The philosophy department is proud to announce that UCSC will be hosting two Ethics Bowl debate competitions this year. On December 1st, 2012, UCSC will host the California Regional Ethics Bowl, a qualifier for the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl. Ethics Bowl is a team debate competition where teams of five undergraduates analyze case studies that demonstrate […]

An Ethics Bowl is a collaborative yet competitive event, more nuanced than debate, in which teams are presented with a series of wide-ranging ethical dilemmas and are asked to analyze them; they are then judged on the basis of their analyses. An exciting tournament, it is also a way for students to gain valuable insight […]

Biological facts can neither determine nor justify the racial categories identified in our ordinary social discourse. Claims to the contrary confuse our ability to find biological correlates to populations with our social reasons for picking out and maintaining those categories over time. Using recent arguments surrounding "race" and medicine as an example, I argue that […]

C.D.C. Reeve is the Delta Kappa Epsilon Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He works primarily in ancient Greek philosophy, especially Plato and Aristotle. His books include, Philosopher-Kings (Princeton 1988; reissued 2006), Socrates in the Apology (Hackett 1989), Practices of Reason(Oxford, 1992) Substantial Knowledge (Hackett 2000), Love's Confusions (Harvard 2005), andAction, Contemplation, and Happiness: An Essay on […]

Work-in-Progress: Daniel Guevara, Associate Professor of Philosophy, UC Santa Cruz This talk is based on a paper by Sandra Dreisbach (PhD, Philosophy, UC Santa Cruz 2012) and Daniel Guevara. It is a critical assessment of Kahneman and Tversky's Nobel Prize winning Prospect Theory - especially their so-called Asian Disease Problem - and its bearing on […]

I defend a Humean theory of motivation on which desire motivates all action and drives all practical reasoning. I respond to objections from Christine Korsgaard, David Velleman, and others suggesting that this view leaves no room for the self in action. I argue that all the agent's desires are part of the self, and that […]

Note: due to two unfortunate cancellations, the session originally planned for Tuesday evening, June 25th, will not take place. The workshop will begin Wednesday morning. All conference events will take place in Humanities 1, Room 210. Wednesday, June 26th 10:00–11:30 David Hyder (University of Ottawa) “Time and object in Transcendental Deduction §24” Moderator: Dennis Des […]

In this talk, Professor Bueno will propose an empiricist account of visual evidence in the sciences and examine the role it plays in scientific representation (particularly, in microscopy). To motivate the view, a critical examination of Bas van Fraassen's empiricist proposal will be provided. Otávio Bueno is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy […]

I describe some new puzzles about the interaction of epistemic modality with quantification. I offer to dissolve the puzzles using a nonstandard kind of situation semantics. On the theory I develop, possibilities are partial, and quantification involves tacit modality. (Ph.D., MIT) Professor Yalcin works primarily in the philosophy of language, though his research extends to […]

ABSTRACT: Berkeley holds that vision, in isolation, presents only color and light. He also claims that typical perceivers experience distance, figure, magnitude, and situation visually. The question posed in New Theory is how we perceive by sight spatial features that are not, strictly speaking, visible. Berkeley’s answer is “that the proper objects of vision constitute an […]