2024 Program

Davidson College

Davidson, NC

Joint Meeting with the North Carolina Philosophical Society

March 15-16

The address for the events is: 200 D Rd, Davidson, NC 28036

Schedule at a Glance

Friday, March 15th

2:00-6:00pm Registration and Check-in (Room 1045)

2:30-4:50pm Concurrent sessions 1A-H

3:35-3:45 Light Refreshments Baxter-Davidson room 2nd floor

4:50-7:30pm Dinner Break

7:30-9:00pm Keynote Address (Union 900 Room)

9:00-10:00pm Reception (Union Sprinkle Room)

Saturday, March 16th

7:30-9:00am Breakfast (Wall Atrium)

9:00am-12:00pm Registration and Check-in (Room 1045)

9:30-11:50pm Concurrent session 2A-H

11:50am-1:30pm Lunch Break

1:30-4:30pm Concurrent sessions 3A-H

Schedule Details

Friday, March 15th

1A Social & Political Philosophy (Chambers 1003)

Chair: Beth Hupfer (High Point University)

3:05-3:35pm Alana Jolly (McMaster University)
- "The Role of Agency in Undermining Injustice: Reclaiming Our Identities in Pursuit of Fulfilling Our Collective Responsibility"

1B Social Issues (Chambers 1006)

Chair: Rajeev Dutta (University of California Irvine)

2:30-3:00pm Jingsi Teng (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
- “Long-Term Climate Change: How Can We Harm People in the Distant Future”
3:05-3:35pm Ben Sarbey (Duke University)
- “The Vulnerable Populations Objection to Medical Aid in Dying”
10 minute break
3:45-4:15pm Nevin Johnson (North Carolina State University)
- “In Defense of Legislative Intent”

1C Metaphysics (Chambers 1027)

Chair: Christian Sandoval (Georgia State University)

2:30-3:00pm Stephen Puryear (North Carolina State University)
- “Causal Infinitism without Paradox”
3:05-3:35pm Jonah Goldwater (William & Mary)
- “The Priority Monist Response to the Fine Tuning Argument”
10 minute break
3:45-4:15pm William A. Bauer (North Carolina State University)
- “Causal Powers and the Black Box Problem”

1D Truth, Communication, & Rationality (Chambers 1062)

Chair: Eleanor Williamson (Queen's University of Charlotte)

2:30-3:00pm Kirk Ludwig (Indiana University) + Marija Jankovic (Davidson College)
- “Truth, Meaning, Communication and Convention”
3:05-3:35pm Sara Copic (Davidson College)
- “The Problem of Speaker Success”
10 minute break
3:45-4:15pm Isaac Raymond (Harding University)
- “Undesired Desired Encounters: A Speech Act Analysis of Verbal Microaggressions and Examples of Verbal Microaggressions in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen”
4:20-4:50pm Greg Ray (University of Florida)
- “Dutch Book for Slow Bayesians”

1E Ancient Philosophy (Chambers 2068)

Chair: Ben McCraw (University of South Carolina - Upstate)

3:45-4:15pm 15 Keren Wilson Shatalov (Clemson University)
- “Aristotle's Response to Parmenides: Why was this Parmenides' big mistake?”
4:20-4:50pm Peter Seipel (University of South Carolina Lancaster)
- “Socrates the Rationalizer”

1G SCSP Undergraduate Panel (Chambers 2084)

Chair: Katherine Valde (Wofford College)

3:05-3:35pm Aaron Leonard (University of South Carolina)
- “Bullshit in Politics”
10 minute break
3:45-4:15pm Caramia Axland (Wofford College)
- “The Niche Meme: Commodity Fetishism in the 21st Century”
4:20-4:50pm. Trevor Hansard (King University)
- “The Physical Assumption”

1H In Times Like These: The Human, Ideology, and Sad Passions (Chambers 2164)

Chair: Eric Scarffe (Florida International University)

2:30-3:00pm Rick Elmore (Appalachian State University)
- "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Alien: Returning to the Questions of the Human in Delueze's Ecosophy"
3:05-3:35pm Andy Manos (Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute)
- “Ideological Disintegration in the Interregnum: Georg Lukács and Immanuel Kant on Time, Alienation, and Commodity Fetishism"
10 minute break
3:45-4:15pm Joe Weiss (Appalachian State University)
- “Baroque Virtuality”
4:20-4:50pm Murray Skees (University of South Carolina Beaufort)
- “Consumption and Cognitive Capitalism”

Saturday, March 16th

2A Ways Art and Social Media Affect Social Life (Chambers 1003)

Chair: Isaac Ramond (Harding University)

9:30-10:00am Sparrow LoCurto (University of Colorado Bolder)
- “Hume and the Aesthetics of Hip-Hop”
10:05-10:35am Trey Best (Appalachian State University)
- “The Spectacle and Disorientation of Art”
10 minute break
10:45-11:15am Eleanor Williamson (Queens University of Charlotte)
- “Transforming the Look of the Other: Jean-Paul Sartre’s Look of the Other and Social Media"
11:20-11:50am Dylan Brown (Duke University)
- “Datafication and Ontic Descent: A Pragmatic Approach to Sex and Gender Categories"

2B Philosophy of Medicine and Sport (Chambers 1006)

Chair: Lucia Schwarz (Tulane University)

9:30-10:00am Raman Sachdev (Minot State University)
- “Enlightened Atheism: Hume on Suicide and the Stigmatization of Mental Illness"
10:05-10:35am Rajeev Dutta (University of California Irvine)
- “Epistemically Transformative Medical Procedures and Informed Consent"
10 minute break
10:45-11:15am Adrien D’Aprile (University of Arkansas)
- “Agency and Abilities in Games”

2C Ethics & Moral Psychology (Chambers 1027)

Chair: Youssef Aguisoul (University of Lisbon)

9:30-10:00am Dustin Sigsbee (University of South Carolina)
- “What is an Animal Companion? The Barnbaum-Varner Definition”
10:05-10:35am Bangrui Chen (University of Chicago)
- Bangrui Chen (University of Chicago)
10 minute break
10:45-11:15am Sean Brantley (North Carolina State University)
- “Ludus Moralis: Utilizing the ‘Fruit Fly’ of Cognitive Science to Improve Moral Psychology Experiments”
11:20-11:50am Charles Starkey (Clemson University)
- "Emotion and Phenomenal Binding: A Post-Cognitive Theory of Emotion"

2D Part I: The Philosophy of Art/Part II: Asian Philosophy (Chambers 2068)

Chair: Murray Skees (University of South Carolina Beaufort)

9:30-10:00am Michael Dickson (University of South Carolina)
- “Musical Pieces as Instructions”
10:05-10:35am Katherine Valde (Wofford College)
- “Sew What? A Philosophical Exploration of Neutrality in Fashion”
10 minute break
10:45-11:15am Kevin DeLapp (Converse University)
- “‘Rekindling the Old': A New Look at the Kongzi Jiayu”

2E Logic, Computation, and The Philosophy of Science (Chambers 2084)

Chair: Brett Sherman (University of South Carolina)

9:30-10:00am Amir Motesharei (University of South Carolina) & Tara Hassanzadeh (University of South Carolina)
- The Barbaric Physics: Unraveling the Leibniz-Newton Debate on the Concept of Force and Gravity”
10:05-10:35am Logan Carter (Florida State University)
- “A Constraints-Based Approach to Thought Experiments in Physics”
10 minute break
10:45-11:15am Tom Burke (University of South Carolina)
- “Euclid’s Proposition I.4”
11:20-11:50am Jag Williams (Indiana University)
- “Analog Deduction and the Objectivity of State Dependent Facts”

2F Belief, Bias, and Epistemology (Chambers 2164)

Chair: Peter Seipel (University of South Carolina Lancaster)

9:30-10:00am Henrique Cassol (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)
- “Against Reasons Factualism”
10:05-10:35am Ben McGraw (University of South Carolina Upstate)
- “Pathologies of Trust: Epidemiological Social Epistemology”
10 minute break
10:45-11:15am Anderson Harris (University of South Carolina)
- “On the Possibility of Emotional Bias”
11:20-11:55am Sean Hermanson (Florida International University) and Murray Clarke (Concordia University)
- "On the idea of healthy epistemic environments"

LUNCH BREAK 11:50am-1:30pm

3A Ethics (Chambers 1003)

Chair: Greg Ray (University of Florida)

1:30-2:00pm Robert Fudge (Weber State University)
- “Dignity and Degradation”
2:05-2:35pm Paul E. Wilson (Shaw University)
- “Moral Responsibility for Choiceless Choices in the Holocaust”
10 minute break
2:45-3:15pm Kristen A. Hine (Towson University)
- “Abortion and Rights”
3:20-3:50pm Sanem Soyarslan (North Carolina State University)
- “Loneliness, Solitude, and the Good Life”
3:55-4:25pm John Sweeney (Duke University)
- “Prioritizing Wills: Finding Agency in Negligence”

3B Epistemology (Chambers 1006)

Chair: Jonathan Dixon (Wake Forest University)

1:30-2:00pm Aaron R. Champene (St. Louis Community College)
- “The Uncertainty Norm of Inquiry”
2:05-2:35pm Lilly Liu (Wake Forest University)
- “The Translatability Problem of Animal Modeling System: The Prioritization of Internal Consistency over Predictive Competency as Epistemic Criteria"
10 minute break
2:45-3:15pm Nicholas A. Tebben (Towson University)
- “Standards for Peer Review”
3:20-3:50pm Howard Liu (University of Miami)
- “Super-Explanatory Essentialism, Abduction, and Modal Epistemology”
3:55-4:25pm Jonathan Dixon (Wake Forest University) and Howard Liu (University of Miami)
- “Synopsis of ‘Defeating Unpossessed Defeaters’”

3C History of Philosophy (Chambers 1027)

Chair: William Bauer (North Carolina State University)

1:30-2:00pm Aaron Thieme (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill)
- “Why Fearing Nothing is Fitting”
2:05-2:35pm Bob Maydole (Davidson College)
- “Modal and Set-Theoretic Degree Arguments for The Existence of a Supreme Being”
10 minute break
2:45-3:15pm Luke Metzger (North Carolina State University)
- “A Critical Evaluation of Epictetus’ Stoic Ethics in the Encheiridion”
3:20-3:50pm Astrid Bridgwood (Queens University of Charlotte)
- “East to West: A Comparative Analysis of ‘The Laozi and Anarchism,’ by Matthieu B. Agustoni”
3:55-4:25pm Jones G. Graf (Appalachian State University)
- “Meticulously Comprehensive Persistence: The Logic and Necessity of Hegel’s Master-Slave Dialectic”

3D Ethics II (Chambers 1062)

Chair: Kirk Ludwig (Indiana University)

1:30-2:00pm Ryan Lynch (Florida State University)
- “The Moral Permissibility of Prompted Fictive Imaginings”
2:05-2:35pm Joseph Bernardoni (University of California Riverside)
- It’s the Thought That Counts: The Roles of Thoughtfulness and Usefulness in Presents
10 minute break
2:45-3:15pm Christian Sandoval (Georgia State University)
- “Our Passional Natures and the Rationality of Suicide”
3:20-3:50pm Lucia Schwarz (Tulane University)
- “A Bimodal Model of Vegan Consumer Choice”

3E Political Philosophy & Social Philosophy (Chambers 2068)

Chair: James Manos (Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute)

1:30-2:00pm Eric Scarffe (Florida International University)
- “Objectivity, Judicial Neutrality, and Originalism”
2:05-2:35pm Thomas Carnes (Duke University)
- “Political Rioting as Negative Reciprocity”
10 minute break
2:45-3:15pm Aaron Simmons (Furman University)
- “Pedagogy and the Public Good: Kierkegaard, the Singular Will, and the Social Value of Philosophy”
3:20-3:50pm Maia Wellborn (University of Oregon)
- “Going Beyond Ontological Blackness: James Cone’s Critical Phenomenology”
3:55-4:25pm Dario Cecchini (North Carolina State University) and Sean Brantley (North Carolina State University)
- "Moral Complexity in Traffic"

3G Metaphysics and Epistemology (Chambers 2084)

Chair: Dustin Sigsbee (University of South Carolina)

1:30-2:00pm Youssef Aguisoul (University of Lisbon)
- “Weak Discernability and The Mereology of Indiscernibles”
2:05-2:35pm Gabe Turner (Independent Scholar)
- “To Be, or Not to Be?" An Aristotelian-Thomist Response”
10 minute break
2:45-3:15pm Brett Sherman (University of South Carolina)
- “If and When”
3:20-3:50pm Kay Malte Bischof (University of Notre Dame)
- “Is Our Idea of God a Mere Figment of the Firmament?”
3:55-4:25pm Nathan Sasser (Greenville Technical College)
- “Hume's Conception of Enthusiasm in A Treatise of Human”

3H Comparative Studies: The Indian, the Greek, and the Chinese (Chambers 2164)

Chair: Kevin DeLapp (Converse University)

1:30-2:00pm Justin Amick (Clemson University)
- “Imaginary Revolution: The Myth of the Anti-Caste Buddha”
2:05-2:35pm Nathaniel Oates (Clemson University)
- “Harmony and Social Structure: A Comparative Analysis of Confucian Music/Ritual and Platonic Music”
10 minute break
2:45-3:15pm Gianna Quatromoni (Clemson University)
- “Tolerance and Sincerity: A Comparative Study”
3:20-3:50pm Max Koon (Clemson University)
- “Contradictions in Religious Thought”
3:55-4:25pm Yanming An (Clemson University)
- “Correlative Thought in the Indian and in the Chinese”