Program & Schedule
8th Annual Moravian Undergraduate Philosophy Conference
Saturday, April 22, 2017
΢ÃÜÆƽâ, 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 (΢ÃÜÆƽâ)
- 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 (΢ÃÜÆƽâ)
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 (΢ÃÜÆƽâ)
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