Philosophy Club and Visitors

Philosophy club has had a year full of great speakers and engaging discussion. Conversations were created between a variety of studies, including religious studies and psychology, as well with a variety of people, such as professors and students.

The first meeting of the year had our location graciously provided by the department chair Dr. Ronald Hall at his home near campus. We had guest speaker Charlenge Edge discussing her experience leaving The Way International, a known cult. She read a portion of her book and addressed questions about what it was like leaving a cult, for both her and her family. The conversation was fascinating as we addressed concern about the nature of group identity, and the type of emotional state needed to decide to leave an identity defining social group.

For our next meeting we had a student, Jason Cruz, presenting his paper, “A Utilitarian Defense of Non-Monogamy,” followed by a planned rebuttal by co-president Joe Beery. The club then had a conversation about how Utilitarianism was being applied to relationship, including how a scale can be applied to happiness in a relationship. (see picture below)

Our first professor to speak to the club for the year was Dr. Hugh Marlowe, with his presentation titled “East…West…Huh…?” He created a dialogue showing a connection and similarities that he has found in his studies between eastern and western philosophical thought. The goal was to demonstrate that despite the fact that the two areas of thought are separated that he has been studying for a while to illustration the connection between the two styles.

Dr. Rothstein was another professor who we had the enjoyment of getting to host at our March meeting. He presented his speech on The Cognitive Science of Decision Making. The piece had an interdisciplinary edge, between Philosophy and Psychology, and discussed the details of the significance of physiological phenomenon effect on decisions. Connecting these occurrences to the known philosophical dialogues they effect, such as the trolley problem. This was a great meeting with discussion that had significant back and forth between the students and Dr. Rothstein.

Our last visiting professor was Dr. Peter Rollins, who we were glad to have return to the philosophy club again this year, to discuss Christ the Atheist: Recovering the Subversive Legacy of Political Subtraction. This meeting had a good number of professors from outside of the philosophy department allowing for a challenging interdepartmental dialogue.

We concluded the year with a poster session by the new class Research in Philosophy, where students presented the ideas within the paper that they had written over the semester in the class. The students worked hard on their topics and, as someone who was in this class, I had fun getting to share and hear about everyone’s research over the semester.

This was an entertaining year for Philosophy club. We got to engage with a variety of speakers in enlightening and thought provoking discussion. The club is excited to see what conversations we will get to have next year.

By Amanda Hernandez, Philosophy Club Co-President 2015-2016

Philosophy Club's November 2015 meeting featuring student Jason Cruz's paper “A Utilitarian Defense of Nonmonogamy.”

Photo shows Co-President Joe Beery presenting his planned rebuttal for the discussion. Center Co-President Amanda Hernandez left Co-President Joe Beery, left of Joe is Jason Cruz."

Contact Us At

Stetson University

Department of Philosophy

421 N. Woodland Blvd., Unit 8250

DeLand, FL 32723

(Phone) 386-822-7580

(Fax) 386-822-7582 stetson.edu/philosophy

Ronald Hall: I will be returning from my sabbatical leave this fall. During my leave, I revised the text of my book used online by the Department, Logic: A Brief Introduction. I also revised the Workbook for this text. As well, I have just completed co-editing a volume of essays on philosophical anthropology, entitled Recovering the Personal that will be published later this year.

Susan Peppers-Bates: I am spending the first half of the summer teaching Gender Studies 100 online and will spend the second half reading french commentary and revising my article on Nicolas Malebranche and the 17th century fight over "pure love" for the Oxford Companion to Malebranche (after my editor kindly gave me 72 revision suggestions, mostly small, a few substantial). I also will be reading and prepping for an updated version of my course The Philosophy of Race & Racism, with new articles and a book incorporating the Black Lives Matter movement.

Joshua Rust: As far as teaching is concerned, the highlight of my year was teaching the first instance of Research in Philosophy. Research in Philosophy is a new, required preparation course for Senior Research. The intention is to enable students to go into their Senior Projects with a 10-12 page prospectus. Special thanks for Enric, Jason, Hannah, Olivia, Amanda, and Josh for helping me field test this class. I also published an article with Eric Schwitzgebel, “The Behavior of Ethicists,” in A Companion to Experimental Philosophy. Finally, I’m excited to take on the challenge of being the Chair of the Philosophy Department, and I thank Ron Hall for good work he’s done as Chair.

Melinda Hall: My book, The Bioethics of Enhancement, is forthcoming with Lexington Books by the end of the year. In it, I critique the promotion of human enhancement in bioethics literature using a disability-rights lens and a biopolitical analysis drawn from the work of Michel Foucault. In March, my paper "Horrible Heroes: Liberating Alternative Visions of Disability in Horror," came out in Disability Studies Quarterly; the journal is open access and web-based, so it's easily available online for anyone who wants to read it. In March, I presented the outcome of my 2015 Stetson summer grant on risk and Ebola panic at Western Michigan University Ethics Center for their themed conference, "Bioethics: Preparing for the Unknown." In connection with other research, I have two papers currently under review at journals. The first, "The Fallacy of Catastrophe," evaluates moral responses to perceived risk. The second, "Obscured Social Construction as Epistemic Harm," layers in an important reason to understand what around us is socially constructed (as opposed to naturally occurring)to believe something is natural when it is actually socially constructed harms us as knowers by restricting what we can ask "why" questions about. As always, I very much enjoyed collaborating with students and colleagues in our dynamic department here at Stetson.

Hallaward

SENIOR THESES & FUTURE PLANS

Hannah Dean: “Toward an Inclusive Ethic of Difference”

Plans: Vermont Law with focus in Environmental law.

Tatiana Lyne: Senior Thesis: “The Availability of Philosophy”

Plans: Gap year

Melanie Fredericks: ”Integrating a Feminist Theory of Disability”

Plans: I'm planning to enter the United States Marine Corps in July 2015. I will be going to law school through the Marine Corps and be an active JAG officer.

Angelo Parkinson : “A Humanitarian Approach to Free Spirits”

Plans: Gap year , then next fall 2017 start classes in public administration for future interests in community development.

Cole Simpson: ““The Culture Industry: An Illusion of Authenticity”

Plans: Seeking an internship with a law office that specializes in