Calendar

Conference Schedule

Friday May 10

• 1pm: Rachel Goodman (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
  Introductory Overview

  1:30pm: Jake Quilty-Dunn (University of Oxford)
  On Elisabeth Camp’s “Putting Thoughts to Work”

  4:30pm: John Kulvicki (Darmouth College)
  On Jacob Beck’s “Perception is Analog”

Saturday May 11

• 1pm: Jacob Beck (York University)
  On Jake Quilty-Dunn’s “Perceptual Pluralism”

  4pm: Elisabeth Camp (Rutgers University)
  On John Kulvicki’s “Modeling the Meanings of Pictures”

The Five Essential Readings for the Conference

The conference is predicated on the assumption that everyone in attendance will have read all five of these essays:

• John Haugeland, Representational Genera
• Elisabeth Camp, Putting Thoughts to Work
• Jacob Beck, Perception Is Analog
• Jake Quilty-Dunn, Perceptual Pluralism
• John Kulvicki, Modeling The Meanings of Pictures (excerpt)

Some Helpful Background Readings

Here are ten additional readings that help to fill in some of the background to the topics that will be discussed at the conference. Those new to these topics might start with the Kulvicki, Camp, and Giardino and Greenberg readings, and then move on to the others.

• John Kulvicki, Images in Mind
• Elisabeth Camp, Thinking With Maps
• Valeria Giardino and Gabriel Greenberg, Introduction: Varieties of Iconicity
• John Haugeland, Analog and Analog
• Fred Dretske, Sensation and Perception
• Jerry Fodor, Preconceptual Representation
• Michael Rescorla, Cognitive Maps and the Language of Thought
• Tyler Burge, Origins of Perception
• Tyler Burge, Steps Towards Origins of Propositional Thought
• Jacob Beck, The Generality Constraint and the Structure of Thought
• Whit Schonbein, Varieties of Analog and Digital Representation

If you have any questions about the conference, please contact Zed Adams at zed@newschool.edu.

The 23rd Annual CUNY Graduate Student Philosophy Conference invites graduate students to submit their work engaging with philosophical topics and traditions that consider or bridge the analytic/continental divide. The analytic/continental division typically assumes contrasting notions of what philosophy ‘is’ and what it ought to be. The divide also describes the varying methodologies employed when we practice philosophy. Whether it refers to meta-philosophical commitments or strategies used, the divide can do exactly that – divide. When concerned with the nature of philosophy and how one ought to conceive of the practice the stakes can be high; when we ask, “What counts as philosophy?” we implicitly ask, “What doesn’t ‘count’ as philosophy?” This conference aims to explore issues that need to be explored by the philosophical community at large, especially when the legitimacy of certain practices are under scrutiny. The conference also aims to create a space where we can learn to ask better questions concerning the nature of our academic practices, the traditions we draw from, the methodologies we employ, and the topics we consider.

Keynote speaker: Talia Mae Bettcher (California State University, Los Angeles)

We are particularly interested in papers from all areas of philosophy that:

• explore the meta-philosophical or sociological questions concerning the analytical/continental divide without exclusionary border-policing. Is such a divide legitimate? What has motivated this divide? What are the advantages and disadvantages of maintaining the divide? How can we bridge or dismantle the divide? Etc.
• broadly engage with the question of “what can philosophy be?” How can philosophy establish fewer borders and more bridges?
• engage with philosophers (i.e. Rorty, Badiou, Williams, etc.), philosophical topics (i.e. race, gender, coloniality, etc.), and/or traditions (i.e. critical race theory, feminist philosophy, queer theory, postcolonial/decolonial theory, etc.) that have always or currently do bridge the analytic/continental divide, again without exclusionary border-policing.
• explore the analytic/continental divide in an interdisciplinary manner drawing from sociology, critical psychology, gender studies, race studies, literature, history, the arts, etc.

The conference is committed to providing a platform for marginalized persons and topics in the discipline. In answering some of the questions presented we highly encourage papers regarding, among other topics: critical race theory, feminist philosophy, queer theory, trans philosophy, and disabilities studies. Speakers from marginalized groups in the discipline are strongly encouraged to submit. Any abstracts that aim to discredit already marginalized philosophers or philosophies are strongly discouraged.