The Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy

2008 Conference Program

35th Annual Meeting
March 13th - 15th, 2008
 

Host Institution:
Michigan State University

Local Arrangements Chair, Paul Thompson
W. K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics
Department of Philosophy, MSU

Thursday, March 13, 2008

12:00 pm - 5:00 pm - Registration

12:00 pm - 5:00 pm - Book Exhibit

2:00 pm - 3:45 pm - Concurrent Sessions I

A. Early American Philosophy

Chair: Mark Uffelman (Penn State University, Harrisburg)

Anthony Giambusso (SIU Carbondale), On Reevaluations: Benjamin Franklin
Heath Atchley (Mount Holyoke College), Thoreau and the Politics of Immanence

Comment: James Campbell (University of Toledo)

B. Discussion Papers: Questioning the Real

Chair: Kevin Decker (Eastern Washington University)

Russell Pryba (University at Buffalo, SUNY), Toward a Flexible Naturalism
Kathleen Wallace (Hofstra University), "Subjectivity is objective": Relativism and Validation

Comment: Matsato Ishida (Penn State University)

C. Panel: Before and Beyond Bioethics: Philosophy, Medicine, Health

Seth Joshua Thomas (Fordham University)
Kim Garchar (University of Colorado at Denver)
Fred Gifford (Michigan State University)

D. Graduate Student Session

Cherilyn Keall (University of Guelph), Session Organizer and Chair

Toby Svoboda (Penn State University), Thoreau in Walden: Epicurean or Stoic?
Paul Qualtere-Burcher (University of Oregon), A Theistic Reconstruction of Dewey’s Reconstruction of Religion in A Common Faith
Aaron Massecar (University of Guelph), Peirce and Self-Control: How to Facilitate Autonomous Self-Learners

3:45-4:15 pm - Refreshment Break (for all registrants)

4:15 pm - 6:00 pm - Concurrent Sessions II

A. Invited Session: Dewey Society: Intelligence, Old and New: Dewey on the 'Intellectual' and Intellectual Habits of Mind

Larry Hickman (SIU Carbondale), "Contributions of the 'No Child Left Behind' Initiative to the Formation of Intellectual Habits of Mind"
Matthew Pamental (Northern Illinois University), "Curing the Anti-Intellectualism of America's Schools: Attacking the Disease not the Symptoms"

B. Religion, Freedom and Irony

Chair: Joseph John (SIU Carbondale)

David McClean (Molloy College), The Theological Uses of Rortian Ironism
Ray Boisvert (Siena College), The Will to Power vs The Will to Prayer: William Barrett's The Illusion of Technique 30 Years Later

Comment: Judith Green (Fordham University)

C. The Environment

Chair: Gregory Fahy (University of Maine at Augusta)

Evelyn Brister (Rochester Institute of Technology), Participatory Democracy, GIS, and Epistemic Authority in Environmental Policy-making
Eric Mullis (Queens University of Charlotte), Environmental Ethics and Environmental Aesthetics

Comment: Steven Fesmire (Green Mountain College)

D. Invited Session: Royce Society: One Hundred Years of Loyalty: A Critical Re-examination

Chair: Bette J. Manter (Curry College)

Panelists:     Frank M. Oppenheim (Xavier University)
                    John J. McDermott (Texas A&M)
                    Jacqueline Kegley (California State University--Bakersfield)
                    Kelly Parker (Grand Valley State University)

6:15 pm - 8:00 pm - Plenary Session: Philosophy Engaged

Chair and Introduction: Paul B. Thompson

 

Presenters:    Hilde Lindemann, “The Americanism of Bioethics”

                    John McClendon, “The African American Philosopher: Recovery and Reconstruction of a Neglected Chapter in History”

                    Richard Peterson, “Philosophers and the Specter of Militarism”

 

Note: The chair and presenters are all members of the Philosophy Department, Michigan State University

8:00 pm - 10:00 pm -  Reception

Friday, March 14, 2008

8:00 am - 5:00 pm - Registration & Book Exhibit

8:30 am - 10:15 am - Concurrent Sessions III

A. Working with the Working Class

Chair: Michael Sullivan (Emory University)

Judy Whipps (Grand Valley State University), "Learn to Earn": A Pragmatist Response to Contemporary Dialogues about Industrial Education
Maurice Hamington (Metropolitan State College of Denver), Community Organizing: Addams and Alinsky

Comment: David Woods (Fordham University), Lessons from Jane Addams on Social Education and Community Organization

B. Invited Session: Society for Humanist Philosophers

Howard Radest (University of South Carolina-Beaufort and The Humanist Institute), "My Faith Has Rougher Seas to Sail," Humanism - Philosophy and Lebensphilosophie
John R. Shook, (University at Buffalo and Center for Inquiry), "American Humanism, Past and Future"

C. Invited Session: American Association for Philosophy Teachers

Panel: "Using Canadian Philosophy in Teaching American Philosophy"
Chair: Richard Hart (Bloomfield College)
Presenters: Robert Sinclair (Brooklyn College), "Canadian Idealism and the Emerging Profession of Philosophy in America"
                  Joseph McGinn (Lock Haven University), "Neighbourly Reflections: National Origins and Philosophical Visions in Canada and the United States"
                  Robert Timko (Mansfield University), "Critiquing Dewey and Pragmatism: What We Can Learn from the Canadians"
Commentator: Joan Whitman Hoff (Lock Haven University)

D. Panel: Pragmatism with the Negative: A Response to "Pragmatism with Ressentiment"

Panel Organizer: Benjamin Galatzer-Levy (SIU-Carbondale), “Toward a conversation with the negative: Pragmatism with Psychoanalysis”
Matthew Sanderson (West Shore Community College), “Pessimism in the Thought of John Dewey”
Charles Hobbs (SIU-Carbondale), “Naturalism, Death, and Functional Immortality”

E. Discussion Papers: Interpretation and the Semiotic

Chair: Jayne Tristan (UNC Charlotte)

Brent Crouch (San Diego City College), Are Josiah Royce's Communities of Interpretation Homomorphic with Boolean Algebras?
Kelly Parker (Grand Valley State University), Transfiguring Time: Music as Symbolic Process

Comment: Troy Deters (SIU Carbondale)

10:15 - 10:30 am - Refreshment Break  (for all registrants)

10:30 am - 12:15 pm - Concurrent Sessions IV

A. Discussion Papers: Dewey and Education

Chair: Marta Kunecka (Oregon State University)

Todd Lekan (Muskingum College), Disabilities and Educational Opportunity: A Deweyan Approach
Leonard Waks (Temple University), The Public and Its Problems and the Public Character of Charter Schools

Comment: David Strand

B. Invited Session: The Personalists

C. Categorizing Philosophies

Chair: Tadd Ruetenik (St. Ambrose University)

Carlos Sanchez (San Jose State University), Stanley Cavell, Leopoldo Zea, and the Seduction of an "American" Philosophy
Ken Stikkers (SIU Carbondale), An Outline of Methodological Afrocentrism

Comment: Terrance MacMullan (Eastern Washington University)

D. Panel: Addams and the Lost Individual

Brenda Wirkus (John Carroll University), “Determined Selves: Addams and Royce on Individuation”
Charlene Haddock Seigfried (Purdue University), "Constructing a Self: Jane Addams's Autobiographical Account of Twenty Years at Hull House"
Mat Foust (Oregon), panel organizer and presenter, “Morally Tragic Growth: Addams, Dewey, and the Filial Individual”

E. Invited Session: Society for the Study of Process Philosophies

Chair:  Brian G. Henning  (Mount St. Mary's University)

Speakers: Vincent Colapietro (Penn State University), "Affinities between Alfred North Whitehead & Charles Sanders Peirce: Overlapping Interests and Shared Aspirations"
Scott Sinclair (St. Louis University), "Is there a connection between Charles Sanders Peirce and Alfred North Whitehead?"
 

12:15 pm - 2:15 pm - Lunch on own

SAAP Executive Committee Meeting

2:15 pm - 4:00 pm - Concurrent Sessions V

A. Invited Session: Richard Rorty

Chair: John Lysaker (University of Oregon)

Participants: Randy Auxier (SIU Carbondale) and Eduardo Mendieta

B. Invited Session: Cologne Constructivists

Perspectives of Pragmatism: The Cologne Video Project and the Dialogue between Pragmatism and Constructivism

Stefan Neubert and Kersten Reich, presenters (University of Cologne, Germany)

Comment: Jim Garrison (Virginia Tech)

C. Charles Sanders Peirce

Chair: John Capps (Rochester Institute of Technology)

Bernardo Cantens (Barry University), Peirce's Early Logic, Metaphysics and the Progress of Science
Robert Lane (University of West Georgia), Peirce-onhood: Persons as Semiotic Animals

Comment: Stanley Harrison (Marquette University)

D. Violence and War

Chair: Donald Koch (Michigan State University)

Amrita Banerjee (University of Oregon), Follett's Pragmatist Ontology of Relations: Potentials for a Feminist Perspective on Violence
Marilyn Fischer (University of Dayton) , Cracks in the Inexorable: Bourne and Addams on Pacifists During Wartime

Comment: Jayne Tristan (UNC Charlotte)

E. Naturalism

Chair: David Vessey (University of Chicago)

Lawrence Cahoone (Holy Cross), Buchler and Natural Science: Sketch of an Ordinal Physicalism
Jennifer Welchman (University of Alberta), Pragmatic Naturalism, Second Nature, and Communicative Practices: A Deweyan Reply to McDowell

Comment: David Hildebrand (University of Colorado at Denver)

4:00 - 4:15 pm - Refreshment Break (for all registrants)

4:15 - 5:15 pm - Memorial Session for Peter Hare

5:30 pm - 7:00 pm - Coss Lecture: "The Problem of African American History and the Relevance of Pragmatism"

Eddie Glaude, Jr. (Princeton University)

7:00 pm - Dinner on own

Saturday, March 15, 2005

7:00 – 8:30: Breakfast Book Discussion: James Pawelski (University of Pennsylvania), The Dynamic Individualism of William James

8:00 am - 12:00 pm - Registration & Book Exhibit

8:30 am - 10:15 am - Concurrent Sessions VI

A. Invited Session: Emerson Society - Emerson Thinking

Joseph Urbas (Université Michel de Montaigne - Bordeaux III), "Emerson, Transcendentalism, and the Ontological Turn in American Thought, 1820-1850"
Jennifer Gurley (Le Moyne College), "Why Emerson is Not a Pragmatist"; presenter and chair
Susan Dunston (New Mexico Tech. College of Mines), "A Philosophy of Difference and its Political Fallout: Emerson, Cavell, and Feminism"

B. Discussion Papers: William James

Chair: Mark Moller (Dennison University)

John Kaag (Harvard University), A Call to Arms: William James on Militarism and Political Unity
Nobuo Kazashi (Kobe University and Harvard University), Radical Empiricism as Phenomenlogy without Methodical Epoché: The "Sein und Nichts" Question in William James

Comment: Norris Frederick (Queens University of Charlotte)

C. Emotion and Recognition

Chair: Michael Robertson (Independent Scholar)

Joseph Palencik (University of Buffalo), "One Hundred Years Later: William James and the Psychology of Emotion" has been published in the Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society (Fall 2007) and is now available there.
David Rondel (McMaster University), Recognition as a Moral Category

Comment: Craig Hanks (Stevens Institute of Technology)

D. Coss Dialogue with Eddie Glaude

Respondents: Paul Taylor (Temple), Michael Sullivan (Emory), and Judith Green (Fordham)

E. Invited Session: Semiotic Society: The Stream of Semiotic Thought Running through American Philosophy
 
Felicia Kruse (Xavier University), “Semiotic Reflections of Divine Things: Edwards and Emerson”
André De Tienne (IUPUI), “Royce’s Semiotic Turn” 
Vincent Colapietro (Penn State University), Coextension, Occlusion, & Plurality: Reading the Handwriting on the Wall, from Edwards to Miller, Milikan, & Cavell
 

10:15 - 10:30 am - Refreshment Break (for all registrants)

10:30 am - 12:15 pm - Concurrent Sessions VII

A. America Missteps

Chair: Heather Keith (Green Mountain College)

Martin Coleman (IUPUI), "It doesn't . . . matter where you begin": Pound and Santayana on Education
Richard Mullin (Wheeling Jesuit University)  Royce's "Doctrine of Life" in an Age of Fundamentalism and Materialism

Comment: Matthew Flamm (Rockford College)

B. Invited Session: Iberian/Latin American Society

Chair: Gregory Pappas (Texas A & M)
Kim Diaz (Texas A & M University), “Dewey and Freire's pedagogy of recognition”
Daniel Campos (CUNY, Brooklyn), “Originality and Resistence in Latin American Culture" 
Alex Stehn (Penn State), “Pragmatism’s Call and Liberation Philosophy’s Response” 
Joseph Orozco (Oregon State), “Citizenship according to Jane Addams and Gloria Anzaldua” 
Manuela Alejandra Gomez  (Mexico), “The Historical and Philosophical Connection between Jose Ingenieros and Emerson”
Alejandro Strong (Southern Illinois University), “The Philosophy of Education of John Dewey and José Martí” 
 

C. Discussion Papers: Royce and Feminism

Chair: Lara Trout (University of Portland)

Celia Bardwell-Jones (Towson University), "Border Communities and Royce: the Problem of Translation and Reinterpreting Feminist Empiricism
Kara Barnette (University of Oregon), Testimony, Advocacy, and Error: Lorraine Code's Ecological Thinking and Josiah Royce's Loyalty to Truth

D. Panel: American Philosophy and the Legacies of Greek Thinking

Daniel Brunson (Penn State University)
Rose Cherubin (George Mason University)
Christopher Long (Penn State University)

E. Panel: Beyond the Limits of Rationality

Justin Bell (SIU-Carbondale), panel organizer
Seth Vannatta (SIU-Carbondale)
Christina Gould (SIU-Carbondale)

12:15 pm - 2:00 pm - Lunch on own

The Jane Collective, Luncheon

Royce Society Business Meeting

2:00 pm - 3:45 pm - Concurrent Sessions VIII

A. Discussion Papers: Justice and Acknowledging Difference

Chair: Kim Diaz (Texas A & M)

Marc Lombardo (European Graduate School), James Baldwin as a Philosopher (of Sexuality)
Barbara Lowe (St. John Fisher College), Receptive Perception, Particularized Justice, and Moral Agency

Comment: Tanya Jeffcoat

B.  Discussion Papers: Dewey and How Things Work

Chair: Michael Brodrick (Vanderbilt University)

Jim Garrison (Virginia Tech )and James Good (Lone Star College-North Harris), Dewey, Hegel and Causation
Howard Callaway, Locality and Natural Grace

Comment: Steven Brence (University of Oregon)

C. Book Discussion: John J. McDermott -- Recent Work

Erin McKenna (Pacific Lutheran University), "McDermott: Lessons for a Teacher and Inspiration for Living a Life"
Roger Ward (Georgetown College), "McDermott’s Salvation: Turning and Returning"

Response: John J. McDermott (Texas A&M University)

D. Society for the Study of Africana Philosophy: The Legacy of African-American Thought

Alfred Prettyman (Ramapo College of New Jersey), Moderator

Bernard Boxill (UNC-Chapel Hill), "DuBois and Douglass on the Sorrow Songs"
Howard McGary (Rutgers University), "Frederick Douglass, Self-Help, and the Self-Made Man" 
Respondent:  Jacqueline Scott (Loyola University of Chicago)

3:45 - 4:00 pm Refreshment Break (for all registrants)

4:00 pm - 5:00 pm -  Presidential Address

Thomas Alexander (SIU Carbondale), "Eros and Spirit: Toward a Humanistic Philosophy of Culture"

5:15 - 6:30 pm - Business Meeting

7:00 pm - Banquet & Awards

 

2007 SAAP Program Committee:

John Lysaker (University of Oregon), co-chair

John R. Shook (Center for Inquiry Transnational), co-chair

Elizabeth Cooke (Creighton University)

Kim Garchar (University of Colorado at Denver)

Gregory Pappas (Texas A & M)

Scott Pratt (University of Oregon)