Program & Schedule

8th Annual Moravian Undergraduate Philosophy Conference

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Moravian University, Bethlehem, PA

All Session will be held in the HUB

8:00 - 8:45 Registration HUB Lobby

8:45 Welcome and Awards - UBC Room

James V. Skalnik, Ph. D., Assistant Dean of Academic Advising

Cynthia Kosso, Ph. D., Provost and Dean of the Faculty

  • Douglas Anderson Prize in Philosophy, awarded to Nathan Nocchi.
  • The Fredrick (Jiggs) McConnell Prize in Moral Philosophy, awarded to Lowell Perkins.

9:00 -10:10 Plenary Talk - UBC Room

Plenary Speaker: Vicente Medina, Ph. D.  Can Just War Theory Justify Terrorism?

10:15 -11:25 Ethics (Chair: Dr. Carol Moeller) - UBC Room

  • The Advocacy for Pornography via Utilitarianism, Laura Berkel (Kutztown University)
  • Ruth Benedict and Cultural Relativism, Charlotte Odonkor (Northampton Community College)
  • A Robust Sadism: A Critique of Nagle’s Sexual Perversion, Levi Walbert (Kutztown University)

11:30 -12:40 Aesthetics (Chair: Dr. Bernie Cantens) - UBC Room

  • Art and Originality: The Problem of Forgeries, Steffen Seitz (Princeton University)
  • The World Is Horror! - Stress, Anxiety, and the Paradox of Fiction, Craig Rounsaville (Kutztown University)
  • A Look Into Existentialism: A Case Study With Kurt Cobain and Ludwig Van Beethoven, Lauren Hutcheson (Northampton Community College)

12:45 -1:30 Lunch

1:35 - 2:45 Philosophy of Religion (Chair: Dr. Naraghi) Snyder Room

  • The Dilemma of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom, Nathan Nocchi (Moravian University)
  • Leibniz – Theodicy, Tytiona Goodwin
(Northampton Community College)
  • The Bhagavad-Gita: One’s Way of Life as a Holy Being, Katherine Bradigan (Northampton Community College)

2:50 - 4:00 Session I: Knowledge, Reason, Reality (Chair: Dr. William Falla) Snyder Room

  • Knowing How: A Computational Approach, Joseph Roman (Gettysburg College)
  • The Problem with Good Reasons, Fiona Furnari (Princeton University)
  • Dummett’s Manifestation Argument and Anti-Realism, Michael Bassil (Moravian University)

2:50 - 4:00 Session II: Skepticism, Doubt, Agency (Chair: Dr. Harold Weiss) UBC Room

  • Thanks to Hume, Nothing Means Anything, Erik Modig (Northampton Community College)
  • Reason and Unreason: The Implications of Doubt and Madness, Max Fathauer (Bucknell University)
  • Literature and the Way We Live, Nicholas Gaspar (Moravian University)

4:05 - 5:15 History (Chair: Dr. Leon Niemoczynski) Snyder Room

  • Plato and His Ideal Society, Youssouf Ouedraogo (Northampton Community College)
  • A Defense of Locke’s Principle of Personal Identity, Hannah Matthews (Moravian College)
  • Hegel’s Dialectical Movement: Historical Significance of Technology, Human Thought, and Philosophy, Armand Miele-Herndon (Goucher College)
Program Coordinators: Nathan Nocchi 2017, Hannah Matthews 2018, and Colton Carlisle 2019