Students in prof. Protasi’s Spring 2023 Philosophy of Film and Performing Arts class (Phil 353) worked collaboratively on a final project for the course, and produced a short film titled Cinematic Utterances.
The film is composed of three shorter films: a horror, a comedy, and a drama respectively.
Each short film is followed by an interview with the director explaining the research question driving each of them. The class was inspired by theThe Five Obstructions, dir. by L. von Trier, so the overall film was produced in a documentary/mockumentary style, such that not only directors’ commentaries but also behind-the-scenes cuts are included in the film. The nature of documentary was one of the class topics, investigated through reading an article by Enrico Terrone.
The shorter films were also driven by research questions discussed in the class. The horror was inspired by a discussion of Cynthia Freeland’s “Realist Horror”; the comedy aimed to be a “good-bad movie” such as the ones discussed by Mathew Strohl in his book Why It’s OK to Love Bad Movies; the drama was motivated by discussions on cinematic realism (as famously defined by André Bazin) and on how emotional engagement with movies is possible (as analyzed among others by Deborah Knight)–in the drama, one particularly powerful scene was an homage to the ending scene of Vive L’Amour dir. by Tsai Ming-liang. The whole project was also a way of deepening understanding of the vexed question of who is the author of a film. The title itself, Cinematic Utterances, alludes to an article by Paisley Livingston on cinematic authorship. Several students reflected on how working on the film production shifted their previous views on the topic.
In some cases, however, the process solidified and provided further evidence for their views, and also allowed students to put into practice what they had thought about in the abstract. Ainsley Feeney, who starred in all three short movies, wrote:
when we talked about auteur theory, I was a big proponent of the actor taking a significant portion of the authorship. A film wouldn’t be what it is without the actors and the specific choices they make. […] All in all, my philosophy of acting centers around […] experiencing the characters. It’s important to me to be as real and true-to-life as possible, and feel what the characters would feel. […] Acting is a window into reality, and I brought as much of my real self into my characters as I could.
The movie was shot with no additional funding and only using resources available on campus on short notice so students had to be creative and adaptive. Nevertheless, important learning goals were achieved as highlighted by Emma Cole:
Stylistically I had a vision that, while mostly unable to achieve, I attempted at doing in our film. A pivotal feature in a lot of cult classic or good bad films is a specific stylistic utterance, one that is distinctly campy. Susan Sontage, in her Notes On Camp, acknowledges that camp is often found in bad films. It is a naive art that comes out of unintentional absurdity and extravagance. I attempted to pull from this idea when doing set dressing for the date scene taking time to fill the table up with colorful objects and leaning into maximalism. While in classic low budget fashion I was unable to go as far as I wanted, I think the absurdity of having a fully set dressed table with flowers, candles, and a table cloth in an otherwise empty hallway added to the campiness.
The film was shared with the Puget Sound community during a showing in Wyatt Hall on May 9th. The showing was followed by a talk-back with the cast. (Unfortunately not everyone could be present at the showing, but the whole cast is listed in the credits at the end of the film.)
Students from the class present at the showing: Harry Gers, Phoebe Bock, Joseph Alvarez, Jules Obbard, Emma Cole, Annika Freeling, Ainsley Feeney, Mei Pacheco-Leong, Emmet O’Connor, Mia Holbert.
The Philosophy Department had a chance to celebrate a great group of philosophy majors this past weekend. Echoing her words at the reception for graduates and their guests, Prof. Ariela Tubert, chair of the department, said:
This is a very special group of graduates that Philosophy Faculty and fellow students will miss a lot. Academically, as a group, they are among the, if not the, strongest graduating class of philosophy majors in recent memory. But they were also instrumental in rebuilding the philosophy community on campus after over a year of remote learning due to Covid. In these past two years back on campus, they became a close knit group and their enthusiasm and camaraderie was felt in and out of the classroom.
Prof. Tubert continued, speaking to the graduates on behalf of the philosophy faculty,
We are proud of each of you and all you have accomplished. We will miss you terribly and yes, we noticed how much you have done during your time at Puget Sound, complicated as it was by the pandemic and other things. We noticed and appreciated your contributions, your talent, and your enthusiasm each step of the way. We wish you all the very best as you continue on your path beyond Puget Sound!
Zoe Brinner ’23, Emma Sintz ’23, Ismael Gutierrez ’23, Jules Obbard ’23, Ember Reed ’23
Prof. Justin Tiehen, Prof. Ariela Tubert, Ember Reed ’23, Emma Sintz ’23, Jules Obbard ’23, Prof. Sara Protasi, Lauren Rice ’23, Zoe Brinner ’23, Ari Zainsberg ’23, Ismael Gutierrez ’23, Prof. Sam Liao
J.J. Alvarez ’23, Prof. Sara Protasi, Ember Reed ’23
Students in Professor Justin Tiehen’s senior seminar PHIL 450 Topics in Value Theory: Artificial Intelligence and the Problems of Value Alignment presented their work in the 2023 Philosophy Poster Presentations on Monday April 24th. The presenters received a great deal of interest in their work on such timely and interesting issues related to ethics and artificial intelligence and were asked some tough questions that they are working to address in their final projects. Students and faculty attending the event appreciated the interesting topics and arguments, students’ clear explanations of their projects, and the enthusiasm of the presenters.
The poster presentations were as follows:
“When Is Algorithmic Discrimination Wrongful Discrimination” – JJ Alvarez
“Anthropic Alignment” -Ember Reed
“Consciousness in AI” -Wil Bloom
“Mom…I Want You To Meet My Robot Boyfriend: A Look Into Machine and AI-Human Relationships” – Emma Sintz
“Does AI Mean What It Says?” -Zoe Brinner
“The Decision Directive: Who Gets To Decide?” – Ismael Gutierrez
“Algorithmic Injustice” -Augie Mueller
“Longtermism and Racial Bias”- Jules Obbard
“Information, Knowledge, Wisdom, and AI” – Mei Pacheco-Leong
“Evolution to Revolution: The Pitfalls of Allowing Artificial Intelligence Into Veterinary Medicine” -Aiden Bicknell
“Artificial Intelligence and Legal Personhood” -Lauren Rice
“Evil AI” – Phoebe Bock
“How Powerful Is AI? Well, The Presidents Are Playing Video Games: What Does That Mean?” -Ari Zansberg
Here are some pictures from the event, which was philosophically enriching for everyone and also lots of fun!
(JJ Alvarez with Poster Presentation “When Is Algorithmic Discrimination Wrongful Discrimination?”
(Ember Reed with poster presentation “Anthropic Alignment”)
(Wil Bloom with Poster Presentation “Consciousness in AI”)
(Emma Sintz with poster “Mom…I Want You To Meet My Robot Boyfriend: A Look Into Machine Love and AI Human Relationships”)
(Zoe Brinner standing with poster “Does AI Really Mean What It Says?”)
(Ismael Gutierrez presenting “The Decision Directive: Who Gets To Decide?”)
(August Mueller with poster “Algorithmic Injustice: An Overview of the Value-Free Ideal and Inequality in Modern Society”)
(Jules Obbard presenting “Longtermism, Existential Risk, and Racial Bias”)
(Mei Pacheco Leong with poster “Information, Knowledge, Wisdom, and AI: The Loss of Wisdom In the Age Of Information”)
(Aidan Bicknell presenting Evolution to Revolution: The Pitfalls of Allowing Artificial Intelligence Into Veterinary Medicine”)
(Lauren Rice with poster “Artificial Intelligence and Legal Personhood”)
(Phoebe Bock with poster “Evil AI”)
(Ari Zansberg with poster “How Powerful is AI? Well, The Presidents Are Playing Video Games: What Does That Mean?”)
(Three photos showing the crowd of attentive students and faculty interacting with the presenters)
Puget Sound’s Philosophy Department was well represented at this year’s Pacific University Undergraduate Philosophy Conference. Four Puget Sound students presented their work at the conference held in Forest Grove, OR on April 28th and 29th, 2023. Students reported having a great time, receiving good feedback on their work, and being motivated to continue to revise their papers. Congratulations to all for the great work and thanks for sharing your abstracts and photos!
Mei Pacheco-Leong ’23 presented their paper “On Accidentality: An Exploration of the Contingency of Values.” Here is the abstract for the paper:
Those with hegemonic identities are often able to take their social and cultural norms for granted. Those with marginalized identities, however, are often forced to reckon with social and cultural norms they may find confusing, or even senseless. In his paper “The Philosophy of Accidentality”, Manuel Vargas draws on Emilio Uranga to offer an analysis of Mexican identity where he introduces the concept of accidentality to describe the reckoning of values one has when they realize that the cultural norms they are expected to assimilate towards don’t map onto the values they hold to be important (Vargas 2020). First, I will talk a bit about what led to my own interest in this project, which will hopefully also give some context for a sense of the factors that might lead one to experience accidentality. Then, I will talk about Mexican philosophy and the dialectic around the ontology of what it means to be Mexican. In my positive argument, I move from ontology to epistemology, arguing that accidents are epistemically advantaged in that those who experience accidentality are more primed to see the world as it is. Through recognizing that cultural norms and thus values are contingent, we can better find our footing in an inherently ungrounded experience.
Lauren Rice ’23 presented her paper “Accountability and Fully Autonomous Weapons.” Here is the abstract:
Fully autonomous weapons systems (FAWS) maintain strict control over targeting and engaging with a target; the only human interaction is the act of giving a goal to the system. Through the defining lack of human intervention and control, these FAWS inherently present a lack of accountability. The importance of accountability as it relates to FAWS resides in the notion of just warfare, as accountability deters violence and promotes the resolution of conflict. Accountability is highlighted as a necessary aspect of the just implementation of FAWS. This paper defines FAWS, evaluates differing viewpoints surrounding the ethics of FAWS, and ultimately argues and defends that there is a gap in accountability with FAWS which should impede their implementation.
Ember Reed ’23 presented their paper “Nuclear Fine-Tuning.” The presentation was based on Ember’s summer research project which can be found on Sound Ideas and here is the abstract for the paper:
Recent existential-risk thinkers have noted that the analysis of the fine-tuning argument for God’s existence, and the analysis of certain forms of existential risk, employ similar types of reasoning. This paper argues that insofar as the “many worlds objection” undermines the inference to God’s existence from universal fine-tuning, then a similar many worlds objection undermines the inference that the historic risk of global nuclear catastrophe has been low from the lack of such a catastrophe has occurred in our world. A version of the fine-tuning argument applied to nuclear risk, The Nuclear Fine-Tuning Argument, utilizes the set of nuclear close calls to show that 1) conventional explanations fail to adequately explain how we have survived thus far and 2) the existence of many worlds provides an adequate explanation. This is because, if there are many worlds, observers are disproportionately more likely to reflect upon a world that hasn’t had a global nuclear catastrophe than upon one that has had a global nuclear catastrophe. This selection bias results from the catastrophic nature of such an event. This argument extends generally to all global catastrophic risks that both A) have been historic threats and B) would result in a significantly lower global population.
Jules Obbard ’23 presented their paper “Defining Knowledge as True Belief.” Here is the abstract:
It is commonly believed in the field of epistemology that knowledge is Justified True Belief (JTB). In this paper, I defend a more controversial stance held by Crispin Sartwell, that knowledge is solely True Belief (TB). I provide an overview of the Classic Analysis and Gettier’s cases which are meant to challenge the justification aspect of the Classic Analysis. I argue that the condition of justification is not necessary or well-defined, and therefore the Gettier cases do not necessitate adding something to JTB, but rather subtracting something. I advocate for a broader philosophical use of the Correspondence Theory of Truth, which states that truth is correlated to facts as they are in the real world.
A tradition for the Philosophy department here at the University of Puget Sound that was held regularly until COVID had to put the tradition on pause. 2023 is the first year that booted the tradition back up with the 2023 Puget Sound Undergraduate Philosophy Conference held on campus on March 31 – April 1. It was a very exciting semester for the department but even more so among the students. Professor Ariela Tubert and Professor Sara Protasi supervised and engaged with a handful of students to collaborate and provide students with the experience of planning a conference.
Though they knew about the conference from the very beginning, the majority of the conference couldn’t have been done alone. Most of the blood, sweat, and tears came from the committee who made this event a success. Leading up to the conference, this group of students worked together to decide on the selection of papers, reviewing them and concluding which papers could make it to the conference.
Conference Organizing Committee (students in PHIL 497: Public Philosophy, left to right): Micah Beardsley ’25, Jules Obbard ’23, Mei Pacheco-Leong ’23, Alysiana Sar ’24, Ember Reed ’23, J.J. Alvarez ’23, Ismael Gutierrez ’23
In organizing this conference, I learned a lot about planning things with a very vague initial understanding of the structure. It was interesting to see where we all fell in terms of our interests and how our opinions on the papers varied. A challenging part of this project was time management, in terms of grading papers and then separately managing the conference. It was exciting to have some sort of leadership position in our department as a group and build connections with friends and professors.
-Jules Obbard ’23
I learned so much from organizing this conference! I really enjoyed reading the submissions and getting to see what other philosophy students are interested in.
Mei Pacheco-Leong ’23
audience at the keynote address by Eric Schwitzgebel
Guest speaker Eric Schwitzgebel gave this year’s keynote address, “Does Studying Ethics Make You More Ethical?” His study was trying to find a correlation between professors’s research and whether this impacted their life and decision making. It was a unique study done and quite fascinating how he was able to measure morality in that aspect.
Something that I didn’t fully expect when I attended this talk was how empirical it would be. I think that mostly has to do with my presuppositions about how philosophy studies are conducted and talked about. But I found it incredibly interesting that there is a larger connection between the sciences and philosophy than one might think.
-Micah Beardsley ’25
Listening to the presentations and hearing the authors explain their claims and arguments was exciting, and listening to other opinions from a variety of schools seemed to broaden the perspective that I am usually exposed to.
-Ismael Gutierrez ’23
Ubuntu was my favorite. However I enjoyed the range of topics and they were all engaging/ interesting
-Anonymous
I was really proud of how professionally our students were when they commented on papers and chaired sessions.
-Prof. Sara Protasi
I was really happy to see the quality of the comments delivered by people on the planning committee and I was also happy to see the level of engagement that the audience had with the speakers during question sessions. I also think both the reception and student after party went exceedingly well as it seemed like everyone enjoyed themselves. Overall, despite any slip ups that may have occurred, I think the conference went exceedingly well!
-J.J. Alvarez ’23
I was really proud to see Puget Sound philosophy students do such a great job serving as commentators for the papers delivered at the conference, writing and delivering high quality commentary on topics one is not an expert in is hard and I was really excited to see how well everyone did. I also was happy to see students step up to organize the event, which was a great success.
-Prof. Ariela Tubert
For this being the first conference since COVID, I would like to say it was a success. From our participants sharing their papers more in depth, to engagement between audience members and the engagement within the keynote address, it was an eventful two days. As a committee member, it’s really rewarding watching everything fall into place. However, life happens and sometimes the plan doesn’t always work out. It caused a bit of trouble for the committee but, hey, that isn’t going to stop the show from continuing. In the end, a handful of those who attended the event, quite enjoyed it and found it to be more engaging and more casual than they thought. And regardless of the obstacles that stood in our way, as they say, the show must go on!!
PUGET SOUND PHILOSOPHY 