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WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Department of Philosophy Newsletter 2007

THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Happy New Year and welcome to the third annual newsletter from the department of philosophy at Western Washington University. As we begin a new year, we invite you to look back with us on the year that was…

In May we hosted the fifth annual Northwest Student Philosophy Conference, which is organized entirely by undergraduates here at Western. This year’s conference featured a keynote address from Andrew Cortens (a former faculty member at WWU) and drew students from as far away as Oxford. Special thanks go to Chris Colwell (organizer), Aaron George (assistant organizer), and Jon Goran (financial coordinator).

In August we hosted the eighth annual Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference, organized by Ryan Wasserman. The BSPC featured papers on a broad range of topics, including the nature of desires, the problem of vagueness, and the possibility of backwards explanation. The BSPC also drew participants from many parts of the world, including Australia, England, and the cornfields of Nebraska. In addition to philosophy, the conference featured much merriment and adventure, including a hike around the Chain Lakes and a kayaking trip to Chuckanut Island. “Among schools that do not

In the fall we welcomed Dennis Whitcomb (PhD, offer the PhD or MA in Rutgers), who becomes the newest tenure-track philosophy, those with the member of our department. We also welcomed back Rob Epperson, who will be helping us once again with best philosophy faculties some temporary teaching needs. would include… Western Washington University.”

Brian Leiter The Philosophical Gourmet Report

Newsletter 2007 / Page 1

Newsletter 2007 ◦ page 1 FACULTY NEWS Dan Howard-Snyder I have been enjoying freedom from teaching and committee work thanks to a sabbatical. Much of that time has been devoted to revising Steve Layman’s The Power of Logic (McGraw-Hill) with Frances and Ryan, writing a chapter on William Alston’s philosophy of religion for a five-volume History of Western Philosophy of Religion, and writing “The Puzzle of Prayers of Thanksgiving and Praise,” to be published in a book entitled New Waves in the Philosophy of Religion (MacMillan), and “Does Skepticism About Arguments from Evil Lead to Moral Skepticism?,” to be published in Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion. I am now focused on a book which addresses the reasonableness of agnosticism on the assumption that arguments on behalf of theism fail. Last Spring, I spent several days camping and fishing with William and Peter; 103 trout regret the fact. The tomatoes, Get to know… raspberries, carrots, and radishes from the garden were tasty, even if a Dennis Whitcomb bit late. Swiss chard and beets were not a big hit; apples were few, due to a late pruning and few bees. In September, I returned to the spot on ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ the Pacific Crest Trail where I fell in August 2006, spat on the ground, Dennis’s Favorite… turned south, and walked about ninety miles to the Columbia River, completing the 500+ miles of the PCT in Washington State. Oregon is next. I fished the fall salmon runs from the banks of the Stilliguamish and Philosopher Samish Rivers. Smoked Humpy, Coho, and Chinook filled the fridge for Frege several weeks. I grew an inch this year. No kidding! Frances is jealous. I Fallacy took William on his first overnight backpacking trip to Lake Anne in the Mount Baker Wilderness—and ran into a bear on the trail, forty feet Ad Novitam away! Peter and I spent a day and a night as “trail angels” delivering Food fresh fruit and vegetables at Hart’s Pass, along with the mandatory six- pack of beer and salty chips, to strangers finishing their hike from Nachos Mexico to Canada on the PCT. Book Fact, Fiction, Forecast Frances Howard-Snyder This summer I co-wrote the fourth edition of The Power of Logic with Dan Howard-Snyder and Ryan Wasserman. In Author July, I presented a paper entitled “Damned if you do; Damned if you David Foster Wallace don’t,” at the British Society for Ethical Theory Conference in Bristol. This paper will be published in Philosophia. I also presented a paper on Poet hypocrisy at Calvin College. I have been working on issues concerning Shel Silverstein the principle that "ought" implies "can" and collective responsibility, Movie which I plan to focus on in my upcoming sabbatical. In March, I enjoyed a trip to Amsterdam with my parents, where I was astonished by real Army of Darkness Van Goghs and moved by the Anne Frank Museum. In April, I traveled Album to Vancouver, WA with my family to attend the Washington State Scholastic Chess Tournament. I am still passionately engaged in In My Tribe William’s and Peter’s education and fond of their school, St. Paul’s Bad guy Academy, where I coach chess and serve on the finance committee. Hannibal Lecter Continued on next page… Good guy Forrest Gump Newsletter 2007 / Page 2

Hud Hudson I spent a chunk of my year thinking about and offering a summer seminar on the Seven Deadly Sins. The professional highlight of my 2007 was an author-meets-critics session at the Pacific APA on my book, The Metaphysics of Hyperspace, which was followed up by a book symposium in Philosophy and Phenomenological Review for which I wrote a précis and replies to the three commentators. This last year I also had a paper on omnipresence accepted for publication in the Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, a little metaphysics paper and a little epistemology paper both published in Analysis, a survey article on simples and gunk published in Philosophy Compass, and my paper on hyperspace and Christianity found its way into the fifth edition of Pojman and Rea’s anthology, Philosophy of Religion. Last Spring, I spoke on Moral Vegetarianism in an open forum for the Western community, this Fall I presented a paper at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and lately I have been having great fun with a reading group drawn from our current majors on Milton’s Paradise Lost. Chairing duties rounded out the rest. Aris (now 17) is in his last year at home and is preparing for college at Western. Eli (now 12) has been playing his guitar and recently performed in a benefit for kids. Xerxes continues to study fiction and poetry and always posts something about what she was been reading each week on my website.

Ned Markosian I gave talks at the University of Vermont, the University of Alabama, and Texas A&M University. (The visits to Alabama and Texas were firsts for me. Ask me about them at Rudy’s.) I also participated in an author-meets-critics session on Eric Olson’s The Human Animal at the Pacific APA in San Francisco. The Olson session is being turned into a book symposium in the online journal Abstracta, where my contribution will be called “Three Problems for Olson’s Account of Personal Identity.” I also wrote an entry titled “Physical Object” for the upcoming 2 nd edition of Blackwell’s A Companion to Metaphysics, and my paper “Restricted Composition” was published in Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics (Blackwell). But mainly I continued working on my two book projects. John Carroll and I are doing the final edits on our co-authored metaphysics textbook, and Things and Stuff is coming along slowly but surely. On the home front, my wife and kids are doing well. Nahid ran a marathon, in stages. (She ran the first half in Vancouver in May, and the second half in Bellingham in October. Apparently that’s normal for marathoners: they always run the first half first, followed by the second half.) Zane (11) likes messing around on computers and Leila (9) enjoys playing piano and running a school for little people in her bedroom.

Ryan Wasserman Not too much to report this year. My wife and I had a new daughter (Zoë Mae, pictured to the right) and purchased our first home. I also co-authored a book (The Power of Logic, McGraw-Hill), co-edited a book (Metametaphysics, Oxford University Press), co-published a paper (“A Gradable Approach to Dispositions,” Philosophical Quarterly), and had another co-authored paper accepted for publication (“On Linking Dispositions and Conditionals,” Mind). I also organized an international philosophy conference (BSPC 2007). Oh yeah, and I went up for tenure. I also found time to sleep occasionally, which was nice.

Dennis Whitcomb The last year of my life has been eventful to say the least. Let’s just start in May. In that month I gave some comments on a paper about confirmation theory at the Why Formal Epistemology Conference at the University of Oklahoma, organized the Rutgers Epistemology Conference, and defended my dissertation. Then in June I organized a conference on testimony (also at Rutgers) and gave some comments on a paper about minimum-message-length inference at the annual Formal Epistemology Workshop at Carnegie-Mellon. In July I moved to beautiful Bellingham and enjoyed the warm welcome of the department. Throughout the summer I did philosophy, including a bunch of philosophy at the BSPC, and got settled into the new town. This fall I enjoyed teaching some intro courses and a senior seminar on the issues that my dissertation addresses. I also finished a paper on the nature and significance of curiosity. It’s titled “Ignorance Killed the Cat”. Newsletter 2007 / Page 3 The Department of Philosophy congratulates…

Stephen Steward as the recipient of the 2007-2008 Downing Montague Scholarship for Philosophy, Healthcare and Technology

Aaron Washington as the recipient of the 2007-2008 Paul J. and Rebecca Ann Olscamp Philosophy Scholarship

Casey Knight as the recipient of the 2007-2008 Departmental Tuition Waiver Scholarship

ALUMNI NEWS

Shieva Kleinschmidt ('05) transferred from Rutgers to NYU this past year to continue work toward her PhD in philosophy. This past year she presented papers at the Pacific APA, the Eastern APA, and Rutgers.

Justin Klockseim ('99) was married this past summer and is now at work completing his dissertation in philosophy at UMass.

Kris McDaniel (’99) continues to teach philosophy at Syracuse University. This past year he published three papers and had three more accepted for publication. He also gave talks at Leeds, Exeter, UMass, Rochester, the University of Idaho, and Western Washington University.

Joshua Spencer ('02) is completing his dissertation in philosophy at the University of Rochester. This past year he presented a paper at the Pacific APA and co-published a paper in the Monist.

Neal Tognazzini ('03) is completing his dissertation at the University of California, Long Beach. This year he co-published papers in Faith and Philosophy and Philosophy and Public Affairs and co-presented a paper at the Pacific APA. Are YOU a WWU Alumnus?

Do you want to tell other alumni what you’re up to?

Just e-mail Ryan Wasserman at:

[email protected] Newsletter 2007 / Page 4