Faculty Accomplishments

Doctoral Degree Earned SP22

Cami Koepke recently defended her doctoral dissertation, entitled Responsibility and Addiction: A Control-Based Theory of Moral Responsibility, on April 4th 2022 at the University of California San Diego. Congratulations, Dr. Koepke!

Doctoral Degree Earned SU21

Alysha Kassam recently defended her doctoral dissertation, entitled Non-epistemic Values in Model Building, Theory Testing, and Communication in Science, on August 2nd 2021 at the University of California Irvine. Congratulations, Dr. Kassam!

2021 Peer-reviewed Articles

Congratulations to Dylan Popowicz, whose paper ‘On the epistemic authority of the medical practitioner’ is forthcoming in the journal Philosophy of Medicine. Kyle Banick‘s newest paper, ‘Subjective character as the Origo a Quo of phenomenal consciousness’, is forthcoming in Grazer Philosophische Studien. Nick Laskowski‘s has a trio of co-authored papers forthcoming this year, including ‘Phenomenal Concepts as Complex Demonstratives’ with Nathan Howard in Res Philosophica, and two papers with graduate student Shawn Hernandez: ‘What makes normative concepts normative’ in Southwest Philosophy Review and ‘Practical reasons for belief without stakes’ in Analytic Philosophy.

2020 Peer-reviewed Articles

Kyle Banick has two new articles forthcoming: ‘A modal analysis of phenomenal intentionality: horizonality and object-directed phenomenal presence‘ in Synthese, and ‘Husserl, model theory, and formal essences’ in Husserl Studies. Christa Johnson‘s paper, ‘Leaving agent-relative value behind’, is forthcoming in Utilitas. Cory Wright‘s article ‘Mechanistic idealization in systems biology‘ with Dingmar van Eck is also forthcoming in Synthese; and his ‘Rational cognition and approximate truth in the Lvov-Warsaw School’ with Joe Ulatowski is forthcoming in Poznań Studies. And Patrick Dieveney‘s paper ‘The honest weasel‘ was published in volume 12 of Disputatio.

2019 Peer-reviewed Articles

Congrats to Kyle Banick, who has three new articles out! Two of these papers are on phenomenal intentionality: ‘How to be an adverbialist about phenomenal intentionality‘ and ‘What is it like to think about oneself? De se thought and phenomenal intentionality‘ in the journals Synthese and Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, respectively. The third paper, ‘Epistemic logic, monotonicity, and the Halbach-Welch Rapprochement Strategy‘, was published in volume 107 of Studia Logica.

The beginning of the academic year has brought forth a bounty of new and exciting work in moral psychology and ethical theory, too. Christa Johnson has two new articles that are forthcoming: ‘Resolutions, salient reasons, and weakness of will‘ in Synthese, and ‘How deontologists can be moderate (and why they should be)‘ in the Journal of Value Inquiry. Also out this fall is Nick Laskowski‘s ‘Moral constraints on gender concepts‘ in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice.

Additionally, Cory Wright‘s article ‘Ontic explanation is either ontic or explanatory, but not both‘, co-authored with Dingmar van Eck, was published in volume 5 of the journal Ergo. Alex Klein‘s article ‘Between anarchism and suicide: on William James’s religious therapy’ is forthcoming in the journal Philosophers’ Imprint.

Descartes Scholarship

There’s quite a bit of new work on Descartes to check out. Congrats to Marie Jayasekera, who has two peer-reviewed articles forthcoming. One is ‘All in their nature good’: Descartes on the passions of the soul, published in volume 58 of the Journal of the History of Philosophy, and the other is Imitation and ‘infinite’ will: Descartes on the Imago Dei, which is forthcoming in volume 8 of Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy. Larry Nolan‘s chapter ‘Descartes’ appeared in Graham Oppy’s (ed.) volume Ontological Arguments in November 2018, and his chapters ‘Metaphysics’ and ‘Descartes and the philosophy of mind’ are forthcoming in Steven Nadler, Tad Schmaltz, & Delphine Antoine-Mahut’s (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism and Cecilia Lim & Jorge Secada’s (ed.) The Cartesian Mind, respectively.

International Conferences and Workshops 2018–2019

Cory Wright was invited to give a keynote address for the 10th anniversary of the Cognition, Language, and Perception Research Group at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. The Workshop on Philosophy and Neuroscience brings together 14 scholars from neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, psychiatry, and cognitive science, and will take place from 26–27 November 2018 at the Centro Cultural de la Ciencia.

Alex Klein presented ‘A cosmopolitan James’ at the European Pragmatism Conference, held at the University of Vienna (19 April 2018). He was also at the 50th anniversary meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association in Seattle, presenting his paper ‘William James’s objection to epiphenomenalism’ on 03 November 2018.

2018 Peer-reviewed Articles

There’s more new research in scientific philosophy coming down the pike. Wayne Wright‘s article, ‘The unique hues and the argument from phenomenal structure‘ was accepted by the journal Philosophical Studies. Additionally, two faculty have articles forthcoming in the journal Synthese: Cory Wright‘s co-authored article with Matteo Colombo, ‘First principles in the life sciences: the free-energy principle, organicism, and mechanism‘, and Patrick Dieveney‘s article, ‘Scientific explanation, unifying mathematics, and indispensability Arguments‘.

Also, check out the new scholarship on early 20th century philosophers William James and Bertrand Russell. Max Rosenkrantz‘s paper, ‘Dealing with meanings: a neglected step in the Gray’s Elegy argument‘, was published in volume 38 of the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies, and Alex Klein‘s paper, ‘The death of consciousness? William James’s case against psychological unobservables‘ will be published in the Journal of the History of Philosophy.

New Books

Cory Wright‘s book with Matteo Colombo & Angela Potochnik, entitled Recipes for Science: An Introduction to Scientific Methods and Reasoning, was published by Routledge in FA18. Alex Klein‘s (ed.) Oxford Handbook of William James is forthcoming from Oxford University Press, and Marcy Lascano‘s (co-ed., with Lisa Shapiro) Early Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources is forthcoming from Broadview Press.

President’s Award for Outstanding Faculty Achievement

Congratulations to Larry Nolan, who was lauded in SP18 as one of the 50 recipients of the inaugural President’s Award for Outstanding Faculty Achievement. These prestigious awards recognize the sustained effort of senior professors from across the university and reward their meritorious achievements over the past five years.

2017 Peer-reviewed Articles

Max Rosenkrantz‘s paper, ‘A reconstruction of Russell’s Gray’s Elegy argument‘, was published this past year in volume 6.2 of the Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy. Congrats, also, to Nellie Wieland, whose paper ‘Agent and object‘ was just published in volume 43 of Social Theory and Practice.

There’s also some new research in scientific philosophy. Alex Klein‘s paper, ‘The curious case of the decapitated frog: on experiment and philosophy‘ is now out in volume 26 of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy. Cory Wright co-authored two articles: ‘Explanatory pluralism: an unrewarding prediction error for free energy‘, in volume 112 of the journal Brain and Cognition, and ‘HIT and brain reward function: a case of mistaken identity (theory)‘ in volume 64 of Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences.

International Workshops and Colloquia 2016–2017

Several faculty have recently been invited to give talks at a variety of international venues and universities. As part of his Fulbright Fellowship, Alex Klein presented his paper ‘The curious case of the decapitated frog’ at the University of Sheffield (25 November 2016) as well as Gresham College in London (01 December 2016). More recently, he was invited to the University of Vienna to present ‘James and Herbart’ at the conference Völkerpsychologie und beschreibende Psychologie (27 April 2017). More recently still, Alex has been invited to give a four-part lecture series on William James’s theory of consciousness École Normale Supérieure in Paris (June 2017). Bravo!

Cory Wright and Nellie Wieland were in New Zealand presenting papers at the University of Waikato Philosophy Seminar: ‘HIT and brain reward function’ (24 April 2017) and ‘Quotation in the wild’ (26 April 2017), respectively.

Larry Nolan participated in the Séminaire Descartes 8e Année, and gave a talk entitled ‘The ontological status of Descartes’s mind-body union‘ (21 February 2017), in which he examined metaphysical and conceptual claims about Descartes’s account of the unity of the mind and body.

Marcy Lascano was in Sweden last fall presenting her paper, ‘Cavendish on the world and our place in it’, in the History of Philosophy Seminar at Uppsala University (23 November 2016). Jason Raibley presented his paper ‘Disability, well-being, and the interpretation of social indicators’ at Umeå University (23 November 2016) and at the Uppsala University Seminar on Practical Philosophy (25 November 2016).

Guest-Edited Special Issue, Synthese

Joseph Ulatowski & Cory Wright have completed their Guest Editorship of a special issue, Minimalism about Truth, in the journal Synthese. The issue celebrates the 25th anniversary of Paul Horwich’s book Truth and the 20th anniversary of the revised edition with nine new peer-reviewed articles—including one by Wright entitled ‘Truth, explanation, minimalism‘ and a new paper by Horwich.

Doctoral Degree Earned FA16

Amanda Trefethen recently defended her doctoral dissertation, entitled The Space Between: On the Emergence of an International Legal Practice of Human Rights, on November 30th 2016 at the University of California Irvine. Congratulations, Amanda!

2016 Peer-reviewed Articles

Congrats to both Alex Klein and Max Rosenkrantz, who each have new papers out. Alex’s paper ‘Was James psychologistic?‘ appears in volume 4 of the Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy. Max’s paper ‘From The Begriffsschrift to Über Sinn Und Bedeutung: Frege as epistemologist and ontologist’ appears in volume 39 of the Manuscrito, and his paper ‘The problem of false belief and the failure of the theory of descriptions‘ appears in volume 82 of the journal Theoria.

Jason Raibley has been awarded a Center for Ethics and Public Affairs Faculty Fellowship for the 2015–2016 academic year by the Murphy Institute of Tulane University, where he is working on a book that defends a naturalistic and holistic theory of welfare. Congratulations, Jason!

National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships & Grants 2015–2016

Congratulations to Marcy Lascano, who was awarded a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the 2015-2016 year to work on a book entitled, Early Modern Women Philosophers: Cosmology to Human Nature. See the story in Inside CSULB for more information.

Marcy also received recognition from the NEH for two more projects this year: an NEH Collaborative Research Grant, co-directed with Andrew Janiak for New Narratives in Philosophy: Rediscovering Neglected Works by Early Modern Women, and was accepted as a participant in an NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers for Between Medieval and Modern: Philosophy from 1300–1700 at UC Boulder. The competition for these fellowships is intense—these are all major achievements. Congratulations, Marcy!