Other Opportunities
Please Note: The list below is not exhaustive, and contains mostly recent or upcoming events and opportunities.
Past Events
2015
The Marc Sanders Prize in Metaethics is an annual essay competition open to scholars who are within fifteen years of receiving a Ph.D. or students who are currently enrolled in a graduate program. Independent scholars may also be eligible, and should direct inquiries to the Editor of Oxford Studies in Metaethics Russ Shafer-Landau, at shaferlandau (at) wisc.edu. The award for the prize-winning essay is $10,000, and winning essays will be published in Oxford Studies in Metaethics. The recipient of the award will be expected to present his or her paper at the Annual Wisconsin Metaethics Workshop, Sept 18-20, 2015, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Res Philosophica invites papers on the topic of virtue and the emotions for the 2015 Res Philosophica Essay Prize. The author of the winning paper will receive a prize of $3,000 and publication in the associated special issue of the journal on the same topic. Submissions for the prize will be automatically considered for publication in the journal’s special issue unless otherwise requested.
2014
Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy
VIRTUES AND ARGUMENTS
Deadline for submission: September 1, 2014
GUEST EDITORS
Andrew Aberdein (Florida Institute of Technology)
Daniel Cohen (Colby College)
OVERVIEW
Virtue-based approaches have made substantial contributions to ethics and epistemology. They have also found application in more unexpected fields, including the study of argument. Virtue Argumentation Theory mandates a shift in focus from acts and objects, or processes and products, to agents. Thus, Virtue Argumentation Theory brings a set of difficult but important new questions into focus, particularly about arguers' conduct in inter-agent transactions. At the same time, Virtue Argumentation Theory also provides new signposts leading to their resolution. Several authors have recently begun to suggest answers to these questions. This special issue will consolidate and extend their work.
POSSIBLE TOPICS
What impact does the virtue argumentation theory approach have on the principles of argumentation and argument evaluation?
Should virtues of argument be reliabilist or responsibilist?
Which virtues are needed for each of the different roles in argument (protagonists, antagonists, judges, spectators)?
Why argue? What motivates the virtuous arguer?
When, with whom, and about what should we argue?
Are virtues of argument intellectual, epistemic or ethical virtues? Or are they a distinct type of virtue in their own right?
Is it possible for an agent to have some but not all virtues of argument?
Examinations of specific virtues (or vices) of argument, such as fairmindedness or intellectual humility.
Might cognitive limitations, or fast and frugal heuristics, be virtues of argument?
How do virtues of argument differ from skills?
Are the virtues of argument culturally relative?
WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, WINSTON-SALEM, NC. One year non-renewable Postdoctoral Fellowship in Philosophy beginning fall 2014. The position will be associated with the Character Project (www.thecharacterproject.com), which is funded by a grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation. AOS and AOC open, but some significant research focus must be on issues related to character or virtue broadly construed. This is a research position with no teaching responsibilities, intended for early-career researchers interested in advancing their scholarship. Candidates must have a Ph.D. conferred by the start date. Those already in temporary or tenure-track positions are welcome to apply to spend a year at Wake Forest University. Candidates should send a cover letter, CV, and writing sample by email attachment to [email protected], or if that is not possible, to The Character Project, Box 7332, Department of Philosophy, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109. The deadline for receipt of applications is April 4, 2014. Wake Forest University is an EEO/AA employer, and welcomes and encourages diversity and seeks applicants with demonstrated success in working with diverse populations. It seeks to recruit and retain a diverse workforce to maintain the excellence of the University, and to offer students richly varied disciplines, perspectives, and ways of knowing and learning.
A talk by Dr. Edward Harcourt
Abstract: The boundaries between vice and mental illness have been discussed since Plato and Aristotle first identified vice with mental illness (and virtue with mental health) 2500 years ago. There seems little doubt that psychoanalysis continues the long tradition of thought launched by Plato and Aristotle concerned with the relation between human nature and 'the good life', and making these continuities visible helps to rescue the ethical dimension of psychoanalysis from the scientific self-images which were more dominant in its early days. Nonetheless, there are many aspects of the equation of vice and mental illness that need to be questioned. Even Plato and Aristotle described cases of 'madness' which don't fit their own "vice = illness" theory. Conversely, aren't they too optimistic in thinking that all cases of badness are cases of mental illness of some kind? This talk will explore the boundary between vice and mental illness in the light both of philosophy and of psychodynamic theory.