Department of Philosophy College of Charleston

Congratulations to alum Dr. Javier Gomez-Lavin on receiving the Oxford University Press Teaching with Technology Prize 🎉🎉🎉 Read the official APA announcement: https://www.apaonline.org/page/2024prizes-s/

Congratulations to our HSS Scholars Vero Salib and Annika Wible!

Philosopher Daniel Dennett has passed away. Here he is describing philosophy.

The 4 biggest ideas in philosophy, with legend Daniel Dennett for Big Think+ “Forget about essences.” Philosopher Daniel Dennett on how modern-day philosophers should be more collaborative with scientists if they want to make revoluti...

Join us Wednesday, April 10th from 4:00PM-5:30PM at Stern Room 205 for Gender Stereotypes, Governmental Orthodoxy, and Denying Reproductive Rights: Constitutional Arguments and Activism After Dobbs with Dr. Linda McClain!

This lecture will argue that laws restricting or prohibiting abortion compel a governmental orthodoxy — rooted in stereotypes about s*x, gender, and motherhood, contrary to constitutional principles of equality. With the issue of abortion returned by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to “the people,” arguments based on s*x equality, anti-stereotyping, and state Equal Rights Amendments have featured prominently in efforts to challenge abortion bans and enshrine constitutional protection of abortion rights. So, too, have arguments challenging Dobbs’ flawed account of history and tradition. Such critical accounts explain that the very history of inequality based on race and s*x illuminates why reproductive freedom is critical to liberty and equality. This lecture examines how these arguments are playing out in state courts, legislatures, and ballot initiatives. It also considers the impact of Dobbs on IVF and state bans on gender-affirming care.

Dr. Linda C. McClain is known for her work in family law, gender and law, and feminist legal theory. Her most recent book is Who’s the Bigot? Learning from Conflicts over Marriage and Civil Rights Law.

Join us Tuesday, April 9th from 3:15PM - 4:45PM at Alumni Center for After Roe: What’s Next for Liberty, Equality, and the Constitution? with Dr. James E. Fleming.

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court repudiated the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. Justice Alito’s majority opinion denied that it “cast doubt” on any other precedents. But Justice Thomas’s concurrence declared that all of the substantive due process decisions protecting personal autonomy and bodily integrity — the right to use contraceptives, and the rights to “same-s*x” intimacy and marriage — were “demonstrably erroneous” and should also be overruled. Is the Supreme Court just getting started? Many liberals and progressives have feared so. Many conservatives have hoped so. Others have tried to draw lines. In this talk, Professor Fleming will address these issues in the light of his recent book, Constructing Basic Liberties: A Defense of Substantive Due Process (U. of Chicago Press, 2022), which argues that the substantive due process rights to personal autonomy and bodily integrity are necessary to extend ordered liberty and the status of equal membership in our political community to all.

James E. Fleming is the Honorable Paul J. Liacos Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law. His many books include Fidelity to Our Imperfect Constitution; Ordered Liberty; Constitutional Interpretation; Securing Constitutional Democracy; and American Constitutional Interpretation. He has held faculty research fellowships at Princeton University’s Program in Law and Public Affairs and Harvard University’s Safra Center for Ethics. He is the former editor of Nomos, the annual book of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, and the past president of the society.

Join us for the next guest lecture in our Vanished Voices series with Dr. Marcy Lascano on Friday, April 5th at 3:15PM in Alumni Center!

Èmilie du Châtelet on Happiness: Passions and Character

This talk will attempt to address these two essential aspects of Du Châtelet’s Discourse on Happiness. First, what is Du Châtelet’s account of happiness? The first pages of the Discourse lead one in different directions concerning her theory of the nature of happiness. I will argue that an analysis of the text provides evidence for ultimately interpreting her account as a version of hedonism rather than a desire-based or a pluralist account of happiness. While her view is hedonistic, it will be shown that her emphasis on passions as uniquely capable of sustaining long-term pleasure is unique. This emphasis makes her version of hedonism more psychologically nuanced than more typical versions of the view.

The second aspect of her account concerns what Du Châtelet calls the “great machines of happiness.” Du Châtelet provides a list of five things that are somehow related to happiness: freedom from prejudice, health, virtue, having tastes and passions, and being susceptible to illusions. Here, it will be argued that Du Châtelet’s great machines of happiness are best understood as the features of a person’s physical or psychological constitution, or orientation toward the world which enable her to achieve happiness.

Duke University’s Dr. Michael Munger will kick off our 16th Annual Adam Smith Week talks next week. Don’t miss “Adam Smith Solved the Trolley Problem” Tuesday, March 19th at 3:30 PM! College of Charleston School of Business Michael Munger

April 12th join us at MUSC's annual bioethics conference where philosophers Leonard Fleck, author of Precision Medicine and Distributive Justice: Wicked Problems for Democratic Deliberation (Oxford University Press, 2022) and Bioethics, Public Reason and Religion (Cambridge University Press, 2022)) and David Resnik will be speaking. Registration in link.

Congratulations to Prof. Grantham on the recent publication of his article, Toward a More Natural Historical Attitude, in the European Journal for Philosophy of Science! 🎉🎉🎉

Article Abstract:
Modeling his position on Arthur Fine’s Natural Ontological Attitude, Derek Turner proposed the Natural Historical Attitude. Although these positions share a family resemblance, Turner’s position differs from Fine’s in two important ways. First, Fine’s contextualism is more fine-grained. Second, Turner’s argument for metaphysical agnosticism seems to lead to the implausible conclusion that we should be agnostic about the mind-independence of ordinary objects – a position in tension with Fine’s “core position.” While this paper presents a textual analysis of Fine’s and Turner’s arguments, the conclusions reached here cohere well with some of the best empirically-informed assessments of the historical sciences. Given the diversity of the historical sciences, the fact that many claims in the historical sciences have enough support to be regarded as true, and the implausibility of Turner’s agnosticism, philosophers studying historical science would be better served by embracing a stance closer to Fine’s Natural Ontological Attitude.

Thanks and congratulations to Professor Coseru for running excellent sessions on "Buddhists and Platonists in Dialogue: On Perception, Self-Knowledge and Causation" at the annual American Philosophical Association meeting. (A book on this topic forthcoming.)

If interested in discussing ethics with others around the globe, register here (free) for such a thing on February 10th: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIkf-GprTgvGtWEevF_Zk0olIfjFdzRh6vu #/registration