Why do Philosophy in a Blizzard?

Since the semester is just about over, I thought I would fondly look back at some of the big highlights this fall at SUNY Buffalo. While I must regrettably inform our readers that we have not lived up to our name up here at Lake Effect Philosophy this winter (only 18 inches of snow total accumulation thus far), we have had our share of famous speakers, relatively progressive courses and interesting colloquium. Some of my favorites are listed below:

Course dedicated to Two- Dimensionalism:

Scott Soames (Southern California) "Actually"

Course dedicated to The Second-Person Standpoint:

Stephen Darwall (University of Michigan) "Two Kinds of Recognition Respect for Persons"

Conference on Philosophy of Biology:

William C. Wimsatt (University of Chicago) "Generative Entrenchment and Evolution: How the Contingent Becomes Necessary"

Robin Andreasen (University of Delaware) "Is Race a Scientifically Valuable Biomedical Research Variable?"

Mathias Brochhausen (Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science · Universität des Saarlandes, Germany) "Speciation and Biological Change"

Michael (City University of New York) "Innateness"

Conference on Naturalism:

Nicholas Rescher (University of Pittsburgh) “The Future of Naturalism”

Victor Stenger (University of Hawaii and University of Colorado) “Can Science Study the Supernatural?”

Laura Purdy (Wells College) “What Religious Ethics Can Tell Us about Sex”

Paul Draper (Purdue University) “Doubts about Theism (and Naturalism)”

Arthur Caplan (University of Pennsylvania) “Lessons to be Drawn from Illogical Debates about Embryonic Stem Cell Research”

Brian Leiter (University of Texas) “Naturalizing Jurisprudence: Three Approaches”

Hilary Kornblith (University of Massachusetts) “Disagreement, Naturalism, and the Integrity of Philosophy”

Lynn Hankinson Nelson (University of Washington) “Why Social Epistemology is Genuinely Naturalized Epistemology”

Harvey Siegel (University of Miami) “Two Senses of 'Naturalism'”

Randall Dipert (University at Buffalo) “Naturalism’s Unfinished Project: Making Philosophy and Philosophers More Than Superficially Scientific”

Isaac Levi (Columbia University) “Wayward Naturalism: Saving Dewey from Himself”

Paul Kurtz (Center for Inquiry) “Eupraxsophy and Naturalism”

David Rosenthal (City University of New York) “Consciousness and Its Function"

Akeel Bilgrami (Columbia University) “Agency, Value, and Intentionality”

Terry Horgan (University of Arizona) “Materialist Naturalism and the Philosophy of Mind”

Joseph Margolis (Temple University) “Reclaiming Naturalism”

John Ryder (State University of New York) “The Value of Pragmatic Naturalism"

Charlene Haddock Seigfried (Purdue University) “Distinguishing Myth from Reality: Are James’s and Dewey’s Pragmatic Tools Sufficient?”

James Gouinlock (Emory University) “The Fecundity of Naturalism: Reflections on Dewey's Methodology”

John Peter Anton (University of South Florida) “Pragmatism and the Naturalization of Religion”

Ernest Sosa (Rutgers University) “Is Naturalism Self-Defeating?”