Forrest Kelly awarded 2020 Craig Macy Endowed Scholarship in Philosophy

The Philosophy Department is pleased to announce Forest Kelly as the winner of the Craig Macy Endowed Scholarship in Philosophy for 2020. This year’s scholarship was just over $1300 and was awarded in recognition of Forest’s submitted essay, “Exploring Chinese Polygyny in Relation to Moral Code.” The essay was originally written for Forest’s class on the Philosophy of Sex and Love (PHIL 345), which he took with Dr. Xiufen Lu. Congratulations!

Adara Corbin studies at Brown and Princeton Universities

Philosophy major Adara Corbin (front left) attended SIPP@Brown in 2019, the Summer Immersion Program in Philosophy at Brown University. In the same year she also attended Compass Undergraduate Philosophy Workshop at Princeton University.

Dr. Schwartz Publishes "Spacey" Book with Oxford.

James Schwartz's book, The Value of Science in Space Exploration (Oxford University press, 2020), provides a thorough and authoritative discussion of what a "science first" approach to space policy should look like.  It is the first philosophically and epistemologically rigorous defense of the value of space science, and an instructive model for how transdisicplinary scholars should approach space exploration.

Sierra Bauman speaks at 2019 Border Conference 

Honors student Sierra Bauman presented her research on the history of philosophy and the concept of “lo Mexicano” at the 2019 Moral and Political Philosophy at the Border Conference at the University of Texas at El Paso. Bauman’s project grew out of Dr. Birondo’s course on Latin American Philosophy.

Dr. Sterrett publishes Scale Modeling entry in Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Engineering

The  Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Engineering will feature a contribution from Wichita State University’s Professor Sterrett from the Department of Philosophy.  Her chapter, "Scale Modeling" aims to provide an introduction to the foundations of the methodology and identify misconceptions that currently exist about it in philosophy of science.

Professor Sterrett has previously written articles about the significance of the methodology of experimental physical modeling to philosophy of science (“Physical Models and Fundamental Laws”, “Similarity and Dimensional Analysis”, “Physically Similar Systems: a history of the concept”, “Experimentation on Analogue Models”). 

Dr. Sterrett has also pointed out the role of scale models in history of philosophy, especially in the early work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who said he had the idea for his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (a work that discusses logic, language and science) upon reading about the use of scale models in a courtroom in Paris. (“Physical pictures: Engineering models circa 1914 and in Wittgenstein's "Tractatus"“, Wittgenstein Flies A Kite: A Story of Models of Wings and Models of the World, “Pictures, Models and Measures”)  But nobody had located the magazine article.  Recently, after a decades-long search, Professor Sterrett found a copy of a news item from a magazine published in Paris in just the right time frame, with a sketch of the lawyer using a scale model in a courtroom.  In 2018, the organizers of a special exhibition in Vienna heard about her find and contacted Professor Sterrett asking if they could feature it; many found it the most interesting part of the exhibition.  It is currently featured on the organization’s website here.

Noell Birondo publishes "What about Della Street?" in Perry Mason and Philosophy: The Case of the Awesome Attorney

The book is the newest in the Popular Culture and Philosophy series and follows on the heels of the HBO Perry Mason mini-series starring Matthew Rhys and John Lithgow. In the 1950s the Perry Mason TV show had a phenomenal success, and the original novels by Erle Stanley Gardner continue to sell thousands of copies each week.  Click here to visit the publisher's page for the book.

Courtney Minor helps develop city policy as a 2020 Battin-Lester Fellow

Philosophy major Courtney Minor was awarded a paid inaugural Battin-Lester Summer Research Fellowship to develop a policy proposal for the city of Wichita concerning corporate speech and public spaces and to present her work as part of our Constitution Day celebration.

Dr. Bondy publishes paper in Topoi

Can you disagree with yourself, the way you can disagree with other people? You might think not: after all, disagreements involve conflicting beliefs---and, while it's easy to think someone else's beliefs are wrong, it sure seems like you can't think your own beliefs are wrong without giving them up. Dr. Bondy argues, however, that disagreeing with yourself is logically possible and psychologically plausible. Intrapersonal disagreements can even be deeply rooted in conflicting fundamental frameworks for thinking about ourselves and the world around us. Fortunately, there may be (maybe!) resources that we can to bring to bear to rationally resolve such disagreements.

To find out more, read Patrick Bondy's paper, "Deeply Disagreeing with Myself: Synchronic Intrapersonal Deep Disagreements", just published in the journal Topoi (summer 2020).

Students co-author chapter on space ethics with Dr. Schwartz

Dr. Schwartz's students are publishing their work developed in his 2019 Ethics of Space Exploration course: 

"A Space Settler's Bill of Rights"  Authors (in order): Russell Greenall-Sharp, David Kobza, Courtney Houston, Mohammad Allabbad, Jamie Staggs, James S.J. Schwartz. Forthcoming in Astrobiology Ethics, edited by Octavio Chon Torres, Joseph Seckbach, Richard Gordon, and Ted Peters, Wiley-Scrivener 2021.

Dr. Castro Blogs for the APA

Susan Castro posts "Engendering Algorithmic Oppression" for the Women in Philosophy section of the Blog of the APA (American Philosophical Association). Drawing on 2020 current events and a growing body of work on algorithmic oppression, Dr. Castro defines "algorithmic oppression" and describes some of the ways in which current practices and ideology contribute to race, gender, and economic oppression.