Spring 2023
January 19 – Matthew Shields – assistant professor of philosophy, Wake Forest University
“Rationality, Bad Beliefs, and the Ends of Interpretation”
How can people hold beliefs that seem to fly in the face of the evidence? Two camps have emerged for answering this question: those who emphasize the flaws endemic to human cognition and those who treat these beliefs as products of our inevitable epistemic dependence, making them more rational than we might think. I argue that both camps have overlooked that we must often decide how we will interpret the agents we encounter who hold bad beliefs and that this recognition of our own interpretive agency can resolve much of the tension between the two camps and point to new directions for research.
Monday, February 13 – Jennifer Morton, Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania
“Redefining Poverty: An Agential Theory”
Poverty has traditionally been conceived of as a state of deprivation. To be poor is to lack something essential to human flourishing. How that something is conceived—in terms of welfare, resources, or capabilities—and how it is measured—in absolute terms or relative to a social standard—has been the subject of much debate within development circles. In this paper, I put forward a theory of poverty rooted in the philosophy of action. I argue that to be poor is to be in a context in which an agent’s capacity for long-term deliberation and planning is systemically undermined by rational pressure to engage in efficient short-term deliberation. In other words, to be poor is to constantly turn one’s mind to the immediate satisfaction of current needs and desires at the expense of deliberating about the pursuit of long-term projects and ends one deeply values.
March 23 – Dr. Stephen Angle, Wesleyan University
Annenberg Forum (Carswell 111) at 6:00 p.m.
Wake Forest University Co-sponsors – Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, The Program for Leadership and Character, and Department of Philosophy
“A Confucian Guide to the Good Life”
Dr. Angle has studied Confucius for more than three decades and realized that Confucian insights and values made sense of his life, here and now. At its core, Confucianism describes a way for us to live and grow together in our world—a way characterized at its best by joy, beauty, and harmony. By drawing on the greats of the Confucian tradition as well as various modern thinkers, Dr. Angle will explain what Confucianism is and make a case that it is worth trying out today.
March 24 – 2nd Annual Braswell Philosophy Conference
Supported by the Wake Forest University Kevin H. Braswell Philosophy Society and the Department of Philosophy
Location: Wake Forest University Benson Center 401, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
This event is open to the public.
The Braswell Philosophy Society and Department of Philosophy at Wake Forest University is holding their 2nd Annual Braswell Philosophy Conference.
The paper submission deadline is February 25 and the acceptance notification will be no later than March 13. Any paper pertaining to philosophy across a variety of disciplines including social and political issues, ethics, religion, metaphysics, legal or epistemology are welcome for submission. This paper can be a piece specifically created for this conference, or a paper you have already written and feel proud of.
If you’d like to know more about the conference and paper submission, please contact komoas19@wfu.edu.
March 30 – Leslie Francis, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Alfred C. Emery Endowed Professor of Law, and Adjunct Professor in Political Science and in Medicine at the University of Utah
James Steintrager Lecture in Political Philosophy and Jurisprudence
Location: Wake Forest University Tribble Hall DeTamble Auditorium A110
Supported by the Wake Forest University Department of Philosophy
Co-sponsors: Wake Forest University Center for Bioethics, Health and Society, the Wake Forest University Department of Politics and Politics and International Affairs, and the Wake Forest University Center School of Law Health Law and Policy Program
“States of Health: Federalism and Bioethics”
Far from settling the issues it raised, the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs to withdraw federal constitutional protection for reproductive liberty has intensified conflicts about federalism. States opposed to abortion rights are seeking to govern what their residents do out of state or what others can bring or send into the state. Abortion opponents are going to court to erect nationwide barriers to the most common method of early abortion, medication abortion. On the other side, states are enacting statutes to protect providers who offer abortion care and the patients they treat. Theories of federalism offer justifications for policy variations among states, including experimentation, political and cultural differences, and the benefits of locating decisions closer to the people they will affect. In this talk, I will argue that none of these justifications support the failures of some states to recognize rights that are appearing in the wake of Dobbs. Moreover, under non-ideal circumstances protection of the right to travel assumes critical importance.
April 20 – Alva Noë, Professor of Philosophy, Chair, University of California, Berkeley
Claude V. Roebuck Lecture in Philosophy
“Perception as a Relationship”
In this talk I will explore the idea that to perceive something is to enter into a relationship with it. Perception is a caring attitude, and love itself, an epistemic emotion, or so I will argue.