Chair’s letters to alumni

February 3, 2007
July 26, 2006
November 10, 2005
March 3, 2005
August 20, 2004
November 25, 2003

February 3, 2007                        

Dear Alumni and Friends,

I write with an invitation, and updates about the philosophy department at Boston University.

First, the invitation: we are once again sponsoring the Karbank Symposium in Environmental Philosophy.  The program is an exciting one, and we would be delighted if you would join us for it.  Here are the details:

Nature and the Good Life
Friday, March 9, 2007, Photonics Center, Colloquium Room 9th Floor, 8 Saint Mary's Street
Moderator: Simon Keller, Boston University

10:00 a.m.-noon
David Schmidtz, University of Arizona, Saving the Elephants
Respondent: Ronald Sandler, Northeastern University

1:30-3:30 p.m.
Nick Zangwill, University of Oxford, Clouds of Illusion in the Aesthetics of Nature
Respondent: Amelie Rorty, Harvard University

3:45-5:45 p.m.
Felicia N. Ackerman, Brown University, Nature vs. the Tragedy of Emma Faust Tillman's Death.
Respondent: Charles Griswold, Boston University

For the earlier Karbank symposia, please see www.bu.edu/philo/colloquia/index.html.

Things in the department go well.  Enrollments are robust, the teaching program offers new courses (from environmental philosophy to my seminar this semester on Rousseau to a team taught course on utilitarianism).  Both undergraduate and graduate philosophy associations are very active.  The former hopes to launch and undergraduate philosophy journal, for example, and the latter is sponsoring a stimulating series of faculty presentations that provide another opportunity for discussion.  The Friday ethics reading group has been a huge addition; this last week, for example, David Velleman (NYU, philosophy) joined us for a lively exchange about a chapter of his forthcoming book. 

You may read all about these and other updates on our completely revamped website!  If you’ve ever tried radically upgrading a website, you will appreciate the amount of work involved.  We are delighted with the results, and hope not to do it again for a good long while. 

The department continues its search for new faculty.  Our senior offer last spring to Professor Sharon Lloyd (University of Southern California) was not accepted, unfortunately, so we are looking at the junior level this year, and may make more than one appointment.  Several of our graduate students are themselves on the market, and the results so far are extremely encouraging (with many interviews, including for tenure track positions at such places as Yale, Toronto, Marquette, Guelph, York University, University of Kentucky, among many others).

The faculty’s productivity is at an all time high.  Among other notable achievements, books by four philosophy faculty--Alisa Bokulich, Charles Griswold, Jaakko Hintikka, and Simon Keller--are being published by Cambridge University Press in 2007.  The titles are, respectively, Correspondences, Structures, and the Classical Limit; Forgiveness: a Philosophical Exploration; Socratic Epistemology; and The Limits of Loyalty.  CUP is widely regarded as one of the best presses in the field.

On other matters, at my urging the philosophy department is making every effort to save energy, conserve resources, and minimize waste.  All departmental computers, monitors, and printers are shut off at night; the 'last one out' turns off the lights; all incandescent lights have been replaced with low energy use fluorescent lights; and faculty have agreed to use the internet to disseminate class materials.  Paper recycling baskets have been placed in all offices, and a reminder sent out concerning plastic and glass recycling bins in the basement of the building.  We are in discussion with university officials about installing timers on all lights and storm windows, as well as about affordable recycled paper for the photocopier. 

I am very pleased to announce that we received a gift of $150,000. for the establishment of the “Excellence in Philosophical Studies Fund.”  This endowed fund will, as it grows over time, help us to support the scholarly endeavors of our students.  This is a much needed step, and we hope to take more.

This year’s departmental Commencement will include remarks by Don Howard (CLA
’69).  You may recall his wonderful letter about his BU experience, available at www.bu.edu/philo/alumni/letters.html).  We look forward eagerly to his speech, and I invite you to send me letters about your philosophy experience at BU for posting on the website.

Please keep up with the department by consulting our website, and if we don’t have your current email and mailing address, please send it to us (you’ll see how on the “alumni” page of our website).  We’d very much like to “go paperless” in these departmental messages to you!  Incidentally, this letter may be found at www.bu.edu/philo/alumni/index.html, along with the earlier letters from the department Chair.

Very best wishes,

Charles Griswold
Philosophy Department Chair
Boston University

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July 26, 2006                       

Dear friends,

I write to you with an update about developments in the Philosophy Department at Boston University.  We had a busy, and productive, year.  Over 1,500 students were enrolled in philosophy courses during the Spring 2006 semester, and there were 219 declared majors and 36 minors.

Let me start with the end: Commencement.  The Department’s Undergraduate Commencement ceremonies went very well, in spite of heavy rain, and thanks in great part to the splendid efforts of the Department’s staff, Kristina Nies and Karen Adams.  Tian Yu Cao and Jennifer Sichel delivered the faculty and student addresses respectively (both are posted at www.bu.edu/philo/alumni/).  I served as master of ceremonies, Aaron Garrett read the names of graduating students, and David Roochnik helped hand out the degrees.  Professors Hopp, Kestenbaum, and Kuehn were also in attendance.  The reception in the SMG atrium following the ceremony was lively.  We awarded 58 undergraduate degrees this year.
           
For the first time, a gift was presented to each and every graduating student (those unable to attend Commencement were asked to pick up their copy in the Department): a copy of the handsome hardback edition of Hume’s Essays Moral, Political, and Literary.  I inscribed each volume with the student’s name and a message of congratulation.  This gift was made possible by Steve Karbank (class of  ‘79; for information about Steve, see www.bu.edu/philo/alumni/index.html).  It is hoped that this will become a yearly event.

Prizes were awarded at commencement on May 14, 2006 to the following students:

* Grant Engel - The Peter M. Nelson Memorial Award for distinguished Work by a Junior
* Melissa Vise - The Matchette Prize for excellence in Philosophy
* Shannon White - Robert S. Cohen award in Interdisciplinary Studies
* Annie Turner - The John N. Findlay Award
* Frederick Nitsch and Christopher Payne - The Peter A. Bertocci award for Philosophical Excellence
* Jennifer Sichel - The College Prize for excellence in Philosophy

In addition, Frederick Nitsch won the Alumni Association Awards for Writing Excellence – Humanities Division and Elay Shech won the Humanities Foundation Award

The accomplishments of our majors and minors were many.  Let me mention that four seniors—Frederick W. Nitsch, Christopher M. Payne, Erik A. Richardson, and Shannon M. White—completed Work for Distinction projects; and that five of our graduating seniors were elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa (Frederick Nitsch, Christopher Payne, Annie Turner, Melissa Vise and Shannon White).  I also note that three of our concentrators were invited to give presentations at conferences, and were supported by the department.  They were:

* Julie Ackerman, North Georgia Student Philosophy Conference, March 30-February 2,
"Schopenhauer's Idealism and the Buddhist Doctrine of Two Truths"

* Patrick Cox, North Georgia Student Philosophy Conference, March 30-February 2,
"The Role of Each Moral Activity Presented by Murdoch in a More Definitive Moral Philosophy”

* Ariella Gogol, Mid-South Undergraduate Philosophy Conference in Memphis, TN, February
 23-26, "Philosophy and Human Nature"

The Undergraduate Philosophy Association pursued an ambitious agenda, thanks in part to the enthusiastic leadership of Elay Shech as President, Nicole Norman as Vice President, Ted Stinson as Treasurer, and Shannon White as Secretary).  It organized—in addition to an evening conversation with Professor David Roochnik which was attended by about 50 people—two senior thesis presentations (by Shannon White on the “Ethics of Genetic Engineering,” and by Erik Richardson on “Kierkegaard and Death”) and discussions.  It also formed plans for activities in the coming academic year, which include three faculty presentations (by Professors Keller, Hopp and, perhaps Oxenberg), weekly informal philosophy discussions, and launching a journal – Arche -- which will (it is hoped) be published once each semester.  The Philosophy Film Club, which is organized and maintained by a philosophy graduate student (Shai Biderman), met continuously throughout the year.  Attendance was excellent by both graduate and undergraduate students.

One of the happy events of the year was the creation of meeting and study space for undergraduate majors and minors in the heart of the department (STH 536A).  Furnished with comfortable seating and a new computer connected to the ethernet, it slowly became a work and meeting place for our students.  We hope many more will use it in the years ahead.

Some information about the destinations of several of this year’s graduates:

* Melissa Caunt will be entering the MA program at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

* Jared Miller will enter the PhD program in Philosophy at Emory.

* Sarah E. Lane was accepted to the Mater of Public Health (MPH) program at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, entering fall 2006.

* Andrew Perkins is enrolled in the Masters in the Arts of Teaching Program at Boston University and will begin attending classes this summer, hoping to teach epistemology, philosophy and history under the International Baccalaureate Program Secondary Education.

* Jennifer Sichel was accepted (with full Fellowship support) in the MA program in Fine Arts at Williams College.

* Harbir Singh will be attending Penn State University’s Hershey Medical Campus to obtain the MD, and concurrently will be commencing a part-time three-year graduate level leadership and educational program in Humanist philosophy sponsored by The Humanist Institute (www.humanistinstitute.org/hi-brochure.html), with scholarship support.

* Alejandro Strong will go to the MA program in philosophy at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, starting September 2006.

* Annie Turner, a joint concentrator in philosophy and English, was accepted into Columbia Law School J.D. Program, entering fall 2006.

* Melissa Vise was offered a summer research Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame.  Prior to beginning the Master of Theological Studies Program in the fall on full funding, she will also be taking a month to attend the University of Vienna’s International summer Program in German Language and Modern European Studies in the Salzkammergut.

* Clifford Whitehead will go to Indiana University Law School in Indianapolis.

The Graduate Student Commencement was also busy and well attended.  The PhD degree was awarded to Bret Doyle, Barry Gilbert, Khalil Habib, Montgomery Link, Edward Richards, Mary Troxell, and James Wood.  In May of 2005, Nir Eisikovits and Charles Lowney were awarded the PhD, and January 2005 PhD degrees were conferred upon Maria Granik, Mirja Hartimo, Mark Nyvlt, and David Shikiar.  MA degrees were awarded, this year and last, to Matthew Schoolfield, Robert France, and Steve Kim.

We have completed our compilation of placement data of PhD graduates of the program from the last 15 years and will be posting it over the summer on the Web.  An initial analysis of that data suggests that the Department has a good deal to be proud of in terms of its overall placement record: of 82 Ph.D.'s, 70 have found positions in teaching or academic administration, 18 of those in tenured university or college positions, 28 in tenure track positions at colleges or universities, and 22 in instructorships or other university adjunct positions.

The Department’s already strong placement efforts will be furthered this coming year by a new two semester placement seminar, required of every student going on the market.  The seminar will count as one of the Placement Director’s courses.  The graduate curriculum is under review once again: the comprehensive examination structure will be replaced by some other form of assessment; a new seminar for all and only first year students will be instituted; the foreign language requirements emended; and official encouragement for graduate students to attend colloquia reaffirmed.

The list of recent professional achievements by current graduate students is pages long—these include invited talks and commentaries; Fellowships, grants, and honors; and publications.  Because of its length, I will not reproduce it here.  Some of these achievements are mentioned on our website, and more will appear as we update the relevant pages.  Allow me to mention just three achievements in a distinguished list:

* Timothy Brownlee won the Humanities Foundation Award 2006, and also “Second Prize for a Graduate Student Essay in English” for his paper delivered at the Canadian Philosophical Association’s Annual Congress at York University, Toronto, June 1, 2006 entitled “Hegel’s Concept of Moral Evil” (this is an annual award, and the highest award for graduate students in Canada).

* Iskra Fileva was winner of a Graduate Student Stipend awarded by the American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division), Dec. 2005, for travel to the APA to present “The Neutrality of Rightness and the Indexicality of Goodness: Beyond Objectivity and Back Again."

* Jamie Kelly won the Humanities Foundation Award 2006

* Matthew Meyer was winner of a Graduate Student Stipend awarded by the American Philosophical Association (Central Division), April 2004, for travel to the APA to present “The Unity of Opposites and Nietzsche’s Tragic Philosophy.”

Funding for graduate students has never been better (though we would like for it to improve further).  All students have at least four years of full funding; many have a fifth.  The Earhart Foundation is currently awarding six Fellowships a year to our students (on the recommendation of Professors Griswold and Rosen); the Center for Philosophy and History of Science awards a graduate Fellowship; and summer funding is now awarded, upon application, by the Department.

The Philosophy Graduate Student Organization was ably and energetically headed by Gal Kober and Hege Finholt.  The list of its activities too is so rich as to be impractical to reproduce here (again, our website will soon reflect it).  The level of intellectual interaction among the graduate students is extraordinary.

We were very pleased to finalize the creation of meeting and study space for graduate students.

Several newly renovated rooms in the department are set aside for Teaching Fellows and graduate students, making a major contribution to the quality of education at both graduate and undergraduate students.  In addition, difficulties in the use of Mugar library carrels were solved.

Thanks to the financial support of several donors (in particular, Stephen Halliwell and Steve Karbank) and the College, the Department was able to renovate its colloquium and seminar room (STH 525), as well as to create a very attractive new library (the new Matchette library).  Many of our seminars are held in these rooms, leading to increased interaction among faculty, students, and between the two groups.  We are also able, for the first time, to hold receptions following a colloquium (indeed, we are able to hold a colloquium on our floor without a battle to reserve space!).  Next time you’re on campus, wander up to the fifth floor and check out these new facilities.

***

As to the faculty: Walter Hopp and Peter Bokulich joined the Department as Assistant Professors (the latter’s appointment is split with the Writing Program and the Center for Philosophy and History of Science).  Aaron Garret and Allen Speight were promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor, with tenure.  David Roochnik was promoted to Full Professor at the start of the academic year, and Juliet Floyd was promoted to Full Professor effective Sept. 1, 2006.  Edwin Delattre was promoted to Professor Emeritus, effective Sept. 6, 2006; we will be very sorry to see Ed retire from the faculty!

Our John Findlay Visiting Professor during Fall 2005 was Alan White (Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University).  He is Mark Hopkins Professor of Philosophy at Williams College.  His areas include Hegel, Schelling, Nietzsche, and the intersection of "continental" and "analytic" philosophy.  The Findlay Visiting Professor during Fall 2006 is Anat Biletski (Ph.D. Tel Aviv University); she normally teaches philosophy at Tel Aviv University.  Her areas include Wittgenstein, Hobbes, human rights, philosophy of language, philosophy of religion.  She was also a Fellow of the Center for Philosophy and History of Science during the Spring 2006 semester.  Susan James (University of London) accepted our offer as Findlay Visiting Professor for Fall 2008.

It is with great sadness that we received the news of Lee Rouner’s death, our colleague and friend of over three decades (please see www.bu.edu/ipr/news/index.html).  A Memorial Service was held at Marsh Chapel in February, and plans are afoot to remember Lee with an endowment for the Institute for Philosophy and Religion, which he ran for some three decades.

Abner Shimony was honored by the creation of a fund in his name, endowed by gifts from several former students.  The Abner Shimony Prize Fund will provide for an award to the best graduate student paper in the philosophy of science or environmental philosophy.  The first award went to MA student Lori Pohl, for “Having it Both Ways: Can Science be Both Interested and Disinterested and Still be Science?”  The Fund, whose principal currently stands at $13,000, seeks to triple its size; contributions of any size are very welcome indeed.

The number and quality of books, articles, Fellowships, prizes, honors, speaking invitations, and other professional activities (including manuscript refereeing) produced or conducted by the faculty of this Department is astonishing.   Once again, it is impossible to list them all here.  I do  want to mention that Professor Jaakko Hintikka received the Rolf Schock prize in logic and philosophy in 2005; this is often thought of as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in philosophy (and is also given by the Royal Swedish Academy).  In addition, a nearly 1,000 page book of essays devoted to his thought, with his replies to distinguished critics, was published by the Library of Living Philosophers (Open Court).  The roster of persons to whom those volumes have been devoted range from Albert Einstein to Donald Davidson.  Three philosophy colleagues (Floyd, Garrett, Webb) contributed to the volume.

We conducted an international search, open rank and open area, to fill a faculty position, and made a senior offer to Sharon Lloyd (University of Southern California).  Regrettably, due to personal reasons, she was unable to accept.  We expect to search again during the coming academic year.

Other departmental activities included the fourth Karbank Symposium in Environmental Philosophy (www.bu.edu/philo/environ/index.html).  Under the leadership of Simon Keller, and with the support of both the Department and the Boston University Humanities Foundation, the new Friday Ethics Group met several times a month to discuss work in ethics (some unpublished, some not).  In several cases, the author was able to join the group.  The meetings were well attended by faculty and graduate students.  Under the leadership of Aaron Garrett, Director of Graduate Studies, frequent get-togethers were held, with faculty and graduate students invited.  These were much appreciated by all those attending as providing occasions for interaction.  The Department held several receptions for students and faculty as well.

The list of other Colloquia, Symposiums & Conferences hosted by the Philosophy Department is extensive.  Let me mention three:

    * May 5-7, 2006 - The 40th Annual North American Heidegger Conference
    * April 28-29, 2006 – The 3rd Annual Meetings of the Eastern Study Group of the North American Kant Society
    * March 30, 2006 – Karbank Symposium in Environmental Philosophy

In addition, we continued to participate in the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy.  The Institute for Philosophy and Religion had another excellent, and vigorous, year.  Its topic was “evil.”  Under the leadership of Fred Tauber, the Center for Philosophy and History of Science conducted its renowned Colloquium, and also supported both a Visiting Professor program and a Fellowship for graduate students.  The Center benefited from very substantial funding by a donor.  The Department’s Friday Colloquia also enriched our program of in-house and visiting speakers.  These colloquia provide to our students a tremendous opportunity for philosophical education.

***

This was in many ways a year of self-examination for the Department.  We invested a large amount of time and effort this year in reviewing all aspects of our operations and culture.  The results were, in part, documented in a lengthy Self-study Report submitted to the Dean in the Spring semester.  No doubt the coming year will bring more of the same.

Several things though will not change, including the Department’s commitment to both excellent teaching and to preparing excellent teachers; to “pluralism,” understood as the representation of various (often competing) ways and methods of approaching our discipline; and to an end-of-the-day focus on the “big questions” of philosophy—those Socratic questions that drew us into philosophy in the first place!

Please keep up with the department by consulting our website, which will undergo a face lift and re-organization this summer.

In order to continue growing, we do need much greater financial support, internal and external, for better funded and competitive graduate and undergraduate student stipends; summer funding; and endowed student Fellowships and faculty Chairs.  The Karbank Challenge has been a boon to the Department, and remains open.  We are hopeful that friends of the Department will continue to offer us their support, as well as counsel, as we move forward.

Have a wonderful summer, and keep in touch!

Very best wishes,

Charles Griswold
Philosophy Department Chair
Boston University

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November 10, 2005

Dear Philosophy Graduate:

Greetings to you from the Philosophy Department!  As we approach the end of the fall semester, I’m writing to fill you in on the department’s recent accomplishments.  We have things to share with you to that end; exciting news, changes within the department, and ways for you to become involved in achieving our goals.

When I last wrote to you in the spring, we were in the midst of recruiting new faculty.  Today I am happy to report that we have hired two outstanding new faculty members who have both joined us as Assistant Professors.  

* Dr. Walter Hopp received his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. He brings to the department expertise in phenomenology, epistemology and philosophy of mind.  Dr. Hopp will be teaching introductory courses, such as Introduction to Ethics and Reasoning and Argumentation (no doubt these are familiar to many of you from your own undergraduate days) as well as a variety of advanced level courses in phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and the history of philosophy.

* Dr. Peter Bokulich will add to our strengths in the philosophy of physics. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame, and has spent time in Boston at M.I.T. as a post-doctoral fellow at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology.  I am also thrilled to report that Dr. Bokulich has been appointed Associate Director of BU’s Center for the Philosophy and History of Science. His research focuses on the ontology of the material world; in particular the metaphysics of causation and reduction.  He is also very much interested in the mind-body problem, a problem with a long history that you may have first learned of in your History of Ancient Philosophy course when discussing Aristotle’s analysis of the relationship between the soul and the body in On the Soul.

Our efforts to fill a senior position in the department continue.  We will be sure to update you as to any new appointments as they take place.

I’m appreciative for this opportunity to update you on the work of our many outstanding students.  May’s Commencement was, as always, truly delightful.  It is wonderful to meet the parents and loved ones of the graduating students, particularly because many of our graduating students earned various distinctions within their class.  Apart from the annual Philosophy Department awards and prizes, our students were recognized at May’s Commencement exercises in several ways:

* Two philosophy students in the class of 2006, Julie Ackerman and Frederick Nitsch, received a Humanities Foundation Award for senior undergraduates.

* Matthew Batterton, Jared Miller, Stepen Miran, and Jennifer Rosenberg, all philosophy majors, were elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa this year.

* Several philosophy graduates received graduation awards from the College of Arts and Sciences:

* Adam Marushak: CAS/GRS Alumni Association Award for Writing Excellence in the Humanities
* Stepen Miran:  Excellence in Economics Award
* Jared Miller:  The Warren O. Ault Prize for Outstanding Academic Achievement in History

I am also happy to report another exciting achievement on the part of our students:  The papers of three of our graduates, Adam Marushak, Jared Miller, and Aaron Wilson, were accepted by the First National Undergraduate Student Conference at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.  Only fifteen papers were accepted for that conference from students nationwide, and the fact that three of those were submitted and presented by our students is truly a remarkable achievement!

Please visit our website (www.bu.edu/philo) for the names of graduates who received the annual Philosophy Department Awards; you can also read the speeches that were given at the Philosophy Department graduation ceremony (http://www.bu.edu/philo/alumni/). The speech given by our Student Speaker, Jared Miller was outstanding, and the speech given by our Alumni Speaker, Steven M. Karbank, was particularly noteworthy as just the day before he hadreceived the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Arts and Sciences.  Steven has been a generous benefactor and sponsor of the philosophy department for several years, and helped us revive and develop our ties to our alumni.  Steven’s support, both tangible and intangible, has been vital to the growth of the department; his generosity has helped to defray the cost of our new departmental library, and we were able to organize two very successful conferences on the environment to date.

The department’s space has undergone significant renovation this year.  These renovations were made possible by the generosity of Sam Hallowell, CAS ’70, who responded to the Challenge established by Steven Karbank in making his gift.  The Machette Library has moved from its old location into space once occupied by faculty offices. The results of the renovation are first-class and very comfortable, with new bookshelves, computers, and furniture.  The old library has been converted into much needed faculty office space.  We are indeed grateful to Mr. Hallowell and to Mr. Karbank for their generosity has brought about this important addition to the department’s facilities.  Please see the last page of this newsletter for recent changes to terms of the Challenge Fund, and for more information on how you can help and directly impact the work we do here.     

As always, we hope you will have an opportunity to drop by campus and the department, to see for yourself how things are progressing.  We would also be delighted to see you at any of the lectures this spring (or, of course, in the future).  For information on lecture dates and times, please visit our website, http://www.bu.edu/philo/events/events.html, or feel free to call the department at (617) 353-2571.  And whether you live near or far, we are eager to hear from you and learn of your doings since graduating from Boston University. We would be very pleased to be able to include your news in future letters to our alumni. You can reach Dr. Griswold, who has resumed his chairmanship after a year’s sabbatical, by e-mail at griswold@bu.edu or, if you prefer traditional mail, at the address on this letter.

If you know of philosophy alumni who are not on our mailing list, do let us know.  And in this age of electronic communications, it is also very helpful to have e-mail addresses.  If the alumni office doesn’t already have yours, please send it to them at casalum@bu.edu, or directly to us at casphilo@bu.edu.

Wishing you all the best,

Yours cordially,

Klaus Brinkmann
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Associate Chairman

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March 3, 2005

Dear alumni,

As we approach mid-term in the Spring 2005 semester, I want to take a few moments to send you greetings and bring you up to date on the life of the Philosophy Department. With Professor Griswold on sabbatical for the year, I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you as the department’s acting chairman.

Last Fall we welcomed to our ranks the highly distinguished Kant scholar Manfred Kuehn, and we look forward to greeting two new colleagues next year.  Professor Kuehn succeeds the internationally renowned Kant scholar Henry Allison who upon his retirement from Boston University was appointed Professor Emeritus. Searches are underway for a senior appointment in the area of modern philosophy and a junior appointment in phenomenology and/or continental philosophy. These new faculty will replace Knud Haakonssen, who has departed for a position at Sussex University, England, and Alfredo Ferrarin who has joined the faculty of the University of Pisa, Italy. We are pleased, though, that Professors Haakonssen and Ferrarin will continue to be affiliated with our department as adjunct professors.

Our faculty continue to be productive scholars. To mention only the recent book publications from among the numerous other contributions by philosophy department faculty:

• Tian Y. Cao, Ontology, Structures and Constructions (Tsinghua University Press: 2004) (in Chinese)
• Jaakko Hintikka, Analyses of Aristotle. Selected Papers vol. VI (Kluwer Academic Publishers: 2004)
• David Roochnik, Retrieving the Ancients: An Introduction to Greek Philosophy (Blackwell: 2004)
• Stanley Rosen, The Web of Politics, French translation (J. Vrin: 2004)
• Stanley Rosen, The Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, 2nd edition (Yale University Press: 2004).

We are also proud of the accomplishments of our graduates. Elisabeta Sarca was awarded this year’s Matchette Prize for the best graduate student paper. The title of her paper was “Cross-World Identity in Leibniz and Kripke”. Please see our website for the many activities of our graduate students’ workshops. I will have more news on the accomplishments of our undergraduates in our next letter when I will be able to report on our graduation ceremonies.

The current semester promises to be a full one.  The finalists in our two searches have already visited the campus, meet with faculty and students and gave talks.  As a follow-up to last spring’s conference on philosophy and the environment, we plan to be hosting two scholars-in-residence, who will each spend a number of days here; in addition to giving public lectures, they will be guest speakers in my class on ethics and the environment as well as in other classes with related topics, and will meet with students. Kenneth Winkler, Professor of Philosophy at Wellesley College, who joined us for the semester as the Findlay Visiting Professor, is teaching two courses and delivered the annual Findlay Lecture. His topic was “Nature and Evil”, and a central issue in his talk was the question of how to justify attributing intrinsic value to forms of life other than human life. And of course, the annual lecture series of both the Center for the Philosophy and History of Science and the Institute for Philosophy and Religion continue in the Spring semester.

Meanwhile, we continue to be in the process of enlarging our quarters.  As you may recall from the previous update, we now occupy the entire fifth floor of the School of Theology building, along with some additional space on the floors directly above and below.  Our philosophy majors now have a room of their own for those informal interactions that are so important a part of a good education. We thank Mr. Brad Manson for his recent gift to the department which we will use towards making the undergraduate lounge a welcoming place. And thanks to the generosity of alumnus Sam Hallowell, who generously responded to the Karbank Challenge, we will soon have a new departmental library and seminar room. The Karbank Family Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City contributed magnificently towards the Karbank Challenge. Our colleague Edwin Delattre and his wife Alice likewise responded with great generosity to the Karbank Challenge by making two significant contributions to the department’s Gift Fund. Finally, I am extremely pleased to inform you that Dr. Hideo Itabashi (CAS 49, MED 54) has again made an annual gift to the department’s Bertocci Fund which we use to award fellowships and prizes in recognition of excellent achievements of our graduate students.

We hope you will have an opportunity at some point to drop by the department and see for yourself how things are progressing.  We would also be delighted to see you at any of the lectures this Spring or in future semesters.  (For information on dates and times, you can check our website, www.bu.edu/philo, or call the department at 617/353-2571.)  And whether you live near or far, we are eager to hear from you and learn of your doings since graduating from Boston University. I would be very pleased to be able to include your news in future letters to our alumni. You can reach me by e-mail at brinkman@bu.edu, or if you prefer traditional mail, at the address on this letter.

If you know of philosophy alumni who are not on our mailing list, do let us know.  And in this age of electronic communications, it is also helpful to have e-mail addresses.  If the alumni office doesn’t already have yours, you can send it to them at casalum@bu.edu, or directly to us at casphilo@bu.edu.

Wishing you all the best,

Yours cordially,

Klaus Brinkmann
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Acting Chairman

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August 20, 2004

Dear Philosophy Graduate:

It has been a busy and productive year for Philosophy at Boston University, and now that summer is well under way and things have calmed down a bit, I write with a second update about recent developments in the Department.

Since I last wrote to you in November, you have received (or should have received!) a card inviting you to a conference on environmental ethics held here in April. It was a delight to welcome numerous alumni back to campus. Environmental ethics addresses some of the most pressing problems of our times, and we were very pleased to revive this long standing area of interest in the department. In past years, the subject was often taught and discussed here, thanks to Erazim Kohak and Michael Martin. With their departures, environmental ethics was taught and discussed less frequently. With the conference such a success, we hope to reinvigorate a more active program on environmental ethics.

The conference was unique in combining several aims, as you see from the description of the conference on the department’s web site (www.bu.edu/philo). It included leading philosophers (such as Sheldon Krimsky, an alumnus of the Philosophy Department) who have written on the subject, as well as activists and businesspeople who have been deeply involved in environmental issues. A roundtable at the end brought together these different perspectives. The conference was carefully integrated into a course on applied ethics taught by our recent recruit Simon Keller. About eighty students from Simon’s course attended the conference. Philosophy graduate students served as commentators, and did a brilliant job. Student involvement, in other words, was high. Simon joined us from Princeton two years ago, and will be on leave at Harvard’s Center for Ethics and the Professions next year writing a book on “love.” He hopes to contribute to our next environmental conference, expected to take place in the Spring of 2005 (we will send you a notice about it, and hereby invite you to attend). Klaus Brinkmann will teach a course on environmental ethics in the spring, and it will be integrated into the next symposium.

This conference was funded by Steven Karbank, who graduated from Boston University in 1979 with a double major in philosophy and psychology. Gifts to the department made as a result of his “Challenge Gift” (described on our web site) will help us greatly in the future both with respect to environmental studies and other departmental initiatives. We are deeply grateful to both Steve, and to alumni who rose to the Challenge (so to speak), for their support.

Other major news? Commencement was a success, by all counts, with some 90 students graduating this Spring. The faculty and student addresses were very well received, and the SMG auditorium (which holds over 300 people) was jammed. The faculty address by Peter Schwartz and the student address by Brad Berman are available for your perusal on our Commencement address page: http://www.bu.edu/philo/commencement/archives.html. You will see that it also includes student and faculty addresses from previous years, as well as other information that may interest you. In particular, you will find an essay by Erazim Kohak (Emeritus Professor of Philosophy) reflecting on his years at Boston University (he discusses such figures as Bowne, Brightman, Bertocci, Findlay, MacIntyre, Wartofsky, and Cohen). We are adding to it all the time, so do stay tuned. If you have any suggestions for improving the page, or making it more useful to you, please let me know.

Recruiting outstanding faculty is an ongoing and essential project. This May, Henry Allison, one of our best known colleagues retired. We spent a good part of the year search for a replacement, and were very fortunate in landing Manfred Kuehn as Professor of Philosophy. He will join the department in September of 2004. Dr. Kuehn is widely recognized, on both sides of the Atlantic, as one of the leading scholars of Kant’s philosophy as the expert on the impact of Scottish philosophy and particularly Thomas Reid, the German Enlightenment, and the Scottish influence on German philosophy. He has published in such highly regarded journals and collections as Kant-Studien, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Hume Studies, The Columbia History of Western Philosophy, and The Cambridge Companion to Kant. More recently, Professor Kuehn has further and, indeed, definitively reshaped the study of Kant’s philosophy with his Immanuel Kant: An Intellectual Biography, first published by Cambridge University Press in English. The German translation of Professor Kuehn’s biography represents a rare example of a work of considerable erudition that has captured the popular imagination as well. It is a national best-seller in Germany has been reviewed very positively. (It is coming out in a number of other languages as well.) We are delighted that such a superb scholar will be joining our faculty.

We are also pleased to note that Kenneth P. Winkler will join the department as Findlay Visiting Professor in Spring 2005. He is Class of 1919 50th Reunion Professor of Philosophy at Wellesley College and specializes in modern philosophy, particularly British thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He is the editor of the Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, about whom he has also produced a classic monograph, is the current editor of Hume Studies, and has published extensively on seventeenth and eighteenth century philosophy.

Among our current faculty, Tian Yu Cao has accepted an offer from the Director of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study of a joint membership in the School of Natural Sciences and the School of Historical Studies for the academic year 2004/05. These memberships will permit him to complete his historical and conceptual study of quantum chromodynamics, which is an important component of the “standard model” (the unified framework for describing the interaction of all subatomic particles) and provides a theoretical underpinning for understanding the strong nuclear force. He has also been awarded a coveted Neugebauer Fellowship by the Neugebauer Committee of the School of Historical Study at the Institute for Advanced Study.

Your faithful correspondent has accepted a Fellowship from the Stanford Humanities Center for the 2004/05 academic year to write a book tentatively entitled “Philosophy and its Discontents: on Reconciliation with Imperfection.” During May 2004, I served as Professeur invité à l’Université de Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne). The perspective on the USA that my conversations with students and faculty there provided gave me lots to think about.

More information about the faculty is available on the news page of the department web site. As I mentioned last time I wrote, we would welcome your messages, and look forward to being in touch. As you know, you will find faculty email addresses on the Department’s web site, located under “Faculty.”
As I have now shared with you some of the ways we have been growing intellectually, it is fitting to announce that the department is also growing physically. The University has allocated substantial new office space for the department (for those of you who can summon up the details of the School of Theology: we’ll have the rest of the fifth floor, and parts of the fourth and sixth floors). What this means is that, among things, we can put aside space for undergraduate majors and minors in which to work, talk to each other and the faculty, and generally make the department their home. We will also have additional space for graduate students. This might appear to be a mundane development; but it is in fact important to creating the sort of intellectual community we envision. One challenge will be to find the funding necessary to renovate the space fully.

We have taken a very good step in that direction thanks to CAS graduate Sam Hallowell (class of 1970). He has pledged $25,000 to fund the renovation of the space that will become the departmental library and seminar room. His pledge was motivated in part by the Karbank Challenge. Sam is deeply interested in the liberal arts, and in philosophy in particular. He spoke at the Karbank environmental ethics conference (mentioned above). There remain other such opportunities in connection with the full renovation of the department’s space.

Please let us have your current email and mailing address. You can update your contact information by sending an email to casalum@bu.edu (please include your name and year of graduation, and indicate whether the email address that you are supplying will reach you at home or at your business). If you prefer, you can send this information to the department as well (casphilo@bu.edu). Thank you.

I hope your summer is going well!

Yours cordially,

Charles Griswold
Professor and Chairman

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November 25, 2003

Dear Philosophy Graduate:

I write today to share with you exciting news about Boston University's Philosophy Department. It is a privilege to count you among our alumni, and one of my priorities as chairman is to communicate with you more effectively about our accomplishments, our plans for growth, and the vibrant intellectual community we're building. In turn, I invite you to communicate with us by telling the Department where you are and how best to reach you (see below).

First and foremost, I want you to know that the Department is thriving. Last year, we had 234 majors and 50 minors, and each semester more than 1,500 undergraduates enroll in our courses. On the graduate level, we have had an unusually high number of applicants for seats in this fall's program—a total of 228, from which we accepted nine doctoral students and one Masters student. Our graduates at both levels go on to admirable careers. Those impressive numbers stand as testimony to our faculty's stature, both in and out of the classroom. Teaching remains a top priority for the Department. At the same time, in the last decade we have hired a number of extraordinarily productive faculty who continue the Department's tradition of excellence in research. That excellence rebounds to the benefit of the teaching program. The number and quality of publications produced by the philosophy faculty here is phenomenal.

Indeed, our faculty routinely garners awards and distinctions. Two of my colleagues were honored last year with awards that deserve particular mention. Alisa Bokulich received a coveted National Science Foundation Scholars Award, which will support her research for a new book on the philosophy of physics. And Juliet Floyd was awarded fellowships by four prestigious grantors: the American Philosophical Society, the Stanford Humanities Center, the Fulbright Commission, and the American Academy in Berlin. She intends to complete a book on the philosophy of logic and mathematics.

While proud of the accomplishments of our recently arrived as well as longer term colleagues, we have also felt, in recent years, the loss of several faculty to retirement. You may well recall them: Bob Cohen (who retains his office on the hallway, and participates regularly in the Department's colloquia); Bernard Elevitch (who lives in Boston, and visits the Department from time to time); Erazim Kohak (who returned to his native Prague, where he teaches and writes prolifically); and Abner Shimony (also in the area, and involved in activities at B.U.). This year, Lee Rouner insisted on his long-postponed (and by the rest of us, long-dreaded!) retirement after thirty-four wonderful years on the faculty. He delivered a stirring farewell address at the Department's Commencement exercises in May. We will miss him very much indeed, though we're gratified that the Institute for Philosophy and Religion will continue under the stewardship of Professor of Religion David Eckel, just as the Center for Philosophy and History of Science has continued under the guidance of Professor Fred Tauber. The colloquia series of both the Institute and Center will remain a vibrant center for student and faculty discussion.

Would you be interested in being in touch with any of your former (or the current) faculty? If so, you will find their email address (where one exists) on the Department's web site, www.bu.edu/philo, located under "Faculty". You are warmly invited to page through the site; it contains extensive information about what we've been up to since you graduated.

You will see, for example, that we have hired outstanding faculty not only to replace those who have retired, but also to add to the Department's strengths. Among the new positions in the Department is the John N. Findlay Visiting Professorship. This year we welcome distinguished philosopher Philip J. Ivanhoe, who joins us as Findlay Visiting Professor. He is an expert in Asian philosophy as well as Western ethics—one of the very few philosophers trained to work in both areas. The Department's tradition of taking very different ways of approaching the discipline seriously continues.

Our international connections run deep. Many of our colleagues write about one or another aspect of European philosophy, and we are affiliated with an immensely successful institute run by one of our colleagues, Krzysztof Michalski. The Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (located in a beautiful building in central Vienna) continues to provide an extraordinary opportunity for our students. Fellowships are offered on a competitive basis, and are funded by the Institute and Boston University. We typically send several students to study in Vienna every semester. The Institute runs an exciting series of seminars (mostly on social and political philosophy) during the year and summer, and hosts a number of visiting faculty.

As the number of our majors and minors indicate, interest in philosophy among Boston University students is high. The Undergraduate Philosophy Association continues its active schedule of meetings, public debates, and discussion. One year, the Undergraduate Philosophy Association organized an interdisciplinary meeting focused on the nature of language. Another year, they hosted a lively debate on the question of the existence of God. The Undergraduate Philosophy Association is an intrinsic part of the Department, and regularly invites faculty to offer short presentations about their work or to discuss philosophical issues.

Each year at graduation, the Department recognizes outstanding work by undergraduate students by means of a number of awards, including the Peter Nelson Memorial Award for Distinguished Work by a Junior; the Matchette Prize for Excellence in Philosophy; the John N. Findlay Award; the Robert S. Cohen Award in Interdisciplinary Studies; and two Peter Bertocci Awards, one for Academic Achievement and Humanitarian Service, and the other for Philosophical Excellence. You will find the recipients of these awards listed on our web site.

The establishment of the Karbank Challenge this fall is one of our most exciting recent developments, and promises long-term support for our students and the continuing growth of the Department. It is a funding initiative instituted by Steven Karbank, who graduated from Boston University in 1979 with a double major in philosophy and psychology. In recognition of the lasting impact that his education has had on his life, Steve has committed up to $100,000 over the course of the next five years as a challenge gift to encourage others to support the Department of Philosophy. Under the terms of the Karbank Challenge, each gift of $1,000 or more made to the Department will be matched on a dollar for dollar basis, up to a total of $100,000.

Boston University's Philosophy Department has always bucked the trend in academic philosophy. We have resisted the move to narrow specialization and an overly technical approach to philosophy. We have also resisted the opposed extremes of merely historical investigations on the one hand, and insufficiently rigorous broad-sweep speculations about the human condition on the other. Our model remains Socratic: philosophy is about leading a good life, and in order to accomplish that aim, we must reflect, with all the clarity and rigor at our disposal, on the deep and abiding issues of human life. It is our conviction that philosophical reflection is best pursued through conversation, including with philosophers of the past. For that reason among others, a study of the history of philosophy is essential. We invite you to join in the conversation with any of the faculty of the Department.

I hope that you find this report on recent happenings in your Department at Boston University useful. I trust that we will remain in touch (please use the following address if you wish to email your questions, thoughts, and experiences to me: casphilo@bu.edu). You may, of course, write any of the faculty at the Department address. As noted, you will find their email addresses on our website.

I would like very much to have your current email addresses, so that we may more easily reach you concerning notable happenings here (I promise not to flood your in-box with philosophy spam mail!). Would you update your contact information by sending an email to casalum@bu.edu? Please include your name and year of graduation, and indicate whether the email address that you are supplying will reach you at home or at your business. Thank you.

Yours cordially,

Charles Griswold
Professor and Chairman

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