Notable Past Department Events
2023-24
3/1: Colloquium: Nomy Arpaly (Brown)
"Moral Worth: You Can't Have It Both Ways"
3:30-5:00 p.m.
11/10: Colloquium: Hrishikesh Joshi (Arizona)
"Socially Distributed Ignorance"
3:30-5:00 p.m.
10/20: Colloquium: Ben Bradley (Syracuse)
"The Sacrificer’s Dilemma"
3:30-5:00 p.m.
9/22: Reading Hume Today: A Conference in Honor of Elizabeth Radcliffe (Emerita, W&M)
Talks by Angela Coventry (Portland State), Kenneth Winkler (Yale), Katharina Paxman (Brigham Young), Rachel Cohon (Albany)
Comments by Miriam McCormick (Richmond), Chuck Goldhaber (Haverford), Margaret Watkins (Providence), Lauren Kopajtic (Fordham)
9/15: Colloquium: Tristram McPherson (Ohio State)
"Moral Concepts, Inefficacy, and Collective Action"
3:30-5:00 p.m.
2022-23
4/14: Ethics & Data Science talk, Sina Fazelpour (Northeastern University)
"Justice in Sociotechnical Machine Learning Systems"
3:30-5:00 p.m.
4/2: 13th Undergraduate Philosophy Conference, Keynote by Philip Yaure (Virginia Tech)
10/21: Colloquium, Sarah Stroud (UNC, Chapel Hill)
"Is There Such a Thing as Disagreement in Attitude?”
3:30-5:00 p.m.
10/11: Ethics & Data Science talk, Helen Nissenbaum (Cornell Tech)
"Why the Freedom to Obfuscate is a Precious Safeguard in Digital Societies"
3:30-5:00 p.m. (Zoom)
10/7: Colloquium, Danielle Wenner (Carnegie Mellon University)
“Structural Injustice, Exploitation, and Static Non-Ideal Theory"
3:30-5:00 p.m.
9/23: Colloquium, Quayshawn Spencer (Cornell University)
"A metaphysical mapping problem for race theorists and human population geneticists"
3:30-5:00 p.m. (Zoom)
9/1-2: Biennial Conference - Ethics and Theism
Kingsmill Resort
2021-22
4/29: Colloquium, Myisha Cherry (University of California, Riverside)
"On James Baldwin and Black Rage"
3:30-5:00 p.m. (Zoom)
4/22: Student/Faculty Picnic
4:00-6:00 p.m. (outside James Blair Hall)
4/2-3: 12th Annual Undergraduate Philosophy Conference, Keynote by Jonah Goldwater
10/29: COLL300 Talk, Jin Park (American University)
"Philosophy and Power"
3:30-5:00 p.m. (Zoom)
10/9: Philosophy Department Homecoming Open House
10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., James Blair 127
10/1: COLL300 Talk, Anand Vaidya (San Jose State University)
"Resisting the Allure of Illusionism"
4:00-5:30 p.m. (Zoom)
2020-21
4/17-18: 11th Undergraduate Philosophy Conference (via Zoom)
3/12: Colloquium, Peter Van Inwagen (University of Notre Dame & Duke University)
"Does God Create Abstract Objects?"
4-5:30 pm (Zoom)
10/17-18: Tenth Undergraduate Conference (On-line)
2019-20
In Spring 2020, the following events were cancelled or postponed:
Undergraduate Conference
Colloquium, Myisha Cherry (UC-Riverside)
Colloquium, Sarah Stroud (UNC-Chapel Hill) "Wrong with Preconditions"
3/6-7: Workshop on the Intersection of Ethics & Metaphysics
Program:
All sessions were in Blow Hall 201
Friday 3/6
10:00 am - 11:15 am Carolina Sartorio (University of Arizona)
“Indeterministic Compatibilism”
2:00 pm - 3:15 pm Yishai Cohen (Southern Maine) and Travis Timmerman (Seaton Hall)
“Probabilism: An Incompatibilist Solution to the Actualism/Possibilism Debate”
3: 45 pm - 5:00 pm Meghan Sullivan (Notre Dame)
“The Love Imperative:The Metaphysics of Dignity Meets Radical Normativity”
Saturday 3/7
10:00 am - 11:15 am John Pittard (Yale)
“An Epistemic Motivation for Axiarchism”
2:00 pm - 3:15 pm Molly Gardner (Bowling Green State)
“Individuating the Causes of Harm”
3: 45 pm - 5:00 pm Chike Jeffers (Dalhousie)
“Race as Political and Cultural: Du Bois' Dusk of Dawn
Organizers: Aaron Griffith and Philip Swenson
Thanks to the Teresa Thompson Fund for Sponsorship.
11/15: Colloquium, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Duke)
"Too Much Morality? Lessons from Scrupulosity"
4-5:30 pm, James Blair Hall 205
10/18: Homecoming Reception
3-4:30 pm, Department Library
10/4: Colloquium, Michael Zimmerman (UNC/Greensboro)
"Willful Ignorance and Moral Responsibility"
4-5:30 pm, James Blair Hall 205
9/20: Faculty-Student BBQ & Volleyball
4:30 -6:30 pm, east side James Blair Hall
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2018-19
4/6-7: Undergraduate Conference, Keynote by Chris Tweedt
2/15: Colloquium, Steven Wall (Arizona)
"Rooted Reciprocity"
3:30-5 pm, Washington Hall 302
1/25: Colloquium, Keith Lehrer (Arizona & Miami)
"Defensible Knowledge and Exemplars of Truth"
3:30-5 pm, James Blair 223
11/30: Colloquium, James Binkoski (Dartmouth College)
"Explanation and Ontic Dependence"
3:30 - 5 pm, James Blair 205
11/2: Colloquium, Carla Merino-Rajme (UNC/Chapel Hill)
"An Account of Felt Flow"
3:30 - 5 pm, James Blair 223
10/26: Colloquim, Elizabeth Barnes (University of Virginia)
"Wellbeing and the Value of Health"
3:30 - 5 pm, Blow 333
Part of the 100 Years of Women at W&M celebration
See full Speaker Gallery for the anniversary celebration
10/5-6: Workshop on Hume's Second Enquiry
History Department Library, second floor, James Blair Hall.
Contributors to A Critical Guide to Hume's Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Cambridge University Press) will meet to share their work in progress. (Sponsored by the University of Antwerp and the Office of the Dean of A&S at William & Mary.) Attendance by invitation. Local organizer: Elizabeth Radcliffe
Information for Participants
9/21-22: Biennial Conference
"Applied Neo-Pragmatism," organized by Josh Gert
More Information Here
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2017-18
4/13-14: 5th Annual Early Career Metaphysics Workshop
Local Organizer: Aaron Griffith
The Early Career Metaphysics Workshop is an annual workshop held at various institutions focusing on research by early-career scholars working in metaphysics, broadly construed. The workshop is free and open to any who would like to attend.
Metaphysics Workshop Program
11/3: Colloquium, Felipe De Brigard (Duke)
"Vivacity and the Distinction between Memory and Imagination"
10/27: Colloquium, Jonathan Neufeld (College of Charleston)
“Aesthetic Disobedience”
10/5-6: 3rd Annual Theistic Ethics Workshop
Local Organizer: Chris Tucker
Contemporary philosophy of religion has been richly informed by important work in metaphysics and epistemology. At the same time, there has not been nearly as much work done at the intersection of philosophy of religion and meta-ethics or normative theory. To help inspire more good work in this area, Christian Miller (Wake Forest), Mark Murphy (Georgetown), and Chris Tucker (William & Mary) organize a series of annual workshops on theistic ethics.
Theistic Ethics Workshop Program
“Valuing Can Ground Value”