Simon Cabulea May is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Tech. He received his PhD from Stanford University in 2004 and his MA from Rhodes University in 1996. His present research project concerns conflict of moral convictions in public deliberation.
Oxford: 1 July 2008
Via Simon Caney, there are some places left for a conference in Oxford on 1 July on the work of Henry Shue. Those interested can sign up here, and have a look at the programme too. Speakers include Charles Beitz, John Tasioulas, Simon Caney, David Rodin, and Tony Coady.
Aarhus: 13-15 March 2009 | CFP: 1 December 2008
The University of Aarhus, Denmark, is hosting an international conference on Rousseau and Revolution from 13-15 March 2009. From their CFP:
Fidel Castro once told a journalist that one of his masters was Jean-Jacques Rousseau and that he fought Batista with a copy of the Social Contract in his pocket. This anecdote, true or false, calls attention to an aspect of Rousseau’s philosophy which is often ignored or forgotten in academic discussions, namely that his philosophy has often been used, for good or bad, to inspire and legitimize revolutions and rebellions, beginning with the French Revolution.
Lisbon: 23-24 October 2008 | CFP: 30 June 2008
The New University of Lisbon is hosting a conference on current research on global justice and the nation state on 23-24 October 2008. From the CFP:
Within philosophy and the social sciences, global justice, the nation, and the state are among the most discussed topics in recent years. Despite the considerable amount of scholarly work devoted to the topic, we still lack consolidated views with regard to the evolution of legal and political institutions beyond the boundaries of the nation-state as well as to their capacity of tackling matters of global justice. Recent international debate focused on the “new international order” set out in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the US reaction, which led scholars to focus their attention on legal international institutions, political unilateralism, multilateralism, etc.
Institute for Advanced Study: 2-4 June 2008
Via Jacob T. Levy, a conference on Walzer at the IAS in Princeton:
To recognize Michael Walzer’s contributions to the ethical and political philosophy of the twentieth century, a conference titled Justice, Culture and Tradition will take place June 2-4, 2008 at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), Princeton, New Jersey.
Harvard: 31 October - 1 November 2008 | CFP: 1 August 2008
Via Jacob T. Levy:
The Department of Government (FAS) at Harvard University will host its second conference for graduate students in political theory and political philosophy from October 31 - November 1, 2008. Papers on any theme or topic within political theory—from the history of political thought to contemporary normative and conceptual theory—will be considered. Between seven and twelve papers will be accepted.
Bucharest: 14-15 November 2008 | CFP: 1 October 2008
The Philosophy Faculty at the University of Bucharest is hosting a conference on Reason in Contemporary Public Space on 14-15 November 2008. From their website:
Is there a place for reason in contemporary public space? Has the Kantian “public use of reason” lost its appeal for our societies, being demoted to the status of a mere philosophical abstraction? The ever-rising importance of marketing (both commercial and political) in setting the public agenda, the growing impact of new media and the increasing tendency of clustering in relatively isolated, and often virtual, communities, might be regarded as justifying the dramatic overtones of the questions above. If elections, customers, debates, fans or friends are to be won by appeal to rhetoric, imagery and emotions rather than argument, isn’t one of the most venerable philosophical traditions to be held guilty of over-rating a specific faculty which might be, after all, just a “slave of passions”?
Political Philosophy Podcast Symposium: Fall 2008 | CFP: 31 July 2008
I’d like to invite submissions for a semester-long online symposium of papers in political philosophy during Fall 2008 that I would like to host on the website. The idea is that each week a paper will be podcasted on the website by the author and receive comments in response. Symposium submissions will be subject to a process of blind review by a committee of members of the website. Papers in all areas of political philosophy and theory are welcome.
The aim of the symposium is to utilise the resources at our disposal to create a conference experience accessible to every academic in the world, both as a presenter and as a participant. Conference participation is an important part of our research activities as academics, but logistical difficulties and expenses can sometimes make conference travel impossible, especially at the international level. The function of the symposium is to create an online conference in a format designed to elicit as much feedback from fellow academics as possible whilst creating no significant financial or logistical difficulties for participants whatsoever. Those selected will be able to present their papers to an unlimited number of colleagues without having to leave their offices. The papers will be presented on a weekly basis to allow a reasonable time period for comments. The papers will be podcasted to make them as accessible as possible to a wide audience.
I’ve included a little podcast of my own to demonstrate that it can actually be a fairly easy thing to do. Just click the button below. Granted, few of us will ever sound like a professional radio announcer but the medium should be functional enough for our purposes.
University of York: 17-18 July 2008
A two-day conference on the nature and significance of death, organised by the philosophy departments of the Open University and the University of York, is to be held on the Heslington campus of the latter on 17-18 July 2009.
Episteme: 26-27 June 2009 | CFP: 15 January 2009
Something that may be of interest to political philosophers working on the significance of disagreement:
Episteme will holds its sixth annual conference at Northwestern University on 26-27 June 2009. The 2009 meeting will focus on the epistemological significance of disagreement. Confirmed participants include Michael Bergman (Purdue), Stewart Cohen (Arizona State), Sherrilyn Roush (Berkeley) and Roger White (MIT).
Via the University of Chicago Law Faculty Blog:
The website for the UC Conference on Torture, Law, and War now has audio and video of conference presentations available. Participants include the philosophers Nancy Sherman, Marcia Baron, Claudia Card, David Sussman, Scott Anderson, and Jeff McMahan, amongst others. Albie Sachs (South African Constitutional Court) gave the keynote address, “Four Tales of Terrorism.”
Via Thom Brooks and Brian Leiter, Martha Nussbaum in conversation with Bill Moyers here on liberty of conscience. Given Moyers’ other recent associations, this clearly makes Nussbaum unelectable.
University of Kent: 3-5 July 2009 | CFP: 2 February 2009
Via Simon Kirchin at Ethics Etc., something that may be of interest to political philosophers:
Many philosophers are familiar with the distinction between thin and thick concepts. Canonical examples of thin concepts include goodness and badness, rightness and wrongness. There are supposedly many examples of thick concepts, including cruelty, kindness, beauty, elegance, and curiosity. A number of issues arise in relation to thin and thick concepts. Many might be familiar with a key debate, namely how one should construe the relationship between thick concepts’ supposed descriptive aspects and their supposed evaluative aspects. Do we have here two separable elements, or are they best characterized as essentially inseparable, resulting in a form of evaluation that is more specific than that found in thin concepts?
NPSA: 13-15 November 2008 | CFP: 15 June 2008
Via Fritz Allhoff at the Philosophy Google Group:
The Northeastern Political Science Association will hold its 40th annual meeting on November 13-15, 2008 at the Omni Parker House Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. Proposals for papers, panels, or to serve as a chair and/or discussant must be submitted before June 15, 2008 through the NPSA submission website. (Once on the submission website, create a username and password and follow the instructions.)
Here is the June JPP:
The March issue of JPP has been available for a while, and the June issue has just come out, so I thought I would post both. There are many people who use these links to access the articles, but unfortunately I cannot be relied upon to post them timeously. If anyone would like to “take over” a journal and post a notice when a new issue comes out, please feel free to volunteer. It is one way to keep on top of new articles coming out in the journals one may wish to be reading anyway.
Here’s a quick question I have about teaching jurisprudence. There’s an interesting literature on the nature of rights that will be familiar to many people, and I think it is a good thing for undergraduate jurisprudence students to be exposed to it. However, in addition to reading Hohfeld, Hart, Raz, and some others, one might wish that they had an easy way to apply the complexity of rights theory to their interpretations of the Bill of Rights (we’re talking about US students here), otherwise we lose a bit of traction with the kind of law that interests them most. As such, I want to start gathering suggestions for good readings on how papers such as “The Nature of Rights,” illuminate the constitutional right to free speech or the constitutional right to bear arms, etc. In short, what’s the best way to demonstrate to my students that wading through all that conceptual analysis can make a difference to how they think about their constitution? I’m sure there are some obvious readings, but I thought I would draw on the wisdom of those who have found particular papers fitting this bill useful and enjoyable to teach.
The Winter 2008 issue of P&PA has been available for a while now:
I wanted to put up a post where people could make suggestions for further reading groups, after the conclusion of the marvelous “Democratic Authority” discussion we’ve had. If there are many suggestions, I’ll put up a poll to see which are the most popular and likely to attract broad participation. Also, if there is a lot of interest in two quite different books, then nothing stops people from organising those groups separately.
Here’s a quick question: What are the best discussions in the literature of why the original position has justificatory force? I’m particularly interested in those papers that address Ronald Dworkin’s “no pale form” point that since the contract is only a hypothetical contract, it does not have any of the binding force of contracts. I don’t need persuading that this is not a good objection to the original position, given that the OP models fairness and not contractual obligation, but I would like to know the best papers that make the response elegantly.
Copenhagen: 20-21 November 2008 | CFP: 15 August 2008
Via Jon Kvanvig at Certain Doubts:
The University of Copenhagen is hosting a conference on “The Epistemology of Liberal Democracy: Free Speech, Disagreement, and Common Belief” from 20-21 November, 2008. Abstracts of no more than 1000 words, and prepared for blind review, should be emailed to the organising committee by 15 August 2008. Notifications of acceptance will be made by 15 September 2008.
The argument of this chapter is an analogy between the authority of democracy and the authority of a jury trial system. A jury system that possesses certain qualified epistemic features (i.e. epistemic benefits that no qualified point of view could reject) also possesses authority. This authority is “original” since it does not depend on prior authorisation through consent or some political procedure. Analogously, a democratic system that possesses similar qualified epistemic features, also possesses original authority. Most of the chapter is spent developing the case for the authority of a jury system, so I will focus on that. I imagine that some may be more interested in the strength of the analogy between democracy and the jury system, but I think there is a lot to be done looking at the analogue itself.
I thought I would put up a housekeeping thread to elicit some discussion from members and participants about what you like on the site and what else you would like to see.
First some basic stats: we have ninety-nine members registered, including academics from thirteen different countries, along with a couple of dozen student participants who have signed up over the last month or so. This makes us, as philosophy blogs go, very large. I’d like to build on that strength over the course of this year. We’ve had over 40 000 page views and average somewhere under three hundred a day, which I think is fairly respectable. There’s no reason why those numbers can’t steadily improve.
I’d like to get people’s creative suggestions about a few things: (i) how do we best develop and diversify the kinds of items people post?; (ii) what would be the best way to increase the frequency of substantive posts on different topics?; and (iii) what would be the best way to elicit fuller and more diverse discussion in the comment threads? (One serious question concerns the fact that about 98.5% of the comments so far have come from men.)
BSD: 5 April 2008 | CFP: 1 February 2008
The Berkeley-Stanford-Davis Graduate Student Philosophy Conference will be held in Wellman Hall at Davis on 5 April 2008. Papers from graduate students at California universities in all areas of philosophy are invited. Papers of about 35 minutes in length (4500 words) should be prepared for blind review and submitted (as MS Word or pdf documents) by 1 February to the organisers. Include your name, affiliation, contact information, paper title, and 100-200 word abstract in the body of the email. Follow the link for more details or contact Brad Morris. This is one of the best opportunities for grad students on the west coast to meet and present their work.
Utah IWSPC: 27-29 March 2008 | CFP: 31 January 2008
More mountainous philosophy, via the new Philosophy Updates Google Group organised by Fritz Allhoff and students at Western Michigan:
The Philosophy Department at the University of Utah will be holding the fifth Intermountain West Student Philosophy Conference from 27-29 March 2008. All areas of philosophy are welcome. Papers should be no more than 3500 words in length and prepared for blind review. Nadeem Hussain (Stanford) is the keynote speaker. Papers and questions should be emailed to Jamie Hardy. The deadline is 31 January 2008. Follow the link for more.
[Update: I’ve added a checkbox on the registration page for academics who would like to join the site as members.]
For security reasons (in particular the glaring ease with which one could post under someone else’s name), I’ve switched the comments settings such that people must now be registered and logged in to comment. As a consequence, I’ve set out two different kinds of user status: participant and member. Read the rest of this entry »
APT: 9-12 October 2008 | CFP: 15 February 2008
The 2008 Association for Political Theory Conference will be held at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT from 9-12 October 2008. Proposals are due by 15 February 2008, and completed drafts must be submitted by 22 September 2008. Download the flyer or continue over the fold. Read the rest of this entry »
SUNY Fredonia: 28-29 February 2008 & TBA | CFP: 20 January 2008
Via Brian Weatherson, something of interest to younger philosophers:
“Starting with the Spring 2008 semester, the SUNY Fredonia philosophy department will invite young philosophers (persons who have recently received their Ph.D. in philosophy) to give campus talks. Each young philosopher we invite will deliver one research presentation and one introductory-style presentation geared toward an audience with absolutely no background in philosophy. Our current plan is to invite two speakers each semester. If funding for this project increases, then we’ll invite more. The process for invitation will be competitive” Read the rest of this entry »
NYU Law: 1-2 February 2008
Via the inimitable Solum:
NYU is hosting a conference on the Hart/Fuller debate about the separability of morality and the law. The conference will run all day Friday 1 February and till lunch on Saturday 2 Feburary. Speakers are Green, Coleman, Murphy, Schauer, Zipursky, Dyzenhaus, Lacey, and Waldron. Follow the link for the details.
Pacific APA: 19-23 March 2008
The main program for the 2008 Pacific APA is available online here. The group program is here. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve removed the contact form on the About page as it has proved to be too unreliable. If you have tried to use the contact form and have not heard back from me, I did not receive your submission. Please email me with your details either at admin at publicreason dot net or to simonmay at vt dot edu. Sorry for the hassle.
Charles Blattberg, From Pluralist to Patriotic Politics (US) (UK) (CA)
Chiara Bottici, A Philosophy of Political Myth (US) (UK) (CA)
Corey Brettschneider, Democratic Rights: The Substance of Self-Government (US) (UK) (CA)
Harry Brighouse, On Education (US) (UK) (CA)
Harry Brighouse and Gillian Brock, eds., The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism (US) (UK) (CA)
Thom Brooks, Hegel's Political Philosophy (US) (UK) (CA)
Thom Brooks, ed., The Global Justice Reader (US) (UK) (CA)
Allen Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination (US) (UK) (CA)
Eamonn Callan, Creating Citizens (US) (UK) (CA)
Simon Caney, Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory (US) (UK) (CA)
William Edmundson, Three Anarchical Fallacies (US) (UK) (CA)
Alessandro Ferrara, The Force of the Example (US) (UK) (CA)
Jason Hill, Becoming a Cosmopolitan (US) (UK) (CA)
Nils Holtug and Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, eds., Egalitarianism (US) (UK) (CA)
Thomas Hurka, Perfectionism (US) (UK) (CA)
Simon Keller, The Limits of Loyalty (US) (UK) (CA)
Ari Kohen, In Defense of Human Rights (US) (UK) (CA)
Roderick T. Long, Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand (US) (UK) (CA)
Rex Martin and David Reidy, eds., Rawls's Law of Peoples (US) (UK) (CA)
Larry May, War Crimes and Just War (US) (UK) (CA)
John Maynor, Republicanism in the Modern World (US) (UK) (CA)
Noëlle McAfee, Habermas, Kristeva, and Citizenship (US) (UK) (CA)
Christopher McMahon, Collective Rationality and Collective Reasoning (US) (UK) (CA)
George Rainbolt, The Concept of Rights (US) (UK) (CA)
Andrew Rehfeld, The Concept of Constituency (US) (UK) (CA)
Tamsin Shaw, Nietzsche's Political Skepticism (US) (UK) (CA)
Tommie Shelby, We Who Are Dark (US) (UK) (CA)
Laurie Shrage, Abortion and Social Responsibility: Depolarizing the Debate (US) (UK) (CA)
A. John Simmons, Justification and Legitimacy (US) (UK) (CA)
Sarah Song, Justice, Gender, and the Politics of Multiculturalism (US) (UK) (CA)
Jean-Fabien Spitz, John Locke et les fondements de la liberté moderne (US) (FR) (CA)
Robert Talisse, Democracy after Liberalism (US) (UK) (CA)
Kok-Chor Tan, Justice without Borders (US) (UK) (CA)
C.L. Ten, ed., The Nineteenth Century (US) (UK) (CA)
Peter Vallentyne and Hillel Steiner, eds., Left-Libertarianism and its Critics (US) (UK)
Steven Wall and George Klosko, eds., Perfectionism and Neutrality (US) (UK) (CA)
Daniel Weinstock and Christian Nadeau, eds., Republicanism: History, Theory and Practice (US) (UK) (CA)
Cynthia Willett, The Soul of Justice: Social Bonds and Racial Hubris (US) (UK) (CA)
Melissa Williams, Voice, Trust, and Memory: Marginalized Groups and the Failings of Liberal Representation (US) (UK) (CA)
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