The Philosophers' Guild at GSU: February 2011

The 1^st Philosophers’ Guild Symposium

Call for Papers

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Location: Capital Suite in the GSU Student Center

Time: 12:30pm to 7:45pm (including lunch & dinner)

No Registration Fees for Presenters or Attendees

Symposium-style: Our conference format will be symposium-style: each session will include presentation/reading, commentary, and a brief Q&A/discussion period. Authors selected will be given 20 minutes for presentation or reading time. Selected commentators will be given 8 minutes to correspond with the associated presenter. Each session concludes with 7 minutes for Q&A discussions between audience and presenter. This Symposium will feature a “Genealogy of the Warrior” panel for 3 selected West Point cadet presentations. The 3 selected GSU presenters will present during the latter half of the symposium. West Point cadets may serve as commentators on selected GSU undergraduates’ papers and vice versa.

Paper Selections and Prizes: A total of four prizes will be awarded. Two prizes, one for the most outstanding GSU paper and one for the GSU runner-up, will be awarded. Another two prizes, one for the most outstanding West Point paper and one for the West Point runner-up, will be awarded. Prizes may take the form of gift certificates or books. Papers selected and award winners will be selected on the basis of clarity of written expression, philosophical content/insight, and general appeal to an undergraduate student audience.

West Point Submissions: West Point undergraduates, submit papers for our “Genealogy of the Warrior” Panel. The West Point Philosophy Forum or associated philosophy department will field its own paper selections and respective commentator selections in accordance with the official rules (see below) of this symposium. The maximum number of papers selected is 3. Prepare your paper submission for blind review and attach it as a Word Doc or PDF to your submission email.

GSU Submissions: Georgia State University undergraduates, submit original on any philosophical topic. The GSU review committee will select 3 GSU papers from the first 15 papers received. Email GSU submissions to philosophiaguild@gmail.com. Prepare your paper submission for blind review and attach it as a Word Doc or PDF to your submission email. GSU submissions that fail to include all of the 5 items below in the body of the submission email will not be accepted.

1. Author’s name

2. Paper/presentation title

3. Brief abstract (No more than 100 words describing topic discussed in paper)

4. Academic status (undergraduate), major, university affiliation

5. Regularly checked email address

Commentators: This is also a call for commentators. If you are submitting a paper, please indicate in your e-mail that you wish to be considered for a commenter slot. Even if you are not submitting a paper, send an e-mail to philosophiaguild@gmail.com to indicate your interest in being a commentator.

Deadlines (both GSU and West Point): Paper and Abstract submissions must be received no later than March 9, 2010. Notifications of acceptance will be emailed by March 26, 2011. Authors rejected and authors accepted for presentation may be asked to comment on another paper. Commentators will be selected by Tuesday, March 29, 2011. Commentators’ commentaries are due to the respective presenter by Wednesday, April 6, 2011.

Official Rules (both GSU and West Point):

1. By submitting an essay for consideration, any entrant certifies that the essay is consistent with principles of academic integrity, such as, but not limited to: the essay is his/her own original work and all sources have been given proper credit. Any Georgia State University entrant further certifies that the work is consistent with the Georgia State Policy on Academic Honesty. Any West Point entrant further certifies that the work is consistent with the West Point Policy on Academic Honesty

2. The Philosophers’ Guild at GSU reserves the right not to award some or all prizes for any given year.

3. All decisions of the review committee(s) for the Philosophers’ Guild Symposium are final and cannot be appealed.

4. Essays submitted for classes or other symposiums or conferences are acceptable entries for the contest.

5. Essays should be no longer than 3000 words, typed in English, double-spaced and paginated.

8. Each student is limited to one entry per Symposium.

9. Georgia State University entrants must provide their GSU student ID number (Panther#). Award winners may need to provide their Social Security numbers before their awards can be processed, but not at the time of submission.

10. Paper and abstract submissions must be prepared for blind review (i.e., no author-identifying information).

11. Authors should email their submission as a Word or PDF attachment.

Sponsored by: The Philosophy Forum at GSU/The Philosophers’ Guild at GSU

& The West Point Philosophy Forum

See the Philosophers’ Guild blog for more details: http://philosophiaguild.blogspot.com/

Email any questions or concerns to Jamie Bernhardt at jbernhardt2@student.gsu.edu.

Death, Anxiety, Value

Thursday, Feb. 17, 2011

5:30 pm – 7pm

Location: Sparks 302

This Philosophers’ Guild event has two parts. For the first part, philosophy major Matthew Andler will lead a discussion about death in relation to Thomas Nagel’s argument about the badness of death. We’ll consider the following:

Nagel claims “If death is an evil at all, it cannot be because of its positive features, but only because of what it denies us” (pp. 62). He continues to claim that it denies us of “all the goods that life contains [… some of which include] perception, desire, activity, and thought” (62). But death is not the only thing to deprive us of these goods. Coma, sleep, and even depression make these goods either unavailable to us or reduce our ability to experience them fully. Nagel fails to define the badness of death as something categorically different than these aforementioned states, even though he claims that it is more than “an unfortunate state” (63). With this is mind, is Nagel’s reasoning substantially different from the claim, “depression is bad for X because it deprives X of fully experiencing all the goods of life?” Does the symmetry (of kind, not of degree) between death and depression miss something about the badness of death?

For the second part, recently graduated alumni Zachary Watts will lead a discussion about the effects that death has on us in relation to how Jacques Derrida's reflections in The Gift of Death about Heidegger’s descriptions of death (Being and Time) and Kierkegaard's descriptions of death (Fear and Trembling). More specifically, Zach will explore the following with us:

What does the anticipation of death entail? Or, more importantly, what meaning is death able to bring about? What systems of values should we associate with death?

Are we able to give our deaths? That is, how do we understand sacrifice, specifically death for the other?

Considering the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham (the focus of Fear and Trembling), what sorts of ethical systems are associated with death? In this event, Abraham is intending to murder his son, is this ethical? How do we approach responsibility and ethics in light of death and the anxiety produced by death?