CURRENTS: Humanities Work Now
Jessica Pfeifer & Lisa Vetter
Location
Performing Arts & Humanities Building : 216
Date & Time
December 5, 2016, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Description
All events begin at noon with lunch served at 11:30
“What is a Population-Level Cause?”
Jessica Pfeifer, Associate Professor, Philosophy
Recently a number of philosophers of biology have argued that natural selection is not a cause. In response, others have argued that it is, but it is a population-level cause. I think both are wrong, because I think representing natural selection as a population-level cause can misrepresent the causal structure of natural selection. However, it's unclear to me what it means to call something a population-level cause in the first place in this context, and I would love help teasing out what it might mean.
and
“The Political Thought of America's Founding Feminists”
Lisa Vetter, Assistant Professor, Political Science
My current research continues the project I began in The Political Thought of America's Founding Feminists (New York University Press, 2017) by examining additional early women's rights advocates and abolitionists who are not typically considered political theorists. In my presentation, I will discuss the theoretical and methodological challenges of performing interdisciplinary research and of incorporating intersectionality in American political thought.
