Department News

New and Noteworthy

Dr. Alexandra King named 2018 Outstanding Faculty by GSA

2018 event honors the work of John Kearns and Stuart Shapiro

The Knight Foundation initiative: Trust, Media and Democracy

See graduate student profiles, interviews, alumni updates, and more

The Knight Foundation initiative: Trust, Media and Democracy

Jason Adsit named seventh president of Mount Saint Mary College

Adsit.

In a unanimous vote that followed a national search, the board of Mount Saint Mary College selected Jason Adsit as its seventh full-time president. See the news article. He graduated from UB in 2002 with a PhD in Philosophy. Adsit's dissertation, directed by Peter Hare, is an investigation of Apologies.

Published May 26, 2018

1.

The Society of Automotive Engineers has invited Barry Smith to deliver the keynote for the SAE Automated and Connected Vehicle Systems Testing Symposium, June 20-21, 2018. The event, hosted by Clemson University–International Center for Automotive Research, will bring together key thought leaders from academia, research, industry, government, and the automotive engineering industry to discuss the latest automated vehicle testing programs, data acquisition and analytics approaches, and research that will inevitably drive the industry forward to a fully connected and automated vehicle. Read more about the symposium.

Keynote Abstract: The ontology approach to knowledge integration is much more flexible than approaches based on traditional relational database technology, and is thus ideally suited to achieve results in those areas where we are dealing with a broad spectrum of different sorts of data that is rapidly expanding into new areas. Unfortunately, in almost all cases where ontology technology has been tried, it has produced results which are fragmentary and inconsistent, and have typically enjoyed a short half-life. I will describe the reasons for these failures, and outline a strategy for the creation of interoperable ontology modules that has been used with success in the biomedical and military domains, and is currently being applied in the field of digital manufacturing.

"Capabilities: Human and Machine"

Inner Virtue

What does it mean to be a morally good person? It can be tempting to think that it is simply a matter of performing certain actions and avoiding others. And yet, there is much more to moral character than our outward actions. We expect a good person to not only behave in certain ways, but also to experience the world in certain ways within. Pleasure, emotion, and attention are important parts of our moral character despite being involuntary inner states. Inner Virtue defends a theory of why and how such states are relevant to moral character: These states say something about what kind of person one is by manifesting our deepest cares and concerns.

Inner Virtue, provides a new theory of moral virtue and vice. The work examines a neglected area of philosophical study (the moral status of states disconnected from action), while drawing on sources in non-western philosophy, as well as empirical work and personal memoirs. Learn more.

One of our most successful recent PhD graduates is William Duncan, who has been appointed Associate Director of the Clinical Data Network at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, the first dedicated medical facility for cancer treatment and research in the United States.

Noteworthy Links

See the latest edition of the Noûsletter. Alumni are invited to send updates to us for inclusion in the next edition. Contact John Beverley, Managing Editor, Noûsletter.