was a Visiting Researcher at the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh in Scotland and a Visiting
Fellow at the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric at the University of Windsor in
Canada. His most recent publications include `Mathematical wit and mathematical cognition', Topics in
Cognitive Science, and an edited collection, The Argument of Mathematics, Springer
(http://springerlink.com/content/978-94-007-6534-4/).
FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
Donald A. Crosby, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Colorado State University and for a time an adjunct
instructor at Florida State University, had two books published in 2013. They are The Philosophy of William
James: Radical Empiricism and Radical Materialism (Rowman & Littlefield) and The Thou of Nature:
Religious Naturalism and Reverence for Sentient Life (State University of New York Press). Another book by
Crosby, to be published by SUNY Press in 2014, is Beyond Discourse: Symbolic Expressions of Naturalistic
Faith.
Al Mele was awarded the Graduate Teaching Award for 2012-13 (which he also won in 2005-2006).
Recipients of this award are selected for their outstanding teaching skills. Nominations are submitted by
students and alumni. Dr. Mele also had a book for undergraduates published just this month by Oxford
University Press: A Dialogue on Free Will and Science. It is intended to be an accessible, engaging
introduction to free will and the leading scientific arguments for the nonexistence in free will. Through
college-aged characters, Mele explains the experiments at the heart of these arguments and exposes various
problems with the arguments. More information can be found at Oxford University Press’s website.
STETSON UNIVERSITY
Susan Peppers-Bates recently published “The Satanic Nature of Racist ‘Christianity’” in The Journal of the
Black Catholic Theological Symposium Vol. VI, 2012.
Joshua Rust earned tenure in the spring of 2013 and was granted a sabbatical for the spring of 2014. He has
also co-written a paper with Dr. Peppers-Bates entitled “House-Elves, Hogwarts, and Friendship: Casting
Away the Institutions which made Voldemort’s Rise Possible”, Reason Papers, no. 1 (June 2012): 109-124.
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Sylvia Walsh Perkins recently presented a paper on the topic of “Kierkegaard vs. Frankfort on Self-Love,
Redoubling, and Self-Denial” at the Jubilee Congress in Copenhagen celebrating the 200th birthday of
Kierkegaard on May 5, 2013.
Robert L. Perkins, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, presented a paper, “Kierkegaard’s Political Theology”
at the Kierkegaard Bicentennial held at the University of Copenhagen on 5 August 2013.
UNIVERSITY
OF
CENTRAL FLORIDA
Scott A. Olsen presented a plenary session paper on Archimedes & the 13 Semi-Regular Solids at the New
York Open Center’s “Quest for Ancient, Arabic and Medieval Sicily,” on the Isle of Ortigia, Siracusa, Sicily,
June 15, 2013. He also presented the paper, NDEs & Self-Transformation: Life-Changing Illumination as
Humanity’s Ultimate Goal to the Chester, England Theosophical Lodge on June 20, 2013. On June 21, 2013,
he presented a paper on Euclid & Hypatia: Philosopher – Mathematicians of Alexandria to the Edinburgh,
Scotland Theosophical Lodge. Two papers were presented at the Claregate Changing Perception of Reality
weekend seminar, June 22 & 23, 2013: “Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science: a Paradigm-Shifting
Connection” and “Divine Proportion: the Roots and Future of Theosophy”. He presented the paper, The
Pivotal Role of the Golden Section in Modern Science, at the Symmetry Festival 2013 in Delft, The
Netherlands on August 6, 2013, subsequently published in the journal Symmetry: Culture and Science.
UNIVERSITY
OF
FLORIDA
Jaime Ahlberg presented a paper entitled “Educational Justice for Students with Disabilities” at the
American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting in April of 2013, and at a conference on
“Education: Ideals and Practices” sponsored by the Liberty Fund in August of 2013. The paper is
forthcoming in Social Philosophy & Policy. She participated on panels at the Philosophy of Education annual
meeting (March 2013) and AERA (April 2013), and was a speaker for the Spencer Foundation’s Philosophy
of Education Summer Institute (July 2013). A paper entitled “Education: Not a Real Utopian Design”, cowritten with Harry Brighouse (UW Madison) is forthcoming in Politics & Society.
Ron Claypool (Ph.D. Candidate) will present his paper “Workmanship of the Understanding: Locke on
Representation” at this year’s Eastern APA, December 28, 2013.
Casey Woodling (Recent Ph.D. UF) began a position as a full-time lecturer of philosophy at Coastal Carolina
University this fall.
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA
Aaron M. Johnson (Ph.D. Candidate in the School of Electrical Engineering at the University of
Pennsylvania) and Sidney Axinn (USF), "The Morality of Autonomous Robots," Journal of Military Ethics,
Vol. 12, No. 2, 129-141, 2013.
Robert Ennis (Professor Emeritus of Philosophy of Education, University of Illinois. Former Professor of
Philosophy of Education at Cornell University, a former Adjunct Professor in Philosophy at New College of
Florida, and a former Adjunct in Philosophy at the University of South Florida). Professor Ennis has an
article forthcoming in Inquiry: Critical Thinking across the Disciplines, entitled “A Program for Critical
Thinking across the Curriculum: The Wisdom CTAC". Here is a segment of an abstract for the article:
"Discussions of critical thinking across the curriculum typically take an analytic approach, making and
explaining points and distinctions that bear on one or a few standard issues. In this article Ennis takes a
different approach, starting with a fairly comprehensive concrete proposal (called “The Wisdom
CTAC”) for a four-year higher education critical-thinking-incorporating curriculum at hypothetical Wisdom
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University. Aspects of the program include a one-year critical thinking freshman course with practical
everyday-life goals as well as subject-relevant critical thinking goals, extensive infusion of critical thinking in
other courses, a senior project, critical thinking dispositions and skills content, a glossary of critical thinking
terms, communication, staff, control, teaching (interaction, using multiple varied examples, transfer, and
making principles explicit), assessment, advantages, and disadvantages.” Professor Ennis welcomes
discussion of the role philosophy departments might have in developing critical-thinking-across-thecurriculum programs like these, particularly in light of ongoing controversy regarding the status and value of
philosophy programs in Florida and the rest of the country. He can be reached at rhennis@illinois.edu.
Hugh LaFollette is Editor-in-Chief of the International Encyclopedia of Ethics, and would like to announce
that nine volumes of the encyclopedia are now in print, as well as being available electronically (with
extensive hyperlinks). Here is a blurb about the Encyclopedia: “The International Encyclopedia of Ethics is
the most comprehensive, authoritative print and electronic Ethics resource available. Its entries discuss topics,
movements, arguments, and figures in Normative Ethics, Metaethics, and Practical Ethics. It covers major
philosophical and religious traditions; entries are written by nearly 600 highly respected thinkers from around
the world.” More information can be found here: http://www.hughlafollette.com/IEE.htm
UNIVERSITY
OF
WEST FLORIDA
Brian Hood (University of West Florida) published two pieces this year: (forthcoming by Oxford University
Press) “Comorbidity in Child Psychiatric Diagnosis: Conceptual Complications,” in C. Perring and L. Wells,
(eds.), Diagnostic Dilemmas in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (with Lovett, B.); and (2013) “Psychological
Measurement and Methodological Realism,” Erkenntnis, vol. 78, pp. 739–761.
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