Colloquium (11/20): Gary Hardcastle, "(Really) Recovering Understanding"

Gary Hardcastle, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bloomsburg University

Tuesday, November 20th, 4:30PM  » Willard Smith Library, Vaughan Literature Building

Abstract: Focusing upon his 1947 On Understanding Science: An Historical Approach (the published form of his 1946 Terry Lectures), this talk recounts James B. Conant's theory of understanding, as well as the social, political, and pedagogical projects Conant associated with it. In 1946 Conant had been the President of Harvard University for ten years; he had served as the Chairman of the National Defense Research Committee during WWII, overseeing the Manhattan Project; he had, with Vannevar Bush, laid the foundation for what would be America's National Science Foundation; and he had brought into being a model of post-war university education, a vision distilled in 1945's General Education in a Free Society, aka the Harvard "Red Book." These achievements brought Conant to regard understanding as vitally important to human survival, and they brought him to articulate a theory of understanding and its transmission, a project he would continue for the rest of his life. Though Conant's thinking about understanding was acutely tuned WWII and the ensuing Cold War, his questions are just those that have motivated a resurgence of interest in understanding in the (heretofore somewhat insulated) fields of epistemology and philosophy of science: "Why," Conant asks, "should any but a relatively few experts need to understand science," and what, for that matter, does it mean, to "understand science"? Moreover, Conant's answers to these questions illuminate some contemporary debates (or so I'll argue).

This event is co-sponsored by the Philosophy Department and the Production of Public Understanding of Science project, which is itself funded by Professor Grimm's Varieties of Understanding project!

Phi Beta Kappa Lecture: James Nevels '74

November 17th @ 7:30PM in the Gallery Theater

Nevels to Discuss Liberal Arts Education and Success

James Nevels will give the talk, "The Path from a Liberal Arts Education to Success," Monday, Nov. 17, in the Gallery Theatre of the Elaine Langone Center at Bucknell University. The talk, which is free and open to the public, is the inaugural talk in the Phi Beta Kappa Lecture Series. The series is initiated by Bucknell's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa to promote the organization's values — a commitment to the liberal arts and sciences, freedom of inquiry and expression, intellectual integrity, and tolerance for other views.

A 1974 alumnus of Bucknell, Nevels is chairman of The Swarthmore Group, an investment advisory firm which he founded in 1991, as well as chairman of The Hershey Company Board of Directors. He has more than 34 years experience in the securities and investment industry.

Nevels will speak about how the broad-based, liberal arts education he pursued as an undergraduate at Bucknell has impacted his professional and personal success.

In 2001, the Governor of Pennsylvania appointed him chairman of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission to oversee the turnaround of the financially distressed Philadelphia School System, then the ninth largest school district in the United States. He served as chairman until 2007.

Nevels was appointed by President Bush to the Advisory Committee to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and served a three-year term including two years as chairman. He also has served as a board member of Tasty Baking Company, the Gettysburg Foundation, Bucknell University, Berea College, St. Joseph's University, the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities, the Board of Visitors for Temple University-Fox School of Business and Management, the Board of Overseers of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the Advisory Board of Drexel University, LeBow College of Business, Baiada Center.

He is a member of the Board of the Hershey Trust Company and Milton Hershey School, chair and member of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and board member of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, MeadWestvaco, MMG Insurance Company, The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, the Pro Football Hall of Fame and corporate member of the Orange Bowl Committee. In addition, he serves as Member of Council and Chair of the Nominations Committee of The Pennsylvania Society.

Nevels is an honors (cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) graduate of Bucknell and holds an A.B. degree in Political Science and Philosophy, an M.B.A. degree from The Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania, and a J.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also received four honorary degrees.

Lunch Chat (11/13): Engineering and Philosophy

Thursday (11/13) at noon in the Willard-Smith Library (125 Vaughan Lit)

We live in a world that is increasingly defined by technology. From the food we eat to the energy that we use we rely on a technological infrastructure that is largely hidden from view. Although we rely on this infrastructure on a daily basis, we often only notice its absence, the rare times that it becomes visible through failure.

This infrastructure and many of technologies that utilize this infrastructure are built and maintained by engineers, a group whose definition as a profession goes back about one century in the United States. Despite the large effect engineers have on everyday life they are largely invisible in modern culture. Can you name five famous artists? Five famous scientists? What about five famous engineers?

Professor Alan Cheville

Professor Alan Cheville, the T. Jefferson Miers Chair of Electrical Engineering, will join us on Thursday to talk about the ethics of modifying the world for our own ends, what mandate one needs to modify the world others live in, and what it means to "engineer". This is not a new conversation since the virtue of techne, the Greek root of technology goes back at least to Aristotle. Yet in a world in which human survival relies increasingly on engineered systems, an discussion of the philosophical underpinnings of engineering is important to engage in.

As usual, pizza and salad will be served. Hope to see you there.

Philosophical Film: "Crimes & Misdemeanors"

Tuesday, November 11th @ 7PM
Campus Theatre — admission $2

Woody Allen's classic dark comedy ensemble piece about infidelity and murder raises a number of really fascinating moral questions. How do we know how to live? What kind of moral structure do we need? Our film programmer Rebecca Meyers puts it this way: "Clearly influenced by his admiration for Ingmar Bergman’s cinematic worldview — an absent God and the universe’s indifference to the problems of mere mortals — Allen conceived a story in which Manhattanites grapple with alternately shocking and hilarious philosophical quandaries concerning adultery." 

“The movie’s secret strength — its structure, really — comes from the truth of the dozens and dozens of particular details through which it arrives at its own very hesitant, not especially comforting, very moving generality.”  

      – Vincent Canby, New York Times

Jason Leddington and I will say a bit more by way of introduction before the showing.

Colloquium (11/4): Stephen Grimm, "How Understanding Human Beings Differs from Understanding the Natural World"

Stephen Grimm, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University

Professor Grimm

Tuesday, Nov. 4, 4:30pm  » Willard Smith Library, Vaughan Literature Building

Abstract: When we try to understand the natural world, we often appeal to things like causes or mechanisms or laws. But what happens when we try to understand other people? Do we need to appeal to something different—perhaps to notions like values or goods? I will consider a few ways in which philosophers have claimed that there is something distinctive when it comes to understanding human beings, and argue that these attempts have fallen short in various respects. I will then offer my own view about how understanding human beings differs from understanding the natural world.

Professor Grimm specializes in epistemology, the philosophy of science, and value theory. Since July of 2013 he has led a three-year $4.5 million dollar project on the nature of understanding, supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, with additional support from the Henry Luce Foundation.  The project examines the various ways in which human beings understand the world, how these ways of understanding might be improved, and how they might be combined to produce an integrated understanding of the world.  More details can be found at the website for The Varieties of Understanding project: www.varietiesofunderstanding.com.

This event is co-sponsored by the Philosophy Department and the Production of Public Understanding of Science project, which is itself funded by Professor Grimm's Varieties of Understanding project!

Colloquium and Lunch Chat (10/23): Gary Francione on the Ethics of Veganism and Animal Rights

Professor Francione

Gary Francione, Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Law & Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy

Lunch Chat: Wednesday, Oct. 23rd @ 12 PM   » Traditional Reading Room, Bertrand Library

Talk: Wednesday, Oct. 23rd @ 7:30 PM   » Forum, Elaine Langone Center

We're very pleased to welcome Professor Francione, the leading animal rights legal theorist worldwide, to campus for two events. The first is a Lunch Chat that asks "Why Don't Philosophers Take Animal Rights Seriously?" The second is a talk entitled "The Ethics of Veganism." Both events are co-sponsored by the Philosophy Department, the Environmental Studies Program, the Center for Sustainability and the Environment, and Managing for Sustainability.

For more information about Professor Francione, check out his website and blog, Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach. Also, Professor Francione has been in the news recently discussing the outrage that followed the posting of a video in which a man kicks a cat. For his contribution to a NYTimes "Room for Debate" discussion, see here. For his CNN interview, see here.

Lunch Chat (10/9): Is Race Real?

Thursday (10/9) at noon in the Traditional Reading Room, 2nd floor, Bertrand Library 

We talk a lot about race and racism today, but do we have a good idea of what we're talking about? Is race a genuine feature of the world? Is it biologically real? Or is it merely a social construct — a fiction of our thought and practice? Does it have an important political reality?

Professor Michael James

To help guide us through these and other questions, we will be joined by Professor Michael James from the Political Science Department. Professor James has written extensively on race from historical, political, and philosophical angles. He is the author of the entry on Race in the prestigious and indispensable Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

James opens his recent article "The Political Ontology of Race" this way:

On November 4, 2008, America elected Barack Obama to be its first black president. Or did it? Not according to Marie Arana, whose headline in the Washington Post screamed, “He’s not Black.” Arana argues that because his mother was white, “Barack Obama is not our first black president. He is our first biracial, bicultural president.”

Is she right? Is this a useful way of thinking about race? Join us on Thursday at noon to chat about this and other fascinating and important issues in this vicinity. As usual, there will be pizza, salad, and relaxed and open conversation. Note the unusual location in the Traditional Reading Room rather than our usual Willard–Smith Library setting.

Jahi Omari (class of 2017)

Hey! My name is Jahi, and I’m double majoring in Biology/Philosophy and minoring in Japanese. On campus, I am chair of recruitment for my co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega and historian for Black Student Union. My research focus is on sperm competition within newt populations, and I’m interested in the physiological effects of long term exposure to environmental cues like chemicals, high population density, diseases and etc. I hope to pursue my interest by attending graduate school for clinical research.

Colloquium (10/2): Catherine Elgin, "Making an Example of It"

Catherine Elgin, Professor of the Philosophy of Education, Graduate School of Education at Harvard University

Thursday, Oct. 2nd @ 4:30 PM   » Academic West 108 

Abstract: Thinking with things often involves taking them to exemplify some of their features. Rather than being mere things, as exemplars, they function as symbols that highlight features and afford epistemic access to them.

Professor Elgin is one of the leading figures working on philosophical problems about the nature of understanding, its relationship to knowledge, and its role in science and art. She has developed the notion of "exemplification" to characterize how scientific experiments as well as works of art provide understanding, and so, cognitive access to the world.

Lunch Chat (9/25): Understanding Understanding

Join us at noon on September 25 in the Willard-Smith Library in Vaughan Lit for a lunch chat with Philosophy Professors Matthew Slater and Jason Leddington to discuss understanding, how it differs from knowledge, and why this might matter for science communication.

This lunch chat is the first of a series of events connected to the Production of Public Understanding of Science Project for which Professors Slater and Leddington have secured a grant from the Varieties of Understanding Project at Fordham University. (For further understanding-related events in Fall 2014, see this post.)

For some background on understanding, its nature, and why we care about it, check out this post by NYU philosopher of science Michael Strevens on the NYT philosophy blog, The Stone. Also have a look at this interesting interview with Fordham philosopher Stephen Grimm at 3AM.

Fall 2014 Philosophical Events

We have a great series of events schedule for the Fall 2014 Semester, several of them connected with the Production of Public Understanding of Science grant project.

Colloquia

"Making an Example of It"

Catherine Elgin, Professor of the Philosophy of Education, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
October 2nd at 4:30PM

   » Academic West 108

"The Ethics of Veganism"

Gary Francione, Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Law & Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy, at the Rutgers School of Law
October 23rd at 7:30PM

   » Bucknell Forum, Langone Center

"How Understanding Human Beings Differs from Understanding the Natural World"

Stephen Grimm, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University
November 4th at 4:30PM

   » Willard–Smith Library, 125 Vaughan Literature Building

"(Really) Recovering Understanding"

Gary Hardcastle, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bloomsburg University
November 20th at 4:30PM

   » Academic West 108

Philosophy Lunch Chats

On select Thursdays at noon, interested faculty, staff, students, and community members gather to chat about some philosophical topic in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Lunch (pizza and salad) is provided.

"Understanding Understanding"

with Professors Matthew Slater and Jason Leddington, Philosophy
September 25th in the Willard–Smith Library

"Is Race Real?"

with guest Professor Michael James, Political Science
October 9th in the Traditional Reading Room, Bertrand Library

"Why Don't Philosophers Take Animal Rights Seriously?"

with guest Professor Gary Francione, Rutgers School of Law
October 23rd in the Traditional Reading Room, Bertrand Library

"Engineering and Philosophy"

with guest Professor Alan Cheville, Electrical & Computer Engineering
November 13th in the Willard–Smith Library

Philosophical Film Night

Finally, we'll be showing one "philosophical film" this term: Woody Allen's classic (1989) dark comedic exploration of morality, "Crimes and Misdemeanors", showing at the Campus Theatre on November 11th at 7:30PM; with a post-screening discussion.

Sheila Lintott giving a lecture at Montclair State on October 16

Oct 16: Sheila Lintott Lecture

"The Art of Friendship"

Sheila Lintott is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bucknell University, and Chair of the Department of Women's & Gender Studies. 

Lecture Description:  Personal relationships are not usually considered sites of aesthetic appreciation or activity.  In contemporary western culture, this honor is too often reserved exclusively for Art.  But why continue relying exclusively on the well-worn association of Art and aesthetics?  Ignoring the aesthetic aspects of friendship impoverishes our understanding of the value and meaning of friendships, relationships that give shape and content to our lives.  My view is that friendships are aesthetic expressions and impressions in and of our lives, just as form and color are aesthetic expressions and impressions in and of paintings. Here I investigate the aesthetic aspects of friendship, including how aesthetic taste influences with whom we are friends, how cultivating and sustaining friendships invites creative and relatively free expressions of self, and how good friendships help to harmoniously round out a life.  

Departmental News

Congratulations to Professors Matthew Slater and Jason Leddington on receiving a grant to fund new work on the Production of Public Understanding of Science funded by the Varieties of Understanding Project at Fordham University. A news feature from Bucknell describes the project; you can also visit their project blog. Stay tuned for more information about upcoming events connected with the project.

We'll also be resuming our schedule of lunch chats in the Fall, including guests from Electrical Engineering, Political Science, and a special visiting guest Gary Francione.

Colloquium (4/22): "Scientific Understanding and Model Explanation"

Collin Rice, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Lycoming College

Tuesday, April 22 @ 4:30 PM
   » Willard–Smith Library (Vaughan Literature Building) 

Abstract: Scientists frequently provide explanations with highly idealized models. In this presentation, I will argue for what I call the counterfactual account of model explanations by drawing on the recent literature regarding different kinds of explanation in science, the nature of scientific understanding, and the use of idealizations in science. I first identify three important desiderata that arise from considering the explanations provided by highly idealized models. First, a satisfactory account of model explanations must tell us the kind of information provided by models that explain. Second, it must explicate how that information is related to the cognitive achievement of understanding. Finally, the account must show how ineliminable idealizations can make positive contributions to explanations. I contend that the counterfactual account of model explanations satisfies these three desiderata better than other prominent views of how models explain. Consequently, we ought to adopt and continue to develop the counterfactual account.

Colloquium (4/2): "Maimonides on Perfecting Perfection"

Roslyn Weiss, Clara H. Stewardson Professor of Philosophy at Lehigh University

Wednesday, April 2, 4:30 pm

Willard Smith Library (Vaughan Lit Bldg) 

Maimonides (or as he is sometimes known in the Jewish tradition, RaMBaM) is one of the towering figures of medieval philosophy, and indeed of the whole history of philosophy. The Guide of the Perplexed, a book designed to reconcile the apparently conflicting truths of faith and reason, is his magnum opus. This talk will examine some practical questions raised by Maimonides' book about the best possible human life. 

In the Guide, Maimonides argues that the perfection of the intellect is the highest perfection of which human beings are capable, and he admires Moses—along with the three patriarchs of the Hebrew nation, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—for being so intellectually absorbed in the Deity as to engage in life’s activities “with their limbs only.” At the same time, Maimonides describes these four human exemplars as devoting their lives to creating a God-loving and God-fearing community on earth. This talk examines the life of acting “with one’s limbs only” as the perfection reached once perfection has been perfected by service. I consider as well other methods of “training” whose purpose, in Maimonides’ scheme, is to perfect those who have already attained perfection.  

Roslyn Weiss is the Clara H. Stewardson Professor of Philosophy at Lehigh University. She earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy at Columbia University in 1982, and a Master’s in Jewish Studies at Baltimore Hebrew University in 1992. She has published four books on Plato: Socrates Dissatisfied: An Analysis of Plato’s ‘Crito’ (Oxford, 1998); Virtue in the Cave: Moral Inquiry in Plato’s ‘Meno’ (Oxford, 2001); The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies (Chicago, 2006); and Philosophers in the ‘Republic’: Plato’s Two Paradigms (Cornell, 2012), as well as many articles on Plato and Aristotle. She has also published articles in the field of Jewish philosophy, particularly on Maimonides.

Colloquium: "Experiments in Aesthetics: From Bad Art to Beauty"

Aaron Meskin, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Leeds (UK)
Thursday, April 10th @ 4:30PM
   » Willard–Smith Library, Vaughan Literature Building

There is a long tradition of skepticism about the role of scientific investigation in our understanding of the aesthetic domain. For example, Kant claimed ‘there is no science of the beautiful, but only critique’. Nevertheless, many contemporary philosophers who work on aesthetic issues engage seriously with the sciences—especially psychology and the related set of disciplines that fall under the heading of cognitive sciences. Perhaps the most surprising way in which philosophical aestheticians engage with scientific psychology is by doing it themselves. In this talk, I shall discuss some recent research in experimental philosophical aesthetics on which I have collaborated. This research addresses such topics as the effects of exposure to bad art and the nature of aesthetic adjectives such as ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’.

Philosophical Film: "Project Nim"

Tuesday, March 18th @ 7PM @ the Campus Theatre ($2 admission)
413 Market Street Lewisburg, PA

The Philosophy Department is proud to sponsor the screening of this fantastic documentary about a chimpanzee (Nim) raised in a human family in New York City. "Project Nim" is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal that science tried to make human; it won the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.



Professor Gary Steiner, John Howard Harris Chair in Philosophy and an expert on moral considerations involving animals, will introduce the film and lead a post-screening discussion of it. Note as well that Professor Steiner will be our guest for the next Philosophy Lunch Chat on Thursday the 20th (at noon) concerning the moral status of animals (for more information, see this post). We hope that you can join us for what promise to be very interesting discussions!

Lunch Chat (3/20): The Moral Status of Animals

Thursday (3/20) at noon in Willard–Smith Library 

Building on our film screening of "Project Nim" on Tuesday the 18th, the Philosophy Department will host a lunch chat discussion with Professor Gary Steiner, John Howard Harris Chair in Philosophy at Bucknell, on the moral status of animals. Among the many questions we might address are the following:

• The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that every year, worldwide, over 50 billion land animals are killed for human consumption. Does this fact raise any ethical questions?
• Do human beings "count" more in the moral scheme of things than nonhuman animals? If so, on what basis should we consider human beings to be morally superior to nonhuman animals?
• Even if we believe that human beings are morally superior to nonhuman animals, should we recognize any limits in the ways we treat nonhuman animals (e.g., in food production, experimentation, entertainment, field labor, etc.)? If so, how should we determine the proper limits or parameters of the treatment of nonhuman animals?
• Do measures such as California's Proposition 2, passed in late 2008 and mandating provisions such as more living space for the animals that we raise for food, accomplish any significant improvements in the lives of the animals we kill for human consumption? 
• Are the ways our society currently treats nonhuman animals morally acceptable? If not, what sorts of changes would you propose? 
• Is experimentation on nonhuman animals justifiable? Does it yield valuable information that is likely to improve human welfare? Is the improvement of human welfare a sufficient basis for justifying experimentation on nonhuman animals? 
• Do institutions such as zoos, rodeos, and circuses pose any ethical problems? If so, what problems do they pose? If not, how do our uses of nonhuman animals in such institutions reflect our values regarding nonhuman animals and the relative moral status of human beings and nonhuman animals?

You might also be interested in watching this recent interview with Professor Steiner:

Lunch Chat (3/6): Is the United States a Racial Democracy?

Join us at noon on March 6 in the Willard-Smith Library in Vaughan Lit for a lunch chat with Professor Nikki Young (Women's and Gender Studies) to discuss the question, "Is the United States a Racial Democracy?"

Like many lunch chats in the past, this one was inspired by a recent post on the NY Times philosophy blog, The Stone. Here's a choice passage. The authors are Jason Stanley and Vesla Weaver.

The fairness of a system of justice is measured by the degree to which its laws are fairly and consistently applied across all citizens. In a fair system, a group is singled out for punishment only insofar as its propensity for unjustified violations of the laws demands. What we call a racial democracy is one that unfairly applies the laws governing the removal of liberty primarily to citizens of one race, thereby singling out its members as especially unworthy of liberty, the coin of human dignity.

There is a vast chasm between democratic political ideals and a state that is a racial democracy. The philosopher Elizabeth Anderson argues that when political ideals diverge so widely from reality, the ideals themselves may prevent us from seeing the gap. Officially, the laws in the United States that govern when citizens can be sent to prison or questioned by the police are colorblind. But when the official story differs greatly from the reality of practice, the official story becomes a kind of mask that prevents us from perceiving it. And it seems clear that the practical reality of the criminal justice system in the United States is far from colorblind. The evidence suggests that the criminal justice system applies in a radically unbalanced way, placing disproportionate attention on our fellow black citizens. The United States has a legacy of enslavement followed by forced servitude of its black population. The threat that the political ideals of our country veil an underlying reality of racial democracy is therefore particularly disturbing.

Colloquium: "Friendship's Underbelly: Ethical and Epistemic Considerations"

Sheila Lintott, Associate Professor of Philosophy & Chair, Department of Women's and Gender Studies
Monday, March 3rd @ 4:30PM
   » Willard–Smith Library, Vaughan Literature Building

Abstract: Significant inequalities persist in the United States today despite a multitude of anti-discrimination laws and virtually everyone’s alleged commitment to egalitarianism. Explanations for these obstinate inequities have been sought in the structure of institutions, the culture of organizations, the momentum of power, and even in the possibility of innate “natural” differences among races, genders, and ethnicities. A critical unexamined aspect necessary for a full understanding of the seemingly intractable inequalities that plague the United States is how the personal relationships that ground and shape our lives might contribute to furthering or frustrating the attainment of democratic ideals. In our democratic society, personal relationships like friendship largely escape critical ethical scrutiny.
    Traditional philosophical analysis shows friendship is important largely for the roles it plays in individual lives and for the ethical issues that confront it in that context such as friendship’s apparent unfair privileging: we favor our friends while claiming to believe all people should be treated equally. Personal relationships, friendships in particular, are also important for the social and political roles they play and for the ethical issues they confront as social phenomena. Friendship formation, for example, seems to be guided by myopic and provincial tendencies; in selecting friends as we gravitate too easily to those we perceive as most similar to us, a phenomenon known as homophily (“love of the same”) or in-group preference. When we share our lives, our assets, and our knowledge with our friends, we favor people who share significant aspects of social identity with us. As a result, friendship helps maintain structural inequities, including systems and arrangements that participate in large-scale institutional racism and sexism. In this talk I explore the possibility that friendship plays a mechanistic role in maintaining and reproducing inequality.

Lunch Chat (2/11): Discovering Species

Professor Chris Martine

The next lunch chat will feature Professor Chris Martine from Bucknell's Biology Department, joining us to talk about species. Professor Martine is a botanist recently back from Australia where he co-discovered a new species of "bush tomato" (related to an eggplant) that has some fascinating features.

But what is it to discover a species? What are species and why are they important to science and conservation? How much do we know about what species exist? How many species are out there that we don't know about yet? How important is it to find them?

Join us on Tuesday (note: not our usual Thursdays) at noon in Willard Smith Library to discuss these and other intriguing issues with a working field biologist. As usual, lunch (salad and pizza) will be provided.

Meanwhile, check out Professor Martine's awesome YouTube channel, "Plants are Cool Too!".

Lunch Chat (1/23): Wildspace: The Cage, The Supermax, and the Zoo

Professor Morin

Now that classes are rolling again, we're happy to bring you the first Philosophy Lunch Chat of the term, featuring Karen Morin, Professor of Geography and Associate Dean of Social Sciences, who will guide us through a discussion comparing the "caging" of humans in prisons and animals in zoos. Comparisons between humans confined in maximum-security solitary confinement cells in prisons, and nonhuman animals confined in cages in zoos and other zoo-like structures, offer a number of opportunities to compare the experiences, ethics, and politics of caging. Professor Morin will pose some questions about the similarities and differences across these practices and ask what, if anything, the prisoner rights movement can learn from the animal rights movement, where arguably more progressive change has occurred over the past 40 years on behalf of animals confined in zoos compared with men and women confined in prison cages.

Other questions we might discuss:

• What might be some similarities/differences in the day-to-day experience of being caged for both humans and animals, particularly the psychological/behavioral effects? How do human and non-human animals experience and/or act upon/resist their experience of enclosure? 
• How can we explain the various "disciplinary regimes" or mandates that socially validate the caging of humans and nonhumans? How are these similar for humans and animals, and how different? How have these changed for zoos and prisons over the past 40 years? 
• What have been the ethical/moral, social, political, and/or economical challenges to the caging of animals in zoos, brought about by the animal rights movement? What have been the challenges to the caging of humans in maximum-security solitary confinement, brought about by the prisoner rights movement? How has each of these institutions evolved/ devolved over the past 40 years? 
• If indeed it is the case that more "progress" has been made on behalf of animals in caged in zoos compared with men caged in prisons, to what can we attribute this transformation? Can the prisoner rights movement learn anything from the animal rights movement, or vice versa, with the goal advancing both human rights and animal rights?

Hope you'll join us for pizza, salad, and stimulating informal conversation between faculty, students, staff, and community members in the lovely Willard–Smith Library (Vaughan Literature Building) at noon on Thursday, January 23rd.