News & Events

 

Colloquia

Paul Neiman will read his “A Social Contract for International Business Ethics” with discussion to follow, 4-5:30pm Thursday 29 October in Voyageurs North (Atwood).

Abstract: Corporations operating in foreign nations inevitably run into moral questions over which cultural, social, or moral norms ought to be followed, their own or those of the host nation or community. This paper constructs a social contract, using the methodology established by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice, to resolve these questions. The choice situation for the social contract is a hypothetical negotiation between two fictional characters: J. Duncan Grey, representing the interests of a corporation, and Elizabeth Redd, representing the interests of a community seeking to engage in international trade. Like Rawls’ original position, the Grey-Redd negotiation has been carefully constructed to model restrictions, based on the basic elements of the free market, that seem reasonable to impose on arguments for ethical principles for international business. Following Rawls’ method, the choice situation is justified by ensuring that it incorporates these reasonable conditions, and that the principles it yields match considered convictions on justice in reflective equilibrium. The Grey-Redd negotiation produces principles of justice for labor, environmental, and cultural obligations, as well as principles of justice for dealing with corrupt governments.

 

The Philosophy Department of Saint Cloud State University is pleased to announce that on November 5th Jennifer Lackey (Northwestern) will be giving a talk as part of our colloquium series entitled "Acting on Knowledge."  Lackey's talk will be held in Voyager South (located in Atwood) and will begin at 4:00pm.

 

Faculty

We are saddened to announce that the Rev. Dr. Michael Wyatt passed away in July. During his tenure at St. John’s Episcopal Church in St. Cloud, Dr. Wyatt taught as an adjunct here in philosophy and religious studies.

We welcome Danny Muñoz-Hutchinson from the University of Pennsylvania to the philosophy department.

Congratulations to Michael Shaffer for achieving tenure and for his promotion to Associate Professor.

Congratulations to Andrew Platt who accepted a position at the University of Deleware.

Congratulations to Ken Williford who accepted a position at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Yiwei Zheng is on sabbatical leave for the academic year of 2009-2010.

Matthias Steup is on leave of absence.

 

Conferences and Presentations

Kathleen Gill is serving as commentator for a session titled “Monuments and Popular Memory” at The 44th Annual Northern Great Plains History Conference, St. Cloud, October 2009.

Matthew Goodwin will be presenting "Surrealist Techniques and Phenomenological Method" at the Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences meeting with SPEP at George Mason University, October 29-31, 2009.

Paul Neiman will be giving a talk titled "Trapped by the Distributive Paradigm: Why Low-Wage Workers Need More than Nickels and Dimes" at Itasca Community College, November 4, 2009. The talk is being given in connection with 20 classes reading Barbara Ehrenreich's book, "Nickel and Dimed: How (not) to get by in America."

Paul Neiman will be presenting a paper titled "A Social Contract for International Business Ethics" at the Iowa Philosophical Society Conference, November 14, 2009.

 

 

Publications

Kathleen Gill, "Multiculturalism at St. Cloud State University," forthcoming in A Roundtable on Multiculturalism, Irina Predborska, ed., 2009.

Kathleen Gill, "Should These Stories Be Saved? Reflections on the Construction of Public History," submitted for publication in The Public Historian.

Susana Nuccetelli co-edited Philosophy of Language: The Central Topics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), and The Blackwell Companion to Latin American Philosophy (forthcoming 2009).

Michael Shaffer, “Decision Theory, Intelligent Planning and Counterfactuals,” Minds and Machines 19: 61-92 (2009).

Michael Shaffer, “A Logical Hole in the Chinese Room,” Minds and Machines 19: 229-235.

 

Philosophy Department Emeriti

Dr. Myron Anderson has gathered updates on the many members of our department who have retired in recent years. For general news and contact information, go to our Homepage and click on ‘Emeriti’.

 

Past Events

Michael Shaffer presented “Three Problematic Theories of Conditional Acceptance" at the fourth annual meeting of Portuguese Society for Analytic Philosophy in September 2009.

Matthew Goodwin presented "The Flexuous Lines of Anarchitecture" at the 34th annual International Merleau-Ponty Circle meeting at Mississippi State University, September 10-12, 2009.

Michael Shaffer helped organize the annual meeting of the Central State Philosophy Association in DeKalb, IL at Northern Illinois university on October 9-10.

Michael Shaffer was one of 25 participants selected for the NEH's month long summer institute on experimental philosophy at the university of Utah.

George Yoos' second book, Politics & Rhetoric: Coming to Terms with Terms, is now available through Palgrave MacMillan (July, 2009).

Michael Shaffer's book, What Place for the a Priori?, is now available through Open Court (June, 2009).

Kevin Sharpe presented his paper "Standard Compatibilism and the Problem of Causal Exclusion” at the Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Vancouver, BC (April, 2009).

Carla Johnson presented her paper "The Temperate Professor" at the 3rd Conference on the Cardinal Virtues in LaCrosse, (April 4, 2009).

Michael Shaffer presented his paper “Three Problematic Theories of Conditional Acceptance” at the St Cloud State University Philosophy Department Colloquium (March 26, 2009).

Casey Swank presented his paper “Some Textbook Discrepancies” at the University of Minnesota – Duluth Philosophy Colloquium (March 2009).

Susana Nuccetelli presented her paper “Ethnic-Group Terms” at the Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Chicago (February, 2009)