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General Overview. The Rosenblatt Jr. Lecture Series features the work of graduate students in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Utah. The aim of the lecture series is to provide an outlet for graduate students to share their own work with other students. The lectures are held monthly during the academic year. Graduate students are invited by the President of the Graduate Student Philosophy Association to present works-in-progress or completed papers. Graduate students in the department are encouraged to attend, though it is not a requirement, and faculty members are welcome, so long as the student speaker has invited them. History
of the Series. The Rosenblatt Jr. Lecture Series is sponsored
by Peggy Battin and Leslie Francis, co-winners of the 2000 Rosenblatt Prize
for Excellence. The Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence is an endowed award, given
annually to an outstanding member of the faculty of the University of Utah,
"... to honor excellence in teaching, in research, and in administrative efforts,
collectively or individually, in behalf of the university." The endowment
was created to honor Nathan and Tillie Rosenblatt, on the centenary of their
immigration to Utah and in recognition of their legacy of civic leadership
and generosity. Professors Battin and Francis after winning the Rosenblatt
Prize donated a portion of their award to the graduate students in the department
to establish the lecture series.
October 9, 2003 @ 5:00 p.m. "Skilled Disconnections" Dale Clark, Ph.D. Student Abstract. Regarding concerns for ourselves, Derek Parfit maintains that persons care most about a relation he terms, `psychological continuity'. Myriad features about persons figure into what people actually care about. In this short essay, I contend that proficiency in a variety of capacities is at least one feature that persons not only care a great deal about, but also is a feature of persons that is in no way captured by the critical relation of `psychological continuity'.
November 6, 2003 @ 5:00 p.m. "Was Nietzsche As Mediocre As They Say?" Pepe Chang, Ph.D. Student Abstract.Current popular accounts regard Nietzsche as speaking through a self-fashioned persona. I argue that pursuing the task of self-fashioning indicates that the person devalues herself as she already is and that she is motivated by resentment, which, for Nietzsche, signifies mediocrity. I also argue that according to Nietzsche, the consequences of self-fashioning is a person who is mediocre (or anyway, more mediocre than otherwise). So one who decides to pursue self-fashioning is mediocre already because one is fueled by resentment, and due to the effects of self-fashioning, one ends up even more mediocre. I attempt to show that as evidenced in Ecce Homo, Nietzsche presents this argument in his attempt to define greatness (as opposed to mediocrity). Because Nietzsche believed himself to have achieved greatness, he believed that he had done better than mediocrity, and there is by now a consensu that he was correct on that score. It is therefore uncharitable to regard him as a self-fashioner. If I am right, then current popular accounts, which treat Nietzsche as aiming to produce a narrative philosophical character are wrong, for these accounts require he be mediocre. And since there is by now a consensus that Nietzsche had surpassed mediocrity, a reconsideration of these accounts is needed.
December 4, 2003 @ 5:00 p.m. "What Does It Mean To Be A Person?" Britta Berkey, M.S. Student
Abstract. What characteristics are necessary in order to be
classified as a person? What does it mean to be classified as a 'person'?
How do we differentiate between persons and other entities that are not classifiable
as 'persons'? Harry Frankfurt holds that "one essential difference between persons and
other creatures is to be found in a person's will." Frankfurt claims,
"It seems to be peculiarly characteristic of humans, however, that they are able to
form what I shall call 'second-order desires' or 'desires of the second-order.'
" Frankfurt argues that a person who does what she wants to acts freely,
but at the same time, a person doesn't have freedom of the will unless she
has what he refers to as 'second-order volitions'. These second-order
volitions are derivations of our second-order desires. In this paper, I will
argue that it is not necessary to always act upon second-order volitions
in order to be attributed with freedom of the will, and thus to fit the qualifications
of 'person' that Frankfurt requires. First, I will claim that an agent
can be attributed with freedom of the will both if she sometimes
acts on first-order desires and sometimes acts on second-order desires, or the second-order volitions that arise from these two conflicting desires. Second, I will claim that Frankfurt's disctinction between first and second-order desires, as exemplified by his use of animals and drug addicts, is ill founded and spurious. Third, I will claim that Frankfurt's notion of striated volitions, or volitions that are (possibly infinitely) higher than volitions of the second-order, diminishes the strength of his claim that in order to be classified as a person, an agent must have second-order volitions. Finally, I will examine whether Frankfurt's account of the necessity of second-order volitions helps the compatibilist's case, and whether, on Frankfurt's view, it is possible that we can have free will, even if determinism is true.
January 2004 @ 5:00 p.m. Carmine Vincenzo, M.A. Student (tentative) February 2004 @ 5:00 p.m. Shelley VerSteeg, Ph.D. Student
March 2004 @ 5:00 p.m. Anna Vaughn, M.A. Student (tentative) April 2004 @ 5:00 p.m. Marissa Lelanuja, Ph.D. Student (tentative)
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Past Presentations Rosenblatt Jr. Lecture Series Academic Year 2002-2003 Diana Buccafurni -
Angie Harris - "Korsgaard, Particularism and the Antichrist: A Defenseof Particularist Agency" Mark Phelan - "Expanding the Higher-Order Representational Account" James Sage - "Two Senses of `Reliability' in Evolutionary Epistemology" Rob Sivulka - "Hume's View of Compatibilism" Joe Ulatowski - "Was Early Wittgenstein Later Wittgenstein Through `Thick' and `Thin'?" |
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Rosenblatt Jr. Lecture Series