Sep

28

Stephen Hawkings’ “Cosmology and Theism”

September 28, 2011 | 1 Comment

Good afternoon, philosophers! This week’s paper deals with cosmology and the existence of God.  Recently, famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawkings made the controversial claim that God in fact did not create the universe, that quantum cosmology leaves no space for a Creator.  Since then, many theists have attacked Hawkings’ assertion, arguing that his findings, even [...]

Sep

22

Metaphysics of Linguistics

September 22, 2011 | 1 Comment

Hey UPA’ers, This week’s reading deals with dualism and language.  In their paper, Wolfram Hinzen and Juan Uriagereka argue that the faculty of language correlates with mathematical capacity.  They argue for a higher-dimensional syntax that follows the same model of the hierarchy of numbers, which would mean that the physicalist could not account for syntax [...]

Jan

28

On What There Is

January 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Dear Friends, We invite you to our second meeting of the semester! Friday, January 28, 2011 4:30PM Garrison Hall 0.128 This week we are discussing Ontology. We will focus our discussion on a paper by Willard Quine titled “On What There Is.” Quine (1908-2000) was Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. He is one of [...]

Oct

28

This Friday: Graham Priest

October 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Hello philosophers! This Friday we will take a special field trip into Waggener Hall. This Friday, Graham Priest is giving a talk titled “Contradiction and the Structure of Unity.” http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/philosophy/events/15297 Here is the abstract: Unless an object is utterly simple, it has parts. The parts are not a congeries, but are structured so as to [...]

Sep

8

Russell’s Universals

September 8, 2010 | 4 Comments

This week in UPA, we’re reading a chapter from Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy called The World of Universals. In this chapter, Russell, the author of Why I am Not a Christian, talks about his belief in an unsensible world of being, where universals subsist. It might seem strange for such a metaphysical, Platonic [...]

Aug

26

A case for a Poetic method of Philosophy

August 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Dear Philosophers, Tomorrow we will hold the first meeting of the Fall 2010 semester. Friday, August 27, 2010 4:30PM Garrison Hall 0.128 We invite you to join us for our first meeting in Garrison Hall to discuss the ways of doing philosophy. Our discussion will focus on the paper “Philosophical Methods” by T.K. Seung. Seung [...]

Aug

17

UPA’s July Meetings

August 17, 2010 | 2 Comments

Wed July 28, 5pm at Spiderhouse This week in UPA we’re reading Saul Kripe. We’ll take a look at the first lecture of his book Naming and Necessity. This link will navigate you to the article: http://socialistica.lenin.ru/analytic/txt/k/kripke_1.htm In this lecture Kripke explains his philosophical method and some of its implications. His definitions of a prioicity and [...]