Call for Papers

 

For

The 56th Annual

Northwest Philosophy Conference

 

The Plenary Speakers this Year will be

 

Jeffrey King, University of Southern California

and

Michael Jubien, University of Florida

 

The theme for this year’s conference will be Philosophical Analysis. While papers on issues related to analysis are encouraged, this conference has a tradition of welcoming quality submissions on any philosophical topic. Accepted papers will be eligible for publication in the conference proceedings.  We ask that authors of accepted papers be available to comment on the work of other participants.

 

In every branch of philosophy we find philosophers formulating and evaluating analyses.  In ethics we find philosophers debating the merits of analyses concerning what is right or wrong, virtuous or vicious, and just or unjust.  In metaphysics, we seek analyses of laws, ordinary things and causation.  In epistemology, we seek analyses of knowledge, rational belief and justification.  Just what are we trying to do in offering and evaluating analyses?  Why should anyone find it interesting? What are the objects of analysis and what does an analysis say about its object?  What is the modal status of an analysis?  What is the epistemic status of an analysis?  What kind of knowledge or understanding does the process of formulating and evaluating analyses yield?  What place does analysis occupy in rational methods more broadly construed?  Philosophical analysis raises issues from the philosophy of language, metaphysics and epistemology.  The answers we give on these issues are fundamental to the nature of philosophical inquiry in all areas.

 

This year’s Northwest Philosophy Conference will be held at Bellevue Community College in Bellevue, WA.  Bellevue Community College is located about 15 miles from downtown Seattle.  The conference will be held on October 8-9, 2004.  Submissions should be limited to 3000 words in length with abstracts around 200 words.  Submissions are due August 1, 2004.   Mail a hard copy of your submission to W. Russ Payne, Bellevue Community College, 3000 Landerholm Cir. SE, Bellevue WA, 98007 and email an electronic document to wpayne@bcc.ctc.edu.  For more information, visit the conference website at   http://facweb.bcc.ctc.edu/wpayne/npcindex.htm