Join us on Tuesday, April 2nd at 7pm in the Tahoma Room for a talk by Ted Chiang, award-winning science fiction author and one of Time Magazine‘s Top 100 Most Influential People in AI. His short story, “Story of Your Life”, was the inspiration for the hit film Arrival!
Chiang will delve into the fundamental question of whether artificial intelligence truly deserves to be called intelligence. He will explore the various applications of synthetic text and imagery and ponder the conditions necessary for these mediums to be considered artistic.
The lecture will be followed by a Q&A session, providing attendees the opportunity to engage with Chiang and delve deeper into the topics explored during the event.
This event is open to the public, and admission is free. However, due to limited seating, interested individuals are encouraged to arrive early to secure their spot.
Organized by the James Dolliver NEH Lecture Series in the Humanities and Artificial Intelligence, the Catharine Gould Chism Fund for the Humanities, and the Department of Philosophy.
Join us for a screening of the hit sci-fi/mystery film Arrival, followed by a discussion with philosophy professor Justin Tiehen on Wednesday, March 22nd at 7pm in Rausch Auditorium.
Arrival is based on a short story “A Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, a renowned science fiction writer who will be giving a talk on campus Tuesday, April 2nd.
Arrival follows linguistics professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) as she leads an elite team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down in 12 locations around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must race against time to find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors. Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly all of mankind.
The screening is sponsored by Campus Films, the Dolliver-NEH project “Humanities and Artificial Intelligence,” and the Department of Philosophy.
On January 26th the Philosophy Department hosted a lecture by Dr. Vanessa Wills, titled “Freedom and Determinism in the Though of Karl Marx”. The event was well attended, with faculty, students, staff, and community members coming to listen to Dr. Wills talk about Marx’s views about freedom and how they relate to his views about determinism, including Marx’s views about the possibility of the sort of freedom needed for ethical responsibility. After the talk, there was a lively Q&A session with Dr. Wills, which allowed her the opportunity to expand on her views and relate them to other topics of interest to the audience.
Dr. Vanessa Wills is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The George Washington University. Her monograph Marx’s Ethical Vision will be released in April 2024 from Oxford University Press. Her research draws upon her examination of Marx’s theories, emphasizing how economic and social structures impact the achievement of ideals like freedom, equality, and human development.
This event was organized by the Philosophy department with the support of German Studies, Politics & Government, Religion, Spirituality, & Society, and Science, Technology, Health & Society.
The Department of Philosophy will be holding a talk titled “Freedom and Determinism in the Thought of Karl Marx” by Dr. Vanessa Wills, who is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The George Washington University. The talk will be on Friday January 26 @ 4:30pm in Wyatt 109.
Dr. Wills’ research is informed by her study of Marx’s work, and focuses on the ways in which economic and social arrangements can inhibit or promote the realization of values such as freedom, equality, and human development. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Princeton University in 2002 and her PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh in 2011, where she wrote her dissertation on the topic, “Marx and Morality.”
Campus Films together with the Philosophy Department are hosting a screening of the film Ex Machina (directed by Alex Garland, 2014) followed by discussion led by philosophy professors Justin Tiehen and Ariela Tubert about the philosophical issues related to artificial intelligence raised by the film.
When: Wednesday October 18th, 5:30pm Where: Rausch Auditorium (McIntyre 003)
The Department of Philosophy will be holding a talk titled “Racism and Dehumanization” by David Livingstone Smith, who is Professor of Philosophy at University of New England. His recent books include On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It (Oxford University Press, 2020) and Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization (Harvard University Press, 2021.) Here is the abstract for the talk:
Dehumanization, the attitude of conceiving of others as less than human, is intimately tied to race. Groups of people who are dehumanized are often first racialized. They are treated as members of an alien and inferior race. To understand why this is, we need to understand both how race works and how dehumanization works. In this talk, I will use examples of anti-Black and anti-Semitic violence to illustrate and explain the interface between racism and dehumanization.
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.
Students will be presenting their projects from the PHIL 450 Seminar, Topics in Value Theory: Artificial Intelligence and the Problems of Value Alignment.
Come to see the students posters, hear about their interesting projects, and as always engage in informal and fun philosophical discussions.
Monday April 24, 5:30-6:30pm Wyatt Courtyard (Ferguson Plaza) New York style pizza will be served
The sixth Puget Sound Undergraduate Philosophy Conference, a student organized event, will be from March 31–April 1, 2023. This conference features presentations from undergraduate philosophy scholars from other schools with commentary from Puget Sound students.
All presentations, with the exception of the keynote address, are delivered by undergraduate students.
Prof. Eric Schwitzgebel (University of California, Riverside) will be giving the keynote address at the Puget Sound Undergraduate Philosophy Conference on Friday 3/31 at 5:00pm in the Tahoma Room, Thomas Hall.
Professor Schwitzgebel’s research explores connections between empirical psychology and philosophy of mind, especially the nature of belief, the inaccuracy of our judgments about our stream of conscious experience, and the tenuous relationship between philosophical ethics and actual moral behavior. He is the author of Describing Inner Experience? Proponent Meets Skeptic,with Russell T. Hurlburt, MIT Press (2007); Perplexities of Consciousness, MIT Press (2011); and A Theory of Jerks, and Other Philosophical Misadventures, MIT Press (2019).
Abstract for the talk:
Does philosophical reasoning influence real-world moral behavior? Empirical data on the moral behavior of ethics professors suggests maybe not. However, I will present some new data on the influence of philosophical instruction and argument on meat eating and on charitable giving which suggests that under some conditions, philosophical argumentation might have a real-world influence. All conclusions are tentative, without warranty, and to be used at your own risk.
PUGET SOUND PHILOSOPHY 