Note from the Chair

This fall the department welcomed two new post-doctoral fellows: Erin Gerber (PhD Cornell 2023) and Morgan Thompson (PhD Pittsburgh 2020). Our faculty, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students published and presented their work in a variety of venues. Of special note is the choice of Karolina Hübner’s paper, ‘Representation and Mind-Body Identity in Spinoza’s Philosophy’ (Journal of the History of Philosophy) for The Philosophers’ Annual (a widely-respected list of the 10 best philosophy papers published in the preceding year). Three papers from our in-house journal, The Philosophical Review, were also chosen for the Annual.

Two of our 2023 PhDs were offered prestigious fellowships (at Princeton (Alejandro Vesga) and Northwestern (Libby Southgate)), and other recent PhDs took or continued in positions at many prestigious institutions. Recent Klarman Fellow James Walsh has now begun a tenure-track position at NYU.

Undergraduate philosophy club Logos, under the leadership of Sophia Gottfried, planned philosophy-related activities (see more in this newsletter below) and continued to publish its own journal. Two Logos members have contributed profiles of Morgan Thompson and Julia Markovits to the newsletter.

Our beloved colleague Professor Emeritus Richard Miller passed away over the summer. The department will hold a memorial conference for Dick on April 27, 2024. We expect to welcome many alumni to campus for this event. As plans are finalized details will be provided on the events listing.

Michelle Kosch
Stanford H. Taylor ’50 Chair

Logos ~ philosophy undergraduate club

News from the current President, Sophia Gottfried

Ever since Club Fest, Logos has welcomed a whole host of new members with open arms. Some of the most popular meeting topics included Metaphysics of Mind and the Ethics of Life Extension. The club has also hosted several graduate students, including Bianca Waked on The Philosophy of Disability and Brianna Zgurich on Buddhism.

This semester, in addition to weekly meetings on topics all across philosophical disciplines, Logos has been hard at work planning two ambitious events.

The Logos Executive Board has expanded the scope of the annual Apocalypse Debate—a debate centered around the resolution: if humanity were to be eliminated, what discipline ought to be preserved for the next generation of sentient life? The Apocalypse Debate has been a long time fan favorite event for Logos, gaining the club fame throughout Cornell and frequently making headlines in The Daily Sun. Last year, nearly two hundred people attended the debate, with many crowding into the back of a completely full auditorium to watch the spectacle. This year, the Apocalypse Debate will occur on November 9th at 5:00 PM in  Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium (GSH 132). The disciplines represented at the Apocalypse Debate will include Philosophy, Biology, Computer Science, and Anthropology!

The officers of Logos have also decided to host an Undergraduate Philosophy Conference in the Spring, entitled The Norman Kretzmann Philosophy Conference in honor of Professor Norman Kretzmann. The conference will feature Michael A. Smith from Princeton and David Shoemaker from Cornell as keynote speakers and give undergraduates from Cornell and surrounding institutions a chance to present their work in a conference setting. This exciting event shall occur on March 23, 2024, in Klarman Hall and Goldwin Smith Hall.

Undergraduates Rishi Gurjar and Rachel Kodysh recently interviewed two members of the department. Their stories: Julia Markovits, Navigating the Seas of Ethical Complexity: The Philosophical Journey of Julia Markovits and Morgan Thompson, Seeking Ethical Measurement of Racial Discrimination.

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Produced by Dorothy Vanderbilt, Administrative Manager for the Sage School of Philosophy