Philosophy Students,

Attached you will find information about the Undergraduate Summer Scholars Program.  The USS Program provides an excellent opportunity for students to conduct summer research in collaboration with a faculty mentor.

Summer Scholars receive:
-- 6 credit hours (with a tuition waiver for those hours)
-- $2600 fellowship award
-- $400 for project expenses (e.g., travel, supplies)

 There is a competitive application process for the program.  To apply, you must:
-- contact the professor you would like to collaborate with
-- be a sophomore or junior
-- have a minimum GPA of 3.0
-- turn in your proposal by January 27, 2017 (to Emily Zakin, Philosophy Chair)
Philosophy majors will be given preference but other students will be considered.

I’m attaching the application form below. If you are interested please contact a faculty mentor and work with that person to complete the application.

Below you will find descriptions of the research projects philosophy faculty will be engaged in this summer.  If you are a sophomore or junior who is interested in contributing to faculty research, and/or developing a related independent research project, please contact the faculty member directly by e-mail to discuss your interest.

You may also contact other faculty members in the department to discuss projects of your own development.


Philosophy Faculty Summer Research Projects

Facundo Alonso ([log in to unmask])
My research plan for this summer centers on the attitude of reliance and on how a better understanding of this phenomenon helps shed light on central questions in the areas of philosophy of action and normative ethics. One question I want to investigate is whether the notion of reliance can help us drive a wedge in the familiar dispute about the cognitive elements or pre-conditions of intention. Some philosophers claim that intending to act is a special kind of belief that one will so act, or that it necessarily involves such a belief (Harman, Velleman, Setiya). For those inspired by Anscombe (Velleman, Setiya), this owes partly to the epistemic role that the cited belief plays in securing knowledge of one’s own actions –which in their view constitutes the mark of intentional agency. Other philosophers, in contrast, reject the cited claim (Bratman, Mele). The conjecture I want to explore this summer is that intention is indeed tightly connected to a cognitive attitude, but that this attitude is reliance rather than belief. This conjecture, if correct, will have far-reaching implications for our understanding of a wide range of issues, including the nature of intentional action, the connection between acting intentionally and trying to act, and the moral relevance of the distinction between intended ends and merely foreseen consequences of one’s end. My plan is to carefully investigate these implications.

Michael Hicks ([log in to unmask])
I'm going to be investigating late 19th century, mostly British and American, psychology and philosophy of language, with specific attention to the uptake of John Stuart Mill's philosophy of language.  I want to understand how, if at all, his Mill's contemporaries and followers understood his insights into language. I would be happy to supervise anyone interested in exploring any of the following topics: (i) Mill's Logic (especially book I and recent secondary literature on it); (ii) American pragmatism (especially William James and Charles Peirce) and the philosophy of language; (iii) British and Continental psychology: for instance, the relationship between Alexander Bain (Mill's follower) and Franz Brentano.  I would be willing to consider other related projects as well.

Pascal Massie ([log in to unmask])
I’ll be working on two projects for Summer 2017 and I could work with a Summer Scholar on either of them, depending on student interest. 
Project 1: Non-Contradiction, Being, and Meaning. This article deals with the principle of non-contradiction (the same thing cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect‒ ~(p & ~p) that Aristotle defends in Metaphysics Gamma. As an ontological principle, PNC states that contradiction cannot be real. But there are challenges to this: not only from modern and contemporary thought but also within Aristotle himself (dunamis qua power to be is equally a power not to be). I am also focus on Aristotle’s curious argument in defense of a principle that has no proof. He appeals neither to logic nor ontology but to semantics. 
Project 2: Play, Fiction, and Reality. As the (provisional) title suggests, the project focusses on the distinction of these three regions and their interrelations. I just finished a paper entitled “Masks and the Space of Play” (currently under review). I am interested in the way in which play is not something that happens “in space” but is rather a process that generates space (Lefebvre, The Production of Space). Play opens a new spatiotemporal world. This is not to say that play is not ‘real’ since it has real effects and produces real affects; rather, play is simultaneously real and virtual. Play demonstrates the existence of a virtual field (in Deleuze’s sense) out of which multiple possibilities can be actualized. The issue goes beyond philosophical anthropology and the peculiarity of a behavior that resist functional analysis. It takes on an ontological signification with what Heidegger refers to as Spielraum, a term that describes being as groundless play˗ “play of the world” or “fourfold.” 
The Summer Scholar will assist me by creating an annotated bibliography, reading and summarizing some articles or chapters, and critically examining drafts of the manuscript.