Apr
25
Non-Western Perspectives panel is here!
April 25, 2012 | 1 Comment
Today is the big day!! We really, really hope you all can make it out today. Drag all your friends, family, significant other(s), pets, etc. out to this event: we need all the support we can get!
Apr
4
John Harsanyi’s Utilitarian Critique of John Rawls
April 4, 2012 | 1 Comment
Greetings UPA’ers! First of all, a big thank you to Erik Dempsey for the insightful discussion last week regarding Kant’s political philosophy. Continuing this week with our political philosophy unit, we will be reading a well known critique by John Harsanyi of John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice. In Rawls’ watershed work, several criticisms of [...]
Feb
15
“The Desert in the Desert”
February 15, 2012 | 1 Comment
Hey UPA’ers, Though I (Armando) was not able to attend last Friday’s meeting, I understand that it went very well! I want to thank those of you who showed up. If you enjoyed that paper, you ought to keep your eyes peeled in the coming days for some exciting news. Until then, we open up [...]
Nov
3
Wickedness
November 3, 2011 | 3 Comments
Hello, philosophers! This week, we will be going over what Aristotle, in his Nichomachean Ethics, calls ‘wickedness’. The paper by Ronald D. Milo, aptly titled “Wickedness”, begins with an examination of two kinds of immorality that Aristotle enumerates: weakness and wickedness. Both kinds are blameworthy in that they lack excusing conditions, but what differentiates them [...]
Oct
27
Kierkegaard, ethics, and acosmism
October 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment
Good afternoon, UPA’ers. As some of you might already know, Kierkegaard holds a special place in my heart, so this week I decided to treat myself to a little philosophical self-indulgence by choosing Louis Mackey’s paper “The Loss of the World in Kierkegaard’s Ethics”. Mackey, a former professor here at UT and recipient of the [...]
Mar
15
A Guest Lecture on Nietzche by Anthony Norton
March 15, 2011 | 1 Comment
Hey Philosophers! We are having a guest speaker TOMORROW MARCH 10th 6:30PM in SAC 3.116 (Balcony Room C) This meeting replaces our normal meeting time on Friday. Anthony Norton, a recent graduate of our philosophy department is coming to give a talk on some of his work. Norton also completed an honors thesis under the [...]
Mar
6
Korsgaard is coming to UT!
March 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment
Dear Friends, On Friday we are attending Christine Korsgaard’s lecture! Friday, March 4, 2011 3:30 PM JGB 2.102 Christine Korsgaard is a professor of philosophy at Harvard University. Here’s a brief abstract of what she will be discussing on Friday: “We use the term “good” in two contexts: as a form of evaluation, and to [...]
Feb
18
Is There an Obligation to Assist?
February 18, 2011 | Leave a Comment
Dear Philosophers, Tomorrow we are discussing the 8th chapter of Peter Singer’s Practical Ethics. Friday, February 18, 2011 4:30PM Garrison Hall 0.128 Is there an ethical obligation to eliminate the misery of poverty in the world? Singer provides an argument for the redistribution of wealth to eliminate poverty. If this argument is wrong, then how [...]
Jan
20
What is the Future of Philosophy?
January 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment
Dear Friends, We invite you to join us for the first meeting of the semester! Friday, January 21, 2011 4:30PM Garrison Hall 0.128 In our first meeting we will discuss John Searle’s paper, “The Future of Philosophy.” Searle is Slusser Professor of Philosophy at UC-Berkeley. He is well known for his contributions to the philosophy [...]
Nov
4
Rationality and Morality
November 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Dearest Philosophers, This Friday we are discussing the subjects of Rationality and Morality. We will begin our discussion with Kurt Baier’s paper titled, “Rationality and Morality.” For our discussion we will focus on two short sections of the paper. We will read the first three pages and Section II (which spans from page 14 to [...]