fragments of consciousness

Congrats to Jonathan Schaffer

Congratulations to my colleague Jonathan Schaffer, who has been awarded the APA's 2008 article prize for the best article published by someone under 40 in the last two years, for his article "Knowing the Answer".  In addition, Jonathan has been awarded the AAP's prize for the best article published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy in 2007, for "From Nihilism to Monism".  That's quite a double!

Jonathan is the second ANU philosopher to win the APA article prize in the last few years, following Alan Hajek in 2004.  Once one combines this with Kim Sterelny's Jean Nicod Prize, Bob Goodin's election to the British Academy, Daniel Stoljar's acclaimed book and forthcoming PPR book symposium, and Frank Jackson's election as a Companion of the Order of Australia, these are good times for ANU philosophers.  Our new junior philosophers are no slouches either, with Susanna Schellenberg having papers accepted to Journal of Philosophy and Mind, and Nic Southwood having papers accepted to Ethics and Nous and a book accepted by Oxford University Press, both within about a year of getting their Ph.D.

Travel wrap-up

I've recently returned from five weeks of philosophy travel: Seoul (for the World Congress of Philosophy), Beijing (a couple of lectures and some Olympics), Kirchberg (the Wittgenstein conference on Reduction on Elimination), Syracuse (the SPAWN conference on perception), Krakow (the European Congress of Analytic Philosophy), and Dubrovnik (a workshop on Consciousness and Thought).  I've put photos from the five conferences online: Seoul, Kirchberg, Syracuse, Krakow, Dubrovnik.  I've also put online photos from three July events in Australia: the AAP in Melbourne, a workshop on the representational and relational character of perceptual experience here at ANU, and the Jack Smart lecture by Brian Skyrms.

In addition, I've put online Powerpoint for the wrap-up talks I gave at the ANU and Dubrovnik conferences, R&R and The Critique of Pure Thought, and for the commentary I gave at Syracuse (on Jesse Prinz on attention): Is There Consciousness Outside Attention?  Some of these may turn into papers at some point, but for now the Powerpoint will do.