USUPhilosophy

From President Jack –

First, tomorrow [THAT MEANS TODAY, WEDNESDAY] we will be meeting at Old Main 201 from 4:30 PM-5:30 PM for an informal discussion! The topic will be Artificial Intelligence. We will discuss the question: What can’t computers do?

To start the discussion and to gauge people’s intuitions, I will give everyone some time to create a two column list: the first column, a list of everything they think they know computers can’t do, the second, a list of some of the most surprising or profound things they think computers have done. Then we’ll compare lists, see if there are any discrepancies, and discuss from there.

Here are some short resources (a very short article and a 8 min YouTube video) that help explain what a few philosophers have thought computers can’t do.

https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2014/03/03/intentionality/

https://youtu.be/B6Oigy1i3W4?si=w8yI8Pv6Q-wKlIHn

Second, our first meeting after spring break will be a panel discussion about philosophy as the best second major. The panel will consist of current students who are double majors. If you are a double philosophy major and are interested in being on the panel please email me. If you have had an experience where studying philosophy has helped you understand or care about your other classes, we’d love to hear from you!

Each semester, The Gadfly, Columbia’s undergraduate philosophy magazine, publishes a print issue featuring pieces from students from a variety of institutions and disciplinary backgrounds. This semester, our theme is “Circus”. The Gadfly invites you to pitch articles, poetry, short stories, or musical compositions that explore the themes that circus is laden with whether it is propaganda or subversion, chaos or control, horror or humor, freaks, greed, rings, tightropes, Britney Spears, and much more (surprise us!). We accept pitches for all kinds of content including fiction, non-fiction, art, music, etc. If you are interested, please submit a pitch of less than 500 words to this link by 11:59 p.m. on Friday, 2/16. If you have any questions about the application, please feel free to email gadflyinquiry@gmail.com.

Thank you so much for your consideration!

Our meeting this week will be tomorrow, Monday Feb 12, at 5:30 PM-6:30PM in Old Main 006. There are two reasons for the different time and place: Valentines being on Wednesday and because the philosophy department is interviewing faculty candidates this week. (You can drop in at Old Main 202 tomorrow from 2:00-3:00 PM to meet Dr. Sophia Stone and 1:30-2:30 PM on Friday to meet Dr. Glenn Trujillo, as it said in the email I forwarded last week)

For the meeting, we will be having an informal party about the philosophy of love. There will be pizza. We will get to know each other and discuss questions about love in small groups. 

If you want to read something about the philosophy of love to inform your discussion (and see a somewhat humorous example of people giving speeches about the nature of love at a party) here is a copy of Plato’s Symposium: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1600/1600-h/1600-h.htm

Hope to see you there! – from President Jack

Over the next week we will be interviewing three philosophers to be added to our faculty at USU. We have set aside some times for students to drop in and have informal chats with them, get a sense of their approaches to philosophy, their backgrounds, and so on. If you have the free time, please come visit with us!

Here is the schedule for drop-in meetings with the philosophers:

Friday, February 9
Dr. Michael Otteson – 1:30-2:30 p.m., Main 202 (conference room)

Monday, February 12
Dr. Sophia Stone – 2:00-3:00 p.m., Main 202 (conference room)

Friday, February 16
Dr. Glenn Trujillo – 1:30-2:30 p.m., Main 202 (conference room)