Official Blog Now Up

The official blog for the Seminar is now up here.

Mark Murphy at Eastern SCP

Our own Mark Murphy will be presenting "God and Nature in the Explanation of Moral Norms" at the Society of Christian Philosophers, Eastern Regional Meeting Hosted by The Humanities Department at Columbia International University, Columbia, South Carolina 20-21 April 2007.

Papers on any topic in or related to ethics are encouraged, and papers on any topic of philosophical interest will be considered for what the sponsors anticipate will be a diverse program. Papers should be of suitable length to be read in thirty minutes. The deadline for receipt of submissions is 2 February 2007. Electronic submissions are preferred. Please indicate in your cover letter whether, should there not be room on the program for your paper, you would be willing to serve as session chair. Please submit two copies of your paper, prepared for blind review, along with a one-page abstract including your name and affiliation, to: ggentry@ciu.edu.

Report from the National ACPA

Just wanted to let you know that we had a mini-reunion at the national ACPA last week and it was really fun.

In attendance were, in addition to myself, Gloria Wasserman, Bryan Cross, Robbie Moser, Tom Ward, and faculty advisors Michael Gorman and Nicholas Rescher (who will be receiving the Aquinas Medal next year).

Gloria, Tom, and I presented papers and Robbie and I commented on papers, we we really took an active part in the confernce (for a tidbit, see this post from The Prosblogion).

I'd say that's pretty good representation!

I think it would be great if we could get even more next year, especially to the satellite session for the Society for Catholicism and Analytic Philosophy.

Hope to see you next year (at Marquette in Milwaukee, home of the Aquinas Lecture).

Pruss at Eastern APA

Our own Alex Pruss will be giving a talk at the Eastern APA on "Double Effect in Recent Philosophy" at the American Maritain Association.

The Society for Catholicism and Analytic Philosophy

Now has a blog on which announcements will be posted about events.

It has the schedule for the next ACPA meeting up.

Marriage as a good for society

Has anyone carefully read the "Ten Principles" pamphlet we were given Tuesday evening at the dinner? It wasn't philosophically rigorous - that wasn't the point - but I was impressed by the statistics, and I think it made a pretty good case for all the goods that come out of marriage.

That said, there's a big gap between establishing that marriage is a good - even a profound one - and the claim that marriage will be weakened by the legal ratification of same-sex "marriage" or even by same-sex civil unions. The pamphlet was weakly suggestive of arguments regarding this claim; I'd be interested in seeing what others think, and in seeing how much of an argument one might develop along these lines. In particular, if one is committed to certain claims (e.g., about the nature of the union in marriage; the idea that marriage is a 3-way relationship between the couple and God, etc.), what follows? It may be that, with the right metaphysics, some *very* interesting things follow.

Fall Classes

I thought it would be interesting if we posted what classes or independent
studies we were doing this semester. Perhaps there will be some overlap.
Here is my schedule this semester:

• Readings on Self-Evidence with Earl Conee


• Readings in the Metaphysics of Modality with Ed Wierenga


• Laws of Nature and Dispositions with Gabrielle Contessa

And as always I'm thinking about the semantics for and normativity of the
probability calculus.