If, like me, you've been frustrated with all that's going on in Philosophy (or not going on as the case may be) and want to do something positive to help our profession, here's an opportunity. Philosophy in an Inclusive Key Summer Institute (PIKSI) is a weeklong summer school that brings undergraduates from underrepresented groups into graduate school for philosophy. It has been operating for nine years, in part with funding from the American Philosophical Association. That funding is no longer assured, and so PIKSI needs our help. Its organizers are running a crowd-funding campaign here. They are more than halfway to their modest goal. As noted over at Daily Nous, If everyone who reads this contributes just five dollars they would meet that goal in a day, easy. Go to the site, read about it (some interesting facts there), watch the video, and make a contribution. (Thanks to Serene Khader, the institute’s incoming director for bringing this to my attention.)
Livestreaming Talks
We've started livestreaming some Rotman Institute of Philosophy talks and I thought PEA soup readers might be interested. Here's the next one:
Join us this March for our next speaker, Dr. Kyle Stanford, of the University of California Irvine. His lecture, titled The Difference Between Ice Cream and Nazis will examine the evolutionary function of moral projection. The lecture is free to attend, and will be live-streamed (see below), and later posted on YouTube.
Performance Evaluations in an Entrepreneurial Work Culture
As summer comes to a close and we get ready to return to the classroom,
I've been thinking more about the different shapes my colleagues'
summers have taken, about how much we've written and how much real
holiday we've taken. As a philosophy department chair, one of my
responsibilities is chairing the department's annual performance
evaluation committee and each year I'm struck anew by how hard some of
my colleagues work. I feel humbled by how much very high quality work
some colleagues publish.
Final Call for Abstracts: International Association of Women Philosophers
Feminism, Science, and Values
June 25-28, 2010
The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
In June 2010, the International Association of Women Philosophers
(http://www.iaph-philo.org/ ) will be meeting at The University of
Western Ontario. This will be the organization's first meeting in Canada
and only its second meeting in North America. It will be co-hosted by the Rotman
Institute for Science and Values and the Department of Philosophy.
The members of the conference organizing committee are: Gillian Barker,
Ariella Binik, Samantha Brennan, Helen Fielding, Katy Fulfer-Smith,
Elisa Hurley, Tracy Isaacs, Carolyn McLeod, Karen Nielsen, Kathleen
Okruhlik, and Angelique Petropanagos.
Justice Across the Generations
This looks like a great conference but I couldn’t help feeling irked that here was another conference with no women on the program. I’m never quite sure what to do about this since by the time these are announced it’s too late to do much. Still, it’s an important issue and the speakers who are on the program are people I’d like to hear.
CONFERENCE ON JUSTICE BETWEEN AGE GROUPS
University of Essex, UK
Wednesday 25 June Friday 27 June
CONFERENCE THEME
The conference addresses the question: what is a fair distribution of important resources for example, education, health care, and income support between different age groups? This question is both of philosophical interest and of great political urgency given the demographic changes taking place within modern democratic states, where declining fertility rates and longer life-expectancy result in ageing populations, and new pressures on standard models of welfare provision.
The conference papers will fall in two main areas. First, some papers will debate fundamental principles for distributing resources between different age groups. The main research questions in this area are the following. Should the state devote equal amounts of social resources to different age groups say, on health care for the elderly and the young? Or, perhaps more plausibly, should the state devote unequal amounts of resources to different age-groups, so as to meet equally their unequal needs? The second set of papers will tackle questions of public policy from a principled point of view, including the following: What does a society owe to children with respect to educational provision? Is age-discrimination in the labour market morally defensible? How should the state support the institution of the family given the familys role in serving the interests of children, parents and third parties? How must the state adjust education and health policy, childcare support, and labour market regulations, so as to facilitate family life?
The conference is supported by the British Academy, the Mind Association, the Society for Applied Philosophy, and the Human Rights Centre, University of Essex.
SPEAKERS
Richard Arneson, University of California, San Diego
Paul Bou-Habib, University of Essex
Matthew Clayton, University of Warwick
Norman Daniels, Harvard University
Axel Gosseries, Université Catholique de Louvain
Dennis McKerlie, University of Calgary
Adam Swift, University of Oxford
Andrew Williams, University of Warwick
If you are interested in attending the conference, please contact Paul Bou-Habib (pbou@essex.ac.uk) for information about conference fees and booking arrangements. Places can be booked no later than 1 June 2008.
Online Journals
I may be rehashing an old discussion–if so, please direct me to it–but I am trying to get a sense of what’s going on with the online journals in our field. I am asking with a number of different hats on all at the same time. I’ve got a crowded head these days! I’m involved in several publishing projects, I’m an academic administrator who gets called on for her views about publishing in my discipline, and I’m also trying to decide where to send my own work.
The Goods of Old Age
Since my last post to PEA Soup was on the goods of childhood (on the question of whether some goods of childhood are intrinsically good or whether they are all valued on the basis of their effects on the life of the adult the child becomes), it seems appropriate that this post moves to the discussion in the other direction. I’m interested in a few different questions regarding old age and I’m wondering if anyone else has written on the topic.
