Print Page | Contact Us | Report Abuse | Sign In | Join the APA
2023 APA Prizes: Fall Edition

Click the name of the prize in the list below to jump to the details.

2023 APA/PDC Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Philosophy Programs: Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO) (Affiliated with the University of Washington)

2023 K. Jon Barwise Prize: Gabriele Gramelsberger (RWTH Aachen University)

2023 Book Prize: Una Stojnić (Princeton University)

  • Honorable mention: Hallie Liberto (University of Maryland - College Park)
  • Honorable mention: Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (Georgetown University)

2024 John Dewey Lectures:

  • Eastern: Ernest Sosa (Rutgers University)
  • Central: Stephen Darwall (Yale University)
  • Pacific: Michael Bratman (Stanford University)

2023 Essay Prize in Latin American Thought: Emmanuel Carrillo (University of Memphis)

2023 Joseph B. Gittler Award: David Livingstone Smith (University of New England)

2024 William James Prize: Laura Soter (Duke University)

2023 Alvin Plantinga Prize: Blake Hereth (University of Pennsylvania)

  • Honorable mention: Lara Buchak (Princeton University)
  • Honorable mention: Eleanor Gordon-Smith (Princeton University)

2023 Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest:

  • Chris Bousquet (Syracuse University)
  • Hannah Kim (University of Arizona)
  • Céline Leboeuf (Florida International University)
  • Kate Manne (Cornell University)

2023 Philip L. Quinn Prize: Howard McGary (Rutgers University)

2023 Routledge, Taylor & Francis Prize: James Kinkaid (Bilkent University)

2024 Sanders Graduate Student Awards:

  • Rhys Borchert (University of Arizona)
  • Brian Haas (University of Southern California)
  • Taylor Koles (University of Pittsburgh)

2024 Sanders Lecture: Stephen Yablo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

2023 Israel Scheffler Prize in Philosophy of Education: Lawrence Blum (University of Massachusetts Boston) and Zoë Burkholder (Montclair State University)

2023 Frank Chapman Sharp Memorial Prize: Linda Eggert (University of Oxford)

2023 Prize for Excellence in Philosophy Teaching:

  • Kristopher Phillips (Eastern Michigan University)
  • Rebecca Scott (Harper College)

 


2023 APA/PDC Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Philosophy Programs

The Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Philosophy Programs has been jointly sponsored by the APA and the PDC since 1999. The APA/PDC Prize recognizes philosophy departments, research centers, institutes, societies, publishers, and other organizations for creating programs that risk undertaking new initiatives in philosophy and do so with excellence and success, and to publicize the success of these programs so they may inspire and influence others to follow their lead.

Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO) (Affiliated with the University of Washington) The logo for PLATO, the Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization.

The Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO) is dedicated to nurturing young people’s curiosity, critical thinking, and desire to explore big questions, through philosophy and ethics programs for students, educators, and families. PLATO’s programs include philosophy classes in schools around the US; online classes; ethics initiatives; and many programs for educators, such as online training and certificate programs, graduate fellowships, a biennial conference, workshops, and free webinars and online roundtables. Working with both public and independent schools, PLATO serves as a resource and support to educators around the world. Additionally, it runs intergenerational events to encourage families and other multi-generational groups to think together about philosophical topics. Its website offers a wealth of open-access resources for teachers, students, and families. Since 2016 PLATO’s grants program has supported innovative philosophy programs across the country. It also publishes two journals: Questions: Philosophy for Young People, which uniquely features students’ philosophical work; and Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice (P4), an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed academic online journal that explores philosophy with young people and philosophy in non-traditional spaces. PLATO has a longstanding affiliation with the University of Washington Department of Philosophy, through which it offers undergraduate and graduate courses about bringing philosophy into schools.

Back to top


2023 K. Jon Barwise Prize

The K. Jon Barwise Prize is for significant and sustained contributions to areas relevant to philosophy and computing by an APA member. The prize serves to credit those within our profession for their life long efforts in this field.

Gabriele Gramelsberger (RWTH Aachen University)A photo of Gabriele Gramelsberger.

Gabriele Gramelsberger is Professor for Theory of Science and Technology at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the RWTH Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) University of Science and Technology. She is director of the International Center of Advanced Studies for History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science and Technology, the Kate Hamburger Kolleg "Cultures of Research." Since 2019 she is an appointed member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts. She founded the Computational Science Studies Lab at RWTH Aachen University. Together with Sybille Kramer, Jorg Noller and Jonathan Geiger she heads the working group on “Philosophy & Digitality” at the German Society for Philosophy (DGPhil) and is editor-in-chief for the newly founded, open-access journal “Philosophy & Digitality.” Her research focuses on the philosophy and epistemology of computing and computational sciences (e.g., From Science to Computational Sciences, Chicago University Press 2015).

From the selection committee: Gabriele Gramelsberger holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the FU Berlin. Since 2017, she is Full Professor for Theory of Science and Technology at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the RWTH Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), one of the leading German University of Science and Technology with nearly 50,000 students. Since 2019 she is an appointed member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Since 2021 she is Director of the International Center of Advanced Studies for History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science and Technology, the Kate Hamburger Kolleg “Cultures of Research.”

Her research focuses on the philosophy and epistemology of computational sciences, in particular on modeling, simulation and machine learning in climate research and molecular biology. She was PI of the research groups “Embodied Information - ‘Lifelike’ Algorithms & Cellular ‘Machines’” (2009-2012), “Atmosphere & Algorithms” (2010-2012), “Computer Signals. Art and Biology in the Age of Digital Experimentation” (2012-2020) and “Mind the Game!” (2019-2020). In 2021, together with colleagues from the European Human Brain Project, she developed a graphical notation system for connectivity concepts in neuronal network modeling.

Back to top


2023 Book Prize

The Book Prize is awarded in odd years for the best published book that was written by a younger scholar during the previous two years. The Book and Article Prizes replace the former Franklin J. Matchette Foundation Book Prize.

Una Stojnić (Princeton University)

Context and Coherence: The Logic and Grammar of Prominence (Oxford University Press, 2021)A photo of Una Stojnić.

Una Stojnić is an assistant professor of philosophy at Princeton University. Prior to joining Princeton, Una was an assistant professor of philosophy at Columbia University, a Bersoff assistant professor/faculty fellow in philosophy at NYU, and a research fellow in philosophy at the School of Philosophy at ANU. She has earned her PhD in Philosophy and a Certificate in Cognitive Science from Rutgers University.

Una works in philosophy of language, formal semantics and pragmatics of natural languages, and philosophical logic. Her work aims at understanding and modeling language and linguistic communication, which situates her research within a network of traditional questions in philosophy of language, as well as within a set of empirical questions in linguistics and cognitive sciences.  Una has written on a wide variety of topics in philosophy of language, including the issues concerning the semantics/pragmatics interface, the nature of semantic and assertoric content, context and context-sensitivity, the relation between natural language and logic, modality and conditionals, semantic ambiguities, metaphysics of words and word individuation, meaning change and meaning negotiation, and slurs and pejorative language. Her second book, Inflammatory Language: The Linguistics and Philosophy for Pejoratives (w. E. Lepore), is forthcoming with OUP.

From the selection committee: Stojnić starts off by announcing a surprising and seemingly implausible thesis for her book—to demonstrate that the contextual factors that affect meaning are themselves all part of language—and then she proceeds to make it very plausible with detailed argumentation.

Honorable Mention: Hallie Liberto (University of Maryland–College Park)

Green Light Ethics: A Theory of Permissive Consent and its Moral Metaphysics (Oxford University Press, 2022)

Honorable Mention: Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (Georgetown University)

Reconsidering Reparations (Oxford University Press, 2021)

Back to top


2024 John Dewey Lectures

The Dewey Lectures, in memory of John Dewey, were established in 2006 by the John Dewey Foundation and the APA. They are three annual lectures, one at each divisional meeting of the APA (Eastern, Central, and Pacific), given by a prominent and senior (typically retired) philosopher associated with that Division, who is invited to reflect broadly and in an autobiographical spirit on philosophy in America as seen from the perspective of a personal intellectual journey.

Eastern Division

Ernest Sosa (Rutgers University)

Born in Cuba, Ernest Sosa immigrated to the USA as a teenager. After gaining his BA from the University of Miami and his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, he has taught at Brown University, and then at Rutgers, each for decades. During that time he has had numerous dissertation students who have attained distinction. He was President of the American Philosophical Association (APA, Eastern), and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1980 he inaugurated the virtue-theoretic approach in epistemology, which he has developed through a half-dozen books, many published articles, and replies in many author-critic sessions and books. He has given several distinguished lectures, including the Locke and the Carus lectures, and has received several prizes. The APA has established a prize lectureship and a fellowship in his honor for excellence in epistemology.

Central Division

Stephen Darwall (Yale University)

Stephen Darwall is the Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, where has taught since 2008, and the John Dewey Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, where he taught for twenty-four years prior to that. Earlier, he taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for twelve years. His work focuses on the foundations of ethics, the history of ethics, and moral psychology. He is best known for The Second-Person Standpoint (2006) and two subsequent collections of essays that elaborate the second-personal framework: Morality, Authority, and Law (2013) and Honor, History, and Relationship (2013). He is also the author of Impartial Reason (1983), Philosophical Ethics (1998), and Welfare and Rational Care (2002). His historical works include The British Moralists and the Internal ‘Ought’: 1640–1740 (1995) and, most recently, Modern Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to Kant (2023). He is currently at work on a sequel that will take his history through the end of the twentieth century, Modern Moral Philosophy After Kant. He is also completing a book on forms of heartfelt connection: The Heart And Its Attitudes. He is with David Velleman, a founding co-editor of Philosophers’ Imprint and has been since 2001 a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2023 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment of the Humanities Fellowship (for the fifth time).

From the selection committee: Stephen Darwall is Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. Darwall is widely recognized both for his contributions to contemporary moral philosophy and to the history of ethics, perhaps most prominently for his development of a theory of the second-personal perspective in ethics. Darwall also has innovatively served the discipline as a whole: together with David Velleman, he founded and continues to edit one of the first Open Access journals in philosophy, the influential and wide-ranging journal, Philosophers' Imprint.

Pacific Division

Michael Bratman (Stanford University)

Michael E. Bratman is U. G. and Abbie Birch Durfee Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and A photo of Michael Bratman.Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. His main research interests are in the philosophy of action, including issues about individual agency, social agency, and practical rationality. His main book publications are Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason (1987); Faces of Intention: Selected Essays on Intention and Agency (1999); Structures of Agency: Essays (2007); Shared Agency: A Planning Theory of Acting Together (2014); Planning, Time, and Self-Governance: Essays in Practical Rationality (2018); and Shared and Institutional Agency: Toward a Planning Theory of Human Practical Organization (2022). He has been awarded an ACLS Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and fellowships from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the Stanford University Humanities Center. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was President of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association and was Chair of the National Board of the American Philosophical Association. He has received the APA’s Philip L. Quinn Prize "in recognition of service to philosophy and philosophers, broadly construed," and the Lebowitz Prize for philosophical achievement and contribution.

Back to top


2023 Essay Prize in Latin American Thought

The APA committee on Hispanics/Latinxs sponsors the annual Essay Prize in Latin American Thought, which is awarded to the author of the best unpublished, English-language, philosophical essay in Latin American thought. The purpose of this prize is to encourage fruitful work in Latin American thought. Eligible essays must contain original arguments and broach philosophical topics clearly related to the experiences of Hispanic Americans and Latinxs. The winning essay will be published in the APA Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy.

Emmanuel Carrillo (University of Memphis)

“Rethinking Extractivist Epistemologies: Mexican philosophy and philosophy ‘al otro lado’”A photo of Emmanuel Carrillo Meza.

Emmanuel Carrillo Meza is a Ph.D. student at the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee. His childhood was spent living between both Michoacán and Chiapas, México before emigrating to San Antonio, Texas. There he studied Philosophy at The University of the Incarnate Word and The University of Texas at San Antonio. His research interests focus on the history and development of Continental philosophy in México, especially through the study of phenomenology and its potential for decolonial theory and praxis. His work aims to critically reflect on the encounter between different philosophical traditions unleashed by this historical development with an emphasis on its structuring of epistemic practices and spaces, including those within the U.S. academy. He considers how an examination of these practices and spaces reveals the way we practice philosophy when engaging with works ‘outside’ of the canon and can thus help us respect and maintain the richness of these less traditional philosophies. Outside of scholarly work he is an avid cook and enjoys attempting elaborate and sometimes complicated recipes usually judged and critiqued by his partner and three dogs.

Back to top


2023 Joseph B. Gittler Award

The Joseph B. Gittler Award is given for an outstanding scholarly contribution in the field of the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences. This prize was established in 2007 with funds donated by the estate of Joseph B. Gittler.

David Livingstone Smith (University of New England)

Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization (Harvard University Press, 2021)

 

Credit: Andrew Lunn Photography

David Livingstone Smith is professor of philosophy at the University of New England. He is author of ten books, including Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others (St. Martin’s, 2011), which was awarded the 2012 Anisfield-Wolf award for nonfiction, On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It (Oxford, 2020), and Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization (Harvard, 2021), which was a finalist for the 2023 Nayef Al-Rodhan prize in transdisciplinary philosophy. David’s work focuses on dehumanization. He has given numerous presentations and public lectures on this subject in the US and abroad. He is a transdisciplinary scholar, whose work is cited not only by philosophers, but also historians, legal scholars, psychologists, anthropologists, and others. David is a strong advocate of philosophy having a role in public life and often writes to bring philosophical thought to a general audience. He has appeared in several TV documentaries, has been interviewed and cited on numerous occasions in the national and international media, and was a guest at the 2012 G20 economic summit, where he spoke about dehumanization and mass violence.

From the selection committee: David Livingstone Smith's Making Monsters imaginatively connects the philosophy and psychology of dehumanization by way of providing urgently needed illumination of pressing and tragic social phenomena.

Back to top


2024 William James Prize

A photo of Laura Soter.

The Eastern Division awards the William James Prize to the best paper in the area of American philosophy that is both (a) written by a philosopher who received their PhD within five years of the beginning of the calendar year in which the paper is submitted, or is a graduate student, and (b) accepted for inclusion in the Eastern Division program by the program committee through the normal process of anonymous-reviewing.

Laura Soter (Duke University; York University)

“Rethinking Doxastic (In)Voluntarism”

Laura Soter is currently a postdoc at Duke University, and will be starting as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at York University in 2024. She completed her Ph.D. in Philosophy and Psychology in 2022 at the University of Michigan. Her research interests involve topics at the intersection of cognitive science, epistemology, and ethics, especially questions related to moral psychology, mental state control, and the ethics of belief.

Back to top


2023 Alvin Plantinga Prize

The Alvin Plantinga Prize is funded through the generosity of the Bossenbroek Family Foundation. This prize recognizes original essays that engage philosophical issues about or in substantial ways related to theism.

Blake Hereth (University of Pennsylvania)

“Self-Defense for Theists” (Journal of Analytic Theology, Vol. 10, Summer 2022)A photo of Blake Hereth.

Dr. Blake Kay Hereth (they/them) is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. They are proudly nonbinary, bisexual, neurodivergent, and a cancer survivor. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, they are an alumni of Cedarville University (B.A., Philosophy), the University of Arkansas (M.A., Philosophy), and the University of Washington (M.A., Ph.D.). Upon completing their Ph.D., Blake served for two years as Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arkansas and two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Their research is in neuroethics, bioethics, applied ethics, and philosophy of religion. Their interests center on military and civilian neurological interventions designed to mitigate aggression. Blake's work has been published in venues like Neuroethics, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Philosophical Studies, the British Medical Journal (BMJ), and the Journal of Military Ethics. Their work in philosophy of religion has appeared in Faith and Philosophy, Religious Studies, and the Journal of Analytic Theology. In 2019, the American Philosophical Association awarded them the Frank Chapman Sharp Memorial Prize for the best essay on the ethics of war and peace

From the selection committee: “Self-Defense for Theists” puts forward powerful arguments in favor of Theistic Defensive Incompatibilism.

Honorable Mention: Lara Buchak (Princeton University)

“Faith and Rational Deference to Authority”

Honorable Mention: Eleanor Gordon-Smith (Princeton University)

“Not Enough Evidence, God! Why Deliberation Rules out Evidentialism about Reasons for Belief”

Back to top


2023 Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest

The APA committee on public philosophy sponsors the Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest for the best opinion-editorials published by philosophers. The goal is to honor up to five standout pieces that successfully blend philosophical argumentation with an op-ed writing style. Winning submissions will call public attention, either directly or indirectly, to the value of philosophical thinking. The pieces will be judged in terms of their success as examples of public philosophy, and should be accessible to the general public, focused on important topics of public concern, and characterized by sound reasoning.

Chris Bousquet (Syracuse University)A photo of Chris Bousquet.

“How Work Alienates Us from Our Social Lives” (APA Blog, 2022)

Chris Bousquet is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at Syracuse University, where he focuses on philosophy of law and social/political philosophy. His dissertation is on free expression, specifically what grounds the right to free expression and what this can tell us about how to resolve hard cases. He’s also interested in the philosophy of work, particularly what role work should play in our lives and how it relates to other values.

Hannah Kim (University of Arizona)A photo of Hannah Kim.

“Fitting Vaccine Conspiracies into a Philosophy of Fiction” (Los Angeles Times, 2022)

Hannah H. Kim is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy and Ph.D. minor in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and her M.St in Philosophical Theology from Oxford University. She works on aesthetics, metaphysics, and Asian philosophy, with particular interests in fiction, poetry, music, time, Confucianism, and Juche. Her academic work has been published or is forthcoming in Philosophers’ Imprint, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, and Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism among others. Her public-facing work has been published in WIRED, LA Times, and USA Today, among others.

Céline Leboeuf (Florida International University)A photo of Celine Leboeuf.

“Body Positivity Is Fixated on Beauty - Here's How to Fix That” (Psyche Magazine, 2022)

Céline Leboeuf is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida International University. Her research lies at the intersection of feminist philosophy, the philosophy of race, and twentieth-century French and German philosophy. Inspired by the idea of philosophy as a way of life, she seeks to write and teach about timely topics with the aim of showing how philosophical reflection can help us lead flourishing lives. She has published on beauty trends, such as the thigh gap obsession, on the experience of mixed-race individuals, and on Simone de Beauvoir. Her article on body positivity, “What Is Body Positivity? The Path from Shame to Pride” (Philosophical Topics), has attracted a wide readership. She has been interviewed for her expertise on body image for a VOGUE article on body positivity, an Atlantic article on having conversations with children about beauty, and a New York Times article on body inclusivity and swimwear.

Kate Manne (Cornell University)A photo of Kate Manne.

“Diet Culture Is Unhealthy. It’s also Immoral” (New York Times, 2022)

Kate Manne is an associate professor at the Sage School of philosophy at Cornell University, where she’s been teaching since 2013. Before that, she was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Manne did her graduate work in philosophy at MIT, and works in moral, social, and feminist philosophy. She is the author of three books, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women, and Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia, which is out in January. Her newsletter, More to Hate, canvasses misogyny, fatphobia, their intersection, and more.

Back to top


2023 Philip L. Quinn Prize A photo of Howard McGary.

The Philip L. Quinn Prize is awarded in recognition of service to philosophy and philosophers, broadly construed.

Howard McGary (Rutgers University)

Howard McGary is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He is author of several books, numerous articles and reviews in professional journals, and he serves on the editorial boards of several professional journals, and he is the founder and past director of the Rutgers Summer Institute for Diversity in Philosophy. In addition, he has presented numerous lectures at colleges, professional associations, and universities in this country and abroad.

Back to top


2023 Routledge, Taylor & Francis Prize

The Routledge, Taylor & Francis Prize, funded by the Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, was established in 2013 to recognize the scholarly work of adjunct professors. The prize is awarded for the two best published articles in philosophy written by adjunct professors.

James Kinkaid (Bilkent University)

“Phenomenology, anti-realism, and the knowability paradox” (European Journal of Philosophy, Wiley, 2022)A photo of James Kinkaid.

As of Fall 2023, James Kinkaid is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bilkent University. Before starting at Bilkent, he was an adjunct instructor at Boston College and Boston University for five years. He received his Ph.D. from Boston University in 2019. He specializes in the phenomenological tradition (especially Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre). He is particularly interested in what this tradition can contribute to contemporary debates in metaphysics, the philosophy of logic, and the philosophy of mind. His work has appeared in the British Journal for the History of Philosophy, the European Journal of Philosophy, Inquiry, Mind, and The Southern Journal of Philosophy.

From the selection committee: James Kinkaid’s “Phenomenology, anti-realism, and the knowability paradox” expertly situates Husserl’s ideal verificationism in relation to the anti-realism of Dummett as this program has been refined by Tennant and Wright; this makes for a richer and more ecumenical discussion than is usual by allowing us to see how the necessary correlation for Husserl between truth and the ideal possibility of experience is vulnerable to the Church-Fitch proof that the knowability thesis entails the thesis that all truths are, have been, or will be known. Kinkaid is to be commended for showing how Husserl and Husserlians can arrive at a (restricted) version of verificationism that does not entail the knowability thesis. This weaker version holds only that all consistent propositions can be “intuitively illustrated” in imagination; this position, which is carefully and rigorously developed, is motivated through an argument from the inadequacy of perception and an analysis of the phenomenon of blindspots.

Back to top


2024 Sanders Graduate Student Awards

The annual Sanders Graduate Student Awards are three prizes awarded to each of the three best papers in mind, metaphysics, epistemology, or ethics submitted for the annual APA Eastern Division meeting by graduate students, as chosen by the Eastern Division program committee. This prize is funded through the generosity of the Marc Sanders Foundation.

Rhys Borchert (University of Arizona)

“Discrimination in Action”A photo of Rhys Borchert.

Rhys Borchert is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at the University of Arizona. Before coming to Arizona, he received a BPhil in philosophy from the University of Oxford and a B.S. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Rhys has a wide range of philosophical interests, including epistemology, metaphysics, decision theory, ethics, and the philosophy of science. His dissertation focuses on foundational issues in epistemology, in particular on the nature of empirical justification. He argues for a version of non-doxastic foundationalism and applies the account to epistemological issues related to evidence possession, skeptical scenarios, and ideologies. In other work, Rhys has discussed the implications of fallibilist foundationalism, the status of certain normative theories of decision, the praiseworthy actions of nonhuman animals, and the connection between epistemic and moral normativity. In future work, he plans to expand upon the considerations in his dissertation, further develop the theory of intentional action argued for in “Discrimination in Action”, advance a theory of moral agency that includes nonhuman animals, and make connections between the nature of normativity in ethics, epistemology, and aesthetics.

A photo of Brian Haas.

Brian Haas (University of Southern California)

“Lying with ‘Ouch!’ and ‘Oops!’”

Brian Haas is a Ph.D. student in philosophy at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on lying and deception, speech act theory and the ethics of communication, and metaphysical grounding. His dissertation is on how agents lie to, mislead, and deceive each other and why they shouldn’t.

 

 

 

Taylor Koles (University of Pittsburgh)A photo of Taylor Koles.

“Aggregation, Contractualism, and the Procedural Separateness of Persons”

Taylor Koles is a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. Before Pitt, he received his J.D. with high honors from the University of Chicago School of Law as a Rubenstein Scholar and was awarded the Ernst Freund Fellowship in Law and Philosophy. He got his B.A. in Philosophy and Government summa cum laude from Georgetown University. He works in moral and political philosophy, philosophy of language, and philosophy of law, and he is writing his dissertation on collective harm problems. In other work, he studies issues surrounding the interpretation of legal texts, aggregation in ethics, and political justification.

Back to top


2024 Sanders Lecture

Photo of Stephen Yablo.

The Sanders Lecture is presented annually at a divisional meeting of the APA on a topic in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, or epistemology that engages the analytic tradition. It is generously funded by the Marc Sanders Foundation.

Stephen Yablo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Stephen Yablo has been at MIT since 1998, having taught previously at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. He works in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophical logic, and the philosophy of mathematics and language. Older papers are collected in Thoughts and Things (Oxford, 2009-10). Aboutness (Princeton, 2014) develops a truthmaker-based theory of subject matter, and casts about for applications all over philosophy. He gave the Hempel Lectures at Princeton in 2008, the Lockes at Oxford in 2012, and the Whitehead Lectures at Harvard in 2016. Recent and ongoing work includes “The Bandersnatches of Dubuque,” “Leverage: A Model of Cognitive Significance,” "Amelioration as Course Correction" (with Sally Haslanger), “Relevance without Minimality,” and “Tangled up in Grue.”

Back to top


2023 Israel Scheffler Prize in Philosophy of Education

The Israel Scheffler Prize in Philosophy of Education, in memory of Israel Scheffler, is awarded every third year for either a book published within the previous five years or a connected set of three or more papers, the most recent of which was published no more than five years previous, on a topic in philosophy of education, broadly construed.

Lawrence Blum (University of Massachusetts Boston)

Co-author of Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education (University of Chicago Press, 2021)A black and white photo of Lawrence Blum.

Lawrence Blum is Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Education (Emeritus) at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He works in philosophy of education, moral philosophy, philosophy of race, and social and political philosophy. In addition to Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education (co-author Zoë Burkholder), he is the author or co-author of five books. Friendship, Altruism, and Morality (1980) was an early work on compassion, sympathy, and care. His 2002 “I’m Not a Racist, But…”: The Moral Quandary of Race was selected best social philosophy book of the year by the North American Society of Social Philosophy. His 2012 High Schools, Race, and America’s Future (2012) was based on a course on race and racism he taught for four semesters at his local, racially and ethnically mixed, high school. Blum has also taught at UCLA (in Philosophy); Teachers College, Columbia University (in Philosophy and Education); and Rhodes University (in Philosophy) in South Africa.

Zoë Burkholder (Montclair State University)

Co-author of Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education (University of Chicago Press, 2021)A photo of Zoe Burkholder.

Zoë Burkholder is professor of educational foundations and founding director of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Education Project in the College for Education and Engaged Learning at Montclair State University. She is an historian of education with expertise in antiracist education, school integration, the social construction of race in schools, and educational activism among Black, Native American, Latinx, and Asian American communities.

Burkholder has a Ph.D. in the history of education from New York University, a M.A. in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in Anthropology and Archaeology from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Her scholarship has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, and she has been awarded research fellowships from Harvard University and New York University.

Besides co-authoring Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education, Burkholder is the author of An African American Dilemma: A History of School Integration and Civil Rights in the North (Oxford University Press, 2021), Color in the Classroom: How American Schools Taught Race, 1900-1954 (Oxford University Press, 2011), as well as numerous scholarly journal articles and political commentaries. She may be reached at burkholderz@montclair.edu.

From the selection committee: Integrations is a monumental work on racial inequality in education. It brings rich historical grounding to one of the biggest problems in American education. It also shows the important contributions that philosophy and history of education bring to policy questions dominated by social science research. The book argues that racial inequality in education has more to do with inequality of public and private educational resourcing than with questions of separation/ integration. The book nevertheless champions the educational value of integration due to the educational and civic value of students learning about the experiences of students in racialized and class backgrounds different from their own.

Back to top


2023 Frank Chapman Sharp Memorial Prize

The Frank Chapman Sharp Memorial Prize was established in 1990 with funds donated by Eliot and Dorothy Sharp and several other members and friends of the Sharp family to honor the memory of Eliot's father. Frank Chapman Sharp was president of the Western Division of the APA in 1907–1908 and was a member of the philosophy faculty at the University of Wisconsin from 1893 until his retirement in 1936. Dr. Sharp was born in 1866 and died in 1943. This prize is awarded to the best unpublished essay or monograph on the philosophy of war and peace submitted for the competition.

Linda Eggert (University of Oxford)

“Duties to Rescue and Permissions to Harm”A photo of Linda Eggert.

Dr. Linda Eggert is an Early Career Fellow and incoming Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Most of her work is in moral, political, and legal philosophy, and lies at the nexus of normative and practical ethics and theories of justice. Linda is particularly interested in the ethics of rescue and other-defence, rectificatory justice, the thrills and challenges of non-consequentialist ethics—and, most recently and inescapably, the intersection of human rights, democratic theory, and the ethics of delegating to AI. Linda’s work has been published in the Journal of Philosophy, Legal Theory, Law and Philosophy, and Philosophical Studies, among others. Before taking up her current post, Linda was an Interdisciplinary Ethics Fellow at the McCoy Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University and a Fellow-in-Residence with the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Linda received her doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2021.

From the selection committee: ’Duties to Rescue and Permission to Harm’ takes a timely, rigorous, sophisticated, and carefully argued look at the relationship between rescuing and harming. It argues for three claims: (i) duties to rescue may take the form of duties to harm in other-defence; (ii) justifications for defensive harming rarely amount to obligations; and (iii) these results illuminate an oft-obscured challenge from cases where potential rescuers must choose between either causing all-things-considered justified harm, or allowing harm that is wrongful to be caused by others. The result is that one must look beyond what is available in mainstream accounts of permissible harming to determine whether one should act on justifications for harming in such cases.

Back to top


2023 Prize for Excellence in Philosophy Teaching

The Prize for Excellence in Philosophy Teaching, sponsored by the American Philosophical Association (APA), the American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT), and the Teaching Philosophy Association (TPA), recognizes a philosophy teacher who has had a profound impact on the student learning of philosophy in undergraduate and/or pre-college settings.

Kristopher Phillips (Eastern Michigan University)A photo of Kristopher Phillips.

Kristopher G. Phillips is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Michigan University who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 2014. His research lies at the intersection of early modern philosophy, philosophy of education, and precollege and public philosophy. Kristopher has published broadly on a range of scholarly topics including Descartes’ debt to medieval “mysticism,” the history of dualism, the metaphilosophical and pedagogical takeaways from the work of Margaret Cavendish, the value of a philosophical education both within and beyond the context of higher education, as well as more pop culture topics like the philosophy of coffee and taste, Twin Peaks and philosophy, and various philosophical dimensions of the show Arrested Development. He is currently working on his first book—a project blending modern philosophy, metaphilosophy, and the unique value of a philosophical education. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice and previously served on the APA Committee for Precollege Instruction in Philosophy. He is the co-founder of the Iowa Lyceum (with Greg Stoutenburg) and Utah Lyceum (with Kirk Fitzpatrick) philosophy summer camps and has aided in the development of other precollege philosophy programs at institutions around the country. He is currently developing another Lyceum program for Eastern Michigan University. In his spare time, Kristopher enjoys cooking, baking, and cycling.

Rebecca Scott (Harper College)A photo of Rebecca Scott.

Rebecca Scott is an Associate Professor at Harper College, a community college outside of Chicago. She received her Ph.D. from Loyola University Chicago, where she specialized in phenomenology and the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Her current research focuses on the scholarship of teaching and learning, especially inclusive, creative, and playful pedagogies. She frequently uses game-based learning in her classes and is developing a philosophical RPG for Ethics courses. Beyond philosophy, she is a big fan of table-top games, music, and everyday adventures.

 

Back to top

American Philosophical Association
University of Delaware
31 Amstel Avenue, Newark, DE 19716
Phone: 302.831.1112 | Fax: 302.831.8690
Email: info@apaonline.org