Past Events
November 18, 2009
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Epistemology Brown Bag Series - Jason Bridges
Talks are held every other Wednesday from 12:00pm - 1:30pm in Kresge Hall, Room 2-345. Participation is open to members of Northwestern's philosophical community and epistemologists in the Chicago area.
For more information contact Matthew Mullins.
November 4, 2009
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Epistemology Brown Bag Series - Nathan King
Talks are held every other Wednesday from 12:00pm - 1:30pm in Kresge Hall, Room 2-345. Participation is open to members of Northwestern's philosophical community and epistemologists in the Chicago area.
For more information contact Matthew Mullins.
October 23, 2009
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
PhLing Talk: Timothy Sundell
October 21, 2009
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Epistemology Brown Bag Series - Juan Comesana
Talks are held every other Wednesday from 12:00pm - 1:30pm in Kresge Hall, Room 2-345. Participation is open to members of Northwestern's philosophical community and epistemologists in the Chicago area.
For more information contact Matthew Mullins.
October 16, 2009
12:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Robin Jeshion - Colloquium Talk
The NU Department of Philosophy presents a talk by Robin Jeshion from the University of California Riverside: Thinking of Things
Jeshion's upcoming paper will draw on material from a book she is currently writing on singular thought. For more information, visit her website: (http://faculty.ucr.edu/~robinj/research/index.html); Two of Jeshion's papers - "The Significance of Names" and "Singular Thought: Acquaintance, Semantic Instrumentalism, and Cognitivism" - would be most closely related to this talk.
Abstracts for these two papers are listed below:
Singular Thought: Acquaintance, Semantic Instrumentalism, and Cognitivism Forthcoming in New Essays on Singular Thought, Robin Jeshion, ed. Oxford University Press (2010).
NOTE: This paper is in press, but not yet published. Please do not cite without permission.
Here I clarify three positions about conditions on singular thought, offering an intuitive but theoretically supported case against Acquaintance theories and Semantic Instrumentalism (the view that one can produce singular thoughts at will by introducing into the language descriptively-fixed directly referential terms). The bulk of the paper is devoted to articulating how my own view, Cognitivism, differs from Semantic Instrumentalism, and what I see as its main problems, which differ from criticisms of others. I begin to underwrite Cognitivism with empirical support from vision science and object file theory.
The Significance of Names Forthcoming in Mind and Language, August 2009, vol. 24, no. 4, 372-405.
NOTE: These are the page proofs, which required numerous not-insignificant changes. Please check with publisher for final version.
I argue in favor of a thesis -- mundane to non-philosophers, neglected by philosophers: as a class of terms and mental representations, proper names and mental names possess an important function that outstrips their semantic and psycho-semantic functions as common, rigid devices of direct reference and singular mental representation of their referents, respectively. They also function as abstract linguistic markers that signal and underscore their referents' individuality. I promote this thesis to explain why we give proper names to certain particulars but not to others; to account for the transfer of singular thought via communication with proper names; and, more generally, to support a cognitivist, not acquaintance or instrumentalist, theory of singular thought.
October 10, 2009
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
Chicago Area Workshop in Ancient Philosophy
We will be discussing faculty work in progress. On October 10, our topic will be "Aristotle's Copernican Turn" by Agnes Callard of the University of Chicago.
October 9, 2009
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Rolf-Peter Horstmann - German Consortium Talk
The German Consortium and the NU Department of Philosophy present a talk by Rolf-Peter Horstmann.
October 7, 2009
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Epistemology Brown Bag Series - Robert Audi
Talks are held every other Wednesday from 12:00pm - 1:30pm in Kresge Hall, Room 2-345. Participation is open to members of Northwestern's philosophical community and epistemologists in the Chicago area.
For more information contact Matthew Mullins.
October 2, 2009
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
PhLing Talk: Lee Goldsmith
A meeting of the Philosophy and Linguistics Group. Lee Goldsmith will present his paper titled, "Articles, Particles, Syntax."
June 27, 2009
Epistemology Conference - Dept. of Philosophy
"The Epistemological Significance of Disagreement"
June 26th-27th
Times, Location, and Speakers TBA
Co-sponsored by the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities
Please contact Prof. Jennifer Lackey for registration: j-lackey@northwestern.edu
June 26, 2009
Epistemology Conference - Dept. of Philosophy
"The Epistemological Significance of Disagreement"
June 26th-27th
Times, Location, and Speakers TBA
Co-sponsored by the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities
Please contact Prof. Jennifer Lackey for registration: j-lackey@northwestern.edu
May 29, 2009
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Thomas Pogge - Dept. of Philosophy Colloquium Series
The Department of Philosophy present a talk by Thomas Pogge from Yale University.
May 8, 2009
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Peter Graham - Dept. of Philosophy Colloquium Series
The Department of Philosophy presents a talk by Peter Graham from the University of California-Riverside on May 8th at 4 P.M. in University Hall, Room 102.
April 30, 2009
7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Theodore Gracyk - Undergraduate Philosophy Society
The Department of Philosophy and the Undergraduate Philosophy Society present a talk by Theordore Gracyk from Minnesota State University - Moorhead.
April 25, 2009
9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Society for Ethical Theory and Political Philosophy 3rd Annual Conference
The Department of Philosophy presents the 3rd Annual Society for Ethical Theory and Political Philosophy conference. Samuel Scheffler (NYU) and Seana Shiffrin (UCLA) will serve as keynote speakers.
April 24, 2009
9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Society for Ethical Theory and Political Philosophy 3rd Annual Conference
The Department of Philosophy presents the 3rd Annual Society for Ethical Theory and Political Philosophy conference. Samuel Scheffler (NYU) and Seana Shiffrin (UCLA) will serve as keynote speakers.
April 23, 2009
9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Society for Ethical Theory and Political Philosophy 3rd Annual Conference
The Department of Philosophy presents the 3rd Annual Society for Ethical Theory and Political Philosophy conference. Samuel Scheffler (NYU) and Seana Shiffrin (UCLA) will serve as keynote speakers.
April 16, 2009
2:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Judith Butler - Public Lecture/Round-Table Discussion
University of California - Berkeley Professor, Judith Butler is featured in a public lecture and round-table discussion entitled "Keeping Company with Oneself".
April 14, 2009
7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Peg Birmingham - Undergraduate Discussion
Peg Birmingham from DePaul University discusses Hannah Arendt in preparation for the Judith Butler discussion.
March 20, 2009
10:30 AM - 5:00 PM
The Chicago Area Consortium in German Philosophy Workshop
The Chicago Area Consortium in German Philosophy presents a workshop with Robert Pippin (University of Chicago), Ardis Collins (Loyola University) and Karl Ameriks (The University of Notre Dame). The event will be held at the University of Chicago Institute for the Humanities.
March 13, 2009
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Tommie Shelby - Dept. of Philosophy Colloquium Series
The Departments of Philosophy and African American Studies present a talk by Tommie Shelby from Harvard University on March 13th at 4 P.M. in Kresge Hall, room 2-345.
March 6, 2009
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Sarah Buss - Dept. of Philosophy Colloquium Series
The Department of Philosophy presents a talk by Sarah Buss from the University of Michigan on March 6th at 4 P.M. in Kresge Hall, room 2-345.
February 18, 2009
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
David Ebrey - Dept. of Philosophy Colloquium Series
The Department of Philosophy presents a talk by David Ebrey incoming Professor of Northwestern University.
Pictures from Past Events
Epistemology Brown Bag Series: Jason Bridges
Epistemology Brown Bag Series: Nathan King
German Consortium Talk: Rolf-Peter Horstmann
3rd Annual Midwest Epistemology Workshop
6th Annual Episteme Conference
Department Bulletin
We are pleased to welcome Professor Robert Audi as Distinguished Brady Professor for the 2009-2010 academic year.
Contact
Department of Philosophy
Kresge 2-335
Tel: 847-491-3656
Fax: 847-491-2547
1880 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
Department Newsletter (PDF)

