Students
build skills at conference
By Sean Emery
On-line Forty-Niner
Philosophy
students from colleges across the country
met at Cal State Long Beach Saturday, to
take part in the student philosophy conference.
The keynote speaker of the event was Elliot
Sober, a professor from the University of
Wisconsin. Sober is a nationally recognized
professor who is known for his work regarding
the philosophy of biology. Sober gave a
speech on scientific philosophy, titled,
“Intelligent Design is untestable. What
about Natural Selection?” Sober was
the only professor to give a presentation,
with the rest of the presentations being
put on by students.
The conference was put together by the Student
Philosophy Association, and was also sponsored
by the department of philosophy. The purpose
of the student conference was to provide
a professional forum for both graduate and
undergraduate students to present their
work.
“The goal of this [conference] is to give
students the opportunity to present some
of their work, and build their skills at
presentation, discussion and argumentation
amongst a group of peers,” Russ Daley said,
a member of the SPA.
In putting together the student conference,
the organizers received submissions from
students from top programs around the country,
and overseas.
“We had submissions coming from the Philippines,
England, Canada and all across the U.S.”
Sara Goering said, the faculty advisor for
the SPA.
The organizers of the student conference
accepted a total of 12 presenters, from
a variety of top schools around the country.
“It’s nice that we got such a diversity
of schools, and such good schools. M.I.T.,
Berkeley, Duke, Michigan State, Rice; these
are all great philosophy schools.” said
Daley.
The student conference also presented a
variety of different topics from the presenters,
ranging from theological discussions, to
discussion of justice, artistic genius and
self-deception, among many other topics.
“We’ve structured [the conference] just
the way the American Philosophical conferences
are structured. There is a presenter
who talks for about 30 minutes, a commentator
who talks for about 10 minutes and a broad
audience discussion.” Goering said.
For the students putting on the presentations,
the student conference provided a forum
for audience feedback. “I took part in the
conference for practice presenting, and
to get feedback on my paper. It’s really
useful to present [my ideas] to an audience
and to get fresh feedback,” Andrew Egan
said, a graduate student from Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. who did a presentation
on “Second Order Predication and the Metaphysics
of Properties.”
“It says a lot about the university that
they are willing to support what is really
just about the development of students,”
Daley said. “We’re not trying to make
a name for ourselves as a university [with
this conference]; we’re just trying to create
an atmosphere to help develop students.”
According to both the organizers and the
presenters, the conference was a success.
“I think it went very well. The people were
nice, the accommodations were nice, and
the discussions were very good,” Ian Hu
said, a graduate student from Rice University
who did a presentation on “Case by Case
Self-deception.”
The organizers of the event said that they
feel that the student conference could become
a yearly event.
“We would certainly do it again, based on
the response we got from students around
the nation,” Goering said.
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