The department is pleased to congratulate Professor Zev Trachtenberg on being recognized with a 2024 Award for Excellence in Transdisciplinary, Convergent Research given by the Vice President for Research and Partnerships. The award was made to the Carbon-Free Hydrogen Energy Production and Storage team, of which Dr. Trachtenberg is a member.
Announcements
Philosophy Film Night: Hero (2002)
The Shyam Dev Patwardhan Department of Philosophy invites you to a screening of Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002).
Wednesday, September 11th
7:15pm
Dale Hall Tower 607
All OU students, faculty, and staff are welcome to attend. At the conclusion of the film, attendees may participate in a conversation about the film. Free pizza will be served.
Please RSVP by emailing philosophy@ou.edu.
Colloquium Talk: Pleasure Fundamentalism with Neil Sinhababu
The Shyam Dev Patwardhan Department of Philosophy invites you to a talk by Neil Sinhababu, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Singapore.
Friday, September 13th
3:00pm
Dr. Kelly Damphousse Community Room, Dale Hall Tower 906
To attend on Zoom, please email philosophy@ou.edu.
Abstract: Pleasure fundamentalism is the view that moral value is pleasure, and this explains all other moral facts. Two arguments favor pleasure fundamentalism. The Reliability Argument examines how frequently the processes generating moral belief generate truth and finds the only reliable processes suggesting pleasure's moral value. The Universality Argument shows that all possible moral perceivers should have positive moral feelings about any instance of pleasure, making pleasure's moral value universal. Both arguments have foundations in an Einsteinian naturalism combining empiricism with a spacetime ontology.
Professor Trachtenberg Recognized with Award for Excellence in Transdisciplinary, Convergent Research
The David Ross Boyd Lectures
The David Ross Boyd lecture series was a biennial event in which a philosopher of the highest distinction came to campus for approximately a week to deliver a series of public lectures and (usually) an additional paper to the philosophy department. The previous Boyd Lecturers were Claudia Card (2013), Jerrold Levinson (2011), Elliot Sober (2009), Christine Korsgaard (2007), Hilary Putnam (2005), Julia Annas (2004), Bas van Fraassen (2002), Jerry Fodor (2000), Jaegwon Kim (1998), Martha Nussbaum (1996), Alvin Plantinga (1994), Joel Feinberg (1991), and Donald Davidson (1990).
Conferences on Special Topics
The department organized conferences on specific topics, attracting national and international specialists. In spring 2011, the department hosted an in-house epistemology conference. In spring 2009, we hosted a conference on Epistemic Goodness. In spring 2007, we hosted Why Formal Epistemology?, an international workshop with speakers Luc Bovens (London School of Economics and Political Science), David Chalmers (Australian National University), Branden Fitelson (University of California-Berkeley), Alan Hajek (Australian National University), Jonathan Kwanvig (Baylor University), Adam Morton (University of Alberta, Edmonton), Scott Sturgeon (University of London) and Paul Weirich (University of Missouri).
