Princeton, Cornell scholars keynote Graduate Philosophy Conference

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—Philosophers from Princeton and Cornell universities will headline the speaker lineup during the Graduate Philosophy Conference next month at Western Michigan University.

The conference, Friday through Sunday, Dec. 5-7, features presentations by scholars from across the country, including the universities of Iowa; Wisconsin, Madison; Texas at Austin; California at San Diego; and British Columbia as well as Ohio State and Fordham universities. The conference's two keynote speakers are Dr. Theodore Sider, the Frederick J. Whiton Professor of Philosophy in the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell, and Dr. Sarah McGrath, assistant professor of philosophy at Princeton.

Sider will speak at 5:15 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5, on the topic "Asymmetric Personal Identity," while McGrath will talk at 5:15 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 6, on "Moral Perception and Its Rivals." Both presentations are in the Multicultural Center of the Trimpe Building.

Keynote speakers

Sider received his Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics, philosophy and physics in 1988 from Gordon College and his doctoral degree in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts in 1993. Prior to joining the Cornell faculty in 2011, Sider served as philosophy professor at New York, Rutgers and Syracuse universities and the University of Rochester. His research interests include metaphysics, the philosophy of logic and philosophy of language.

McGrath received her doctoral degree in philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002 and has been an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University since 2007. McGrath's research interests are in epistemology, metaphysics and ethics with recent work done in moral realism and moral disagreement.

Other topics of discussion at the conference include "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Permissivism," "Does Computationism Collapse into Behaviorism" and "A Minimalist Framework for Ontological Pluralism." All of the presentations are free and open to the public.

For more information, visit wmich.edu/philosophy/events.

For more news, arts and events, visit wmich.edu/news.

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