Graduate Students

We are proud to acknowledge the accomplishments of our graduate students:

Rob Byer's paper "Debunking Debunking Arguments" has been accepted for the Society of Christian Philosophers Midwest Region Conference at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, and the Southeastern Commission for the Study of Religion Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, both in March 2012.

Aylish Chantler presented her paper "Property Entanglement, Constraint Optimization, and the Isolation of Unsurpassable Worlds" at the Mountain-Plains philosophy conference in Denver in Oct. 2011, and at the Evangelical Philosophy Society conference in San Francisco in Nov. 2011.

Dan Cheon gave an invited lecture, "Relativizing A-Theory," at the University of Tennessee - Chattanooga in February 2011.

Matt Cook presented his paper "Extended Perception via Invariant Space" at the Long Island Philosophical Association meeting in October 2011.

Patrick Epley commented on Jon Williamson's "From Bayesian Epistemology to Inductive Logic" at the Formal Epistemology Workshop at the University of Southern California, May 2011, and presented his paper "The Formal Representation of Belief in the Understandings Account of Decision" at the University of Miami Graduate Student Epistemology Conference, Jan. 2012.

Alex Feldt successfully defended his dissertation in spring 2012. He begins a renewable lecturer position at the University of Tennessee in fall 2012. His paper "Collective and Individual Responsibility in the Case of Climate Change" was presented at the Western Political Science Association (WPSA) Annual Meeting in March 2012. He was an alternate in the 2011 Charlotte W. Newcombe Dissertation Fellowship competition. He is the winner of the 2010-2011 Kenneth R. Merrill Graduate Teaching Award for outstanding teaching. He delivered his paper "Climate Change, Capabilities, and Human Rights" at the WPSA Annual Meeting and his paper "Obligations of the Affluent: A Two-Threshold Framework" at the 44th Meeting of the North Texas Philosophical Association (NTPA), both in April 2011. His paper “Governing Through the Dao: A Non-Anarchistic Interpretation of the Laozi” appeared in Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 9, no. 3 (2010): 323-337. Alex was one of only 2 graduate students accepted to the NEH summer seminar “Philosophical Perspectives on Liberal Democracy and the Global Order” in June 2010 at Washington University in St. Louis. He delivered his paper “Climate Change as a Violation of Human Rights?" at the Association for Political Theory (APT) Annual Conference being held at Reed College in October 2010. He is a Graduate Student Research Fellow in the OU-Women's and Gender Studies Center for Social Justice for 2010-2011 and 2011-2012.

Paul Franks presented "Freedom in Heaven and Free Will Defenses" at the Society of Christian Philosophers meeting at Fordham in March 2011, and "Original Sin as a Defeater for Free Will Defenses" at the National Evangelical Philosophical Society in San Francisco in Nov. 2011. He has a tenure-track position at Tyndale University College and successfully defended his dissertation in spring 2012.

Mary Gwin successfully defended her dissertation, Virtues of Bayesian Epistemology, in December 2011. She is Visiting Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State University for 2012-3. She presented "Approximate Bayesians, Reliable Agents" at the Midsouth Philosophy Conference in Feb. 2012, where she also commented on Gregory Stoutenburg's paper, "Doxastic Involuntarism and Reasonable Appraisal of Epistemic Conduct." She will comment on "Can We Believe in Scientific Theories?" by Ramon Alvarado and on "Quantum Information Philosophy Processed" by Joe Bernal at the New Mexico West Texas Philosophical Society meeting in March 2012. Her review of Paul Gomberg's What Should I Believe? Philosophical Essays for Critical Thinking ( Broadview Press, 2011) is forthcoming in Teaching Philosophy (July 2012).

Zach Jurgensen is Associate Editor of the American Society for Aesthetics Graduate E-Journal (ASAGE). His paper "Jesus, Mary and Hume: On the Possibility of the Virgin Birth," co-written with Jason Southworth, appeared in Scott Lowe, ed., Christmas & Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell's Philosophy for Everyone series) in fall 2010. His paper "Interactivity, Unpredictability, and Aesthetic Change in Videogames" was accepted for the ASA Pacific Division Meeting held April 2010 in Pacific Grove, CA and the Kansas Philosophical Society Meeting held February 2011 in Pittsburgh, Kansas.

Gary Osmundsen gave comments on a paper written by Jacob Kolman at the North Texas Philosophical Association (NTPA) conference held April 2010 at the U. of North Texas.

Indy Rhodes has had his paper "Honor and the Moral Value of Reputation" accepted for the University of Minnesota-Morris Conference on Honor and Ethics, April 2012.

Josh Rollins presented his paper "Feldman on Epistemic Disagreement" at an international conference on Responsible Belief in the Face of Disagreement in Amsterdam in August, 2009.

Andrew Russo presented his paper "Why It Doesn't Matter I'm Not Insane: Descartes's Madness Doubt in Focus" at the Fall 2010 Southwestern Philosophy Society Conference in Memphis. The paper is also forthcoming in the conference journal. He presented "The Metaphysics of Structured Representations: The Unity Problem for Mental Representations" at the Kansas Philosophical Society Conference in Feb. 2010 at the University of Kansas. His paper "What's in a Name? Cid, Cloud, and How Names Refer," co-authored with Jason Southworth, appeared in Jason Blahuta and Michel Beaulieu, eds., Final Fantasy and Philosophy (Wiley, 2009). A paper explicating Jaegwon Kim's supervenience argument has been accepted for Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy, edited by Michael Bruce and Steven Barbone (Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming).

Jonathan Rutledge was accepted to and attended the Witherspoon Institute's Summer Seminar on Natural Law Theory in History in summer 2011.

Landon Schurtz's paper "What Fools We Were: Mad Men, Hindsight, and Justification" is forthcoming in Rod Carveth and James South, eds., Mad Men and Philosophy (Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series). He presented his paper "Moderate Moralism, or Something Close Enough" at the 43rd Meeting of the North Texas Philosophical Association at the University of North Texas, Denton, April 8-10, 2010. That paper was also presented at the American Society for Aesthetics Annual Meeting in Victoria, BC, Oct. 2010.

Wes Skolits presented his paper "The Grounding Objection to Monism: How the Divine Modeling Response Fails" at the meeting of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion, Oxford University, Sept. 2011.

Jason Southworth is the winner of the 2009-2010 Kenneth R. Merrill Graduate Teaching Award for outstanding teaching. He won OU’s Second Century Award for 2008-2009. Several of his papers have recently been accepted or published: "Jesus, Mary and Hume: On the Possibility of the Virgin Birth," co-written with Zach Jurgensen, in Scott Lowe, ed., Christmas & Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell's Philosophy for Everyone series), forthcoming fall 2010; "What's in a Name? Cid, Cloud, and How Names Refer," co-authored with Andrew Russo, appeared in Jason Blahuta and Michel Beaulieu, eds., Final Fantasy and Philosophy (Wiley, 2009); "Heroes and Family Obligations," with Ruth Tallman , in Heroes and Philosophy, edited by David Kyle Johnson, Wiley Publishing, 2009; and "The Ontology of Art and What Libraries Should Buy," with Ruth Tallman, in Graphic Novels in Libraries and Archives: Essays on Readers, Research, History, and Cataloging, edited by Robert G. Weiner, McFarland, 2010. He began teaching at Barry University in fall 2010.