News
July 2009
Templeton grants Notre Dame philosophy center $1.4 million to study problem of evil
For ages, philosophers and theologians have sought to reconcile a belief in the existence of a benevolent God with the reality of a world plagued by evil. Adding to this body of thought are University of Notre Dame philosophers Michael Rea and Samuel Newlands, who recently were awarded more than $1.4 million from the John Templeton Foundation for their project “The Problem of Evil in Modern and Contemporary Thought.”
According to Rea, a professor of philosophy who also is director of Notre Dame’s Center for Philosophy of Religion, the multi-faced project will place special emphasis on questions about how the problem of evil was raised and addressed by important historical figures in the 16th and 17th centuries, on philosophical problems raised (then and now) by the existence of natural evil, and on strategies for explaining—or showing why we shouldn’t expect to explain—why God might permit the kinds and amounts of evil we experience in the world.
The grant will fund conferences, competitive fellowships, and publication prizes from 2010 through 2013. In addition to advancing new ideas, the project will commemorate the 300th anniversary of Gottfried Leibniz’s seminal “Theodicy” with a new translation and series of events exploring the historical context and ongoing relevance of his work on the problem of evil.
“One aspect of the grant I find most exciting is that it knits several areas of traditional strengths in our Department of Philosophy together in a single project,” said Newlands, assistant professor of philosophy and assistant director of the Center for Philosophy of Religion. “By funding simultaneous research in 17th-century modern philosophy and contemporary philosophy of religion, metaphysics and epistemology, this grant has the potential to discover new connections between philosophy and its history that will have long-term impacts on all our sub-fields.”
Established in 1976, the Center for Philosophy of Religion seeks to promote work on traditional topics and questions in the philosophy of religion and to encourage the development and exploration of specifically Christian and theistic philosophy.
The John Templeton Foundation (www.templeton.org) strives to be a philanthropic catalyst for discovery in areas engaging life’s biggest questions, ranging from explorations into the laws of nature and the universe to questions on the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness and creativity.
“The center has established an international reputation as the best place in the world to pursue research in philosophy of religion,” Rea said, “which partly explains Templeton’s current enthusiasm about funding projects through the center. And the work funded by this grant, together with our other activities, will help us to maintain that reputation in years to come.”
Contact: Michael Rea, mrea@nd.edu
May 2009
Karl Ameriks elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Karl Ameriks, McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). He will be formally inducted at a ceremony in October in Cambridge, Mass.
Founded during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock and others, the AAAS is the nation’s leading learned society. It recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to science, scholarship, public affairs and the arts.
A faculty fellow in Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies, Ameriks specializes in the history of modern philosophy, continental philosophy, and modern German philosophy. He has dedicated much of his research to the study of Immanuel Kant about whom he has published multiple books, including “Kant and the Historical Turn” and “Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Letters on the Kantian Philosophy.”
A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 1973, Ameriks received his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from Yale University.
Sixteen other Notre Dame faculty members have been elected to the AAAS. They are: Gerald L. Bruns, William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English; the late George Craig, professor of biology; Roberto DaMatta, Rev. Edmund P. Joyce Professor of Anthropology; Rev. Gustavo Gutierrez, O.P., John Cardinal O’Hara Professor of Theology; Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., president emeritus and professor emeritus of theology; Sabine G. MacCormack, Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Professor of Arts and Letters; Alasdair MacIntyre, research professor of philosophy; Rev. Ernan McMullin, John Cardinal O’Hara Professor Emeritus of Philosophy; Mark Noll, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History; Guillermo O’Donnell, professor of political science; Timothy O’Meara, provost emeritus and Howard J. Kenna Professor Emeritus of Mathematics; Alvin Plantinga, Rev. John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy; the late Philip Quinn, John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy; Lawrence Sullivan, professor of theology; Eugene Ulrich, Rev. John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology; and Peter van Inwagen, John Cardinal O’Hara Professor of Philosophy.
February 2009
Peter van Inwagen to Deliver APA Presidential Address
Peter van Inwagen, the John Cardinal O’Hara Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame, will deliver his Presidential Address, entitled “The New Anti-Metaphysicians,” at the upcoming meeting of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association. A leading figure in metaphysics and philosophy of religion, Professor van Inwagen is the author or editor of fifteen books, including the publication last year of the third edition of his classic text, Metaphysics. In 2003 he gave the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of St. Andrews, which were subsequently published as The Problem of Evil, and in 2005 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor van Inwagen becomes the eighth member of the Department to have been elected President of the APA, joining Professors James Sterba (2007-2008), Karl Ameriks (2004-2005), Philip Quinn (1994-1995), Robert Audi (1987-1988), Alasdair MacIntyre (1984-1985), Ernan McMullin (1983-1984), and Alvin Plantinga (1981-1982). Professor van Inwagen will give his address on Friday, February 20, at 5:00PM CST in the Red Lacquer Room of the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago (APA Program).
FRED RUSH - In his new book titled On Architecture, recently released by Routledge, Fred Rush examines how philosophical reflection on building can reveal important aspects of the human condition. “The reason I undertook the project of writing a book on the philosophy of architecture is that it struck me that architecture is pervasive and yet the experience of it is poorly understood,” Rush explained. “The main argument of the book is that architecture is an extremely powerful way of experiencing one’s body and that a particular methodology in philosophy – what is called ‘phenomenology’ – can give a rich account of that experience.” A recipient of Mellon, Fulbright and ACLS fellowships, Rush specializes in the history of continental philosophy, aesthetics and the philosophy of art, and social and political philosophy. He also is the author of the forthcoming book Irony and Idealism and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Critical Theory.
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PHILIP QUINN - When Phillip J. Quinn, John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame, died five years ago, he was eulogized as "a jewel…rare and valuable, a treasure whose loss we mourn."
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DON HOWARD , professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has published a comprehensive academic course on Albert Einstein with The Teaching Company. The course, “Albert Einstein: Physicist, Philosopher, Humanitarian,” consists of 24 half-hour lectures recorded on DVD. In addition to Howard’s lectures, the course features 50 animations designed to illustrate and make comprehensible Einstein’s scientific ideas and thought experiments. It also includes some 250 images of Einstein, his contemporaries, and formative events, situations and locations in his life.
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JAMES HEBBELER has been awarded the prestigious Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Hebbeler is one of only 29 Newcombe fellows selected nationwide for the 2008 academic year.
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DON HOWARD has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
This is a significant honor that recognizes outstanding contributions to physics. The APS is the main professional organization of the field, and Fellowship is limited to less than one percent of membership. The number of APS Fellows in a physics department is one of the metrics used to rate its excellence. In the notice of his election, Don was cited "for
his ground-breaking studies of the interplay between physics and philosophy of science in the twentieth century, especially in connection with the work of Einstein and Bohr." This adds to Don's already successful year, in which he currently holds an NSF grant.
SAM NEWLANDS has been awarded an NEH Fellowship for his project, "Reconceiving Spinoza". The grant will enable Sam to take a year of research leave to write a monograph that "provides a novel, integrated interpretation of how Spinoza's metaphysics and ethics shape one another in ways that remain germane for contemporary philosophical disputes." As we all know, NEH Fellowships in philosophy are not as frequent as in the other humanities. So far as records indicate, Sam's NEH is the first in our Department in a decade, the last being held by Karl Ameriks in 1997-1998.
PROGRAM IN MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY
(Karl Ameriks, Gary Gutting, Anja Jauernig, Lynn Joy, Samuel Newlands, Fred Rush, Stephen Watson from our Department) has won significant internal funding from ISLA and the Nanovic Institute, in addition to generous funding previously provided by the College of Arts and Letters, to mount their Workshop series over the next two years. These funds will
enable the Workshop to host outside speakers to the enrichment not only of the Department but the wider College community.
Catholic Digest Names Shrader-Frechette U.S. "Hero"
October 25, 2007
Kristin Shrader-Frechette, F.J. and H.M. O’Neill Professor of Philosophy and concurrent professor of biological sciences at the University of Notre Dame, has been selected by Catholic Digest magazine as one of 12 “heroes for America” — laypeople living or working in the United States who are performing exemplary work in the spirit of the Catholic faith. The magazine cited her work on behalf of environmental justice.
Shrader-Frechette and the other honorees are profiled in the October issue of the magazine. The only other university professor selected as a Catholic Hero is Paul Farmer, the Harvard University physician and medical anthropologist who is the cofounder of Partners in Health and who was the recipient of an honorary Notre Dame degree last May.
“The environment is not necessarily a social justice issue, but environmental effects of pollution are social justice issues,” Shrader-Frechette said in an interview accompanying the Catholic Digest feature. “Environmental injustice — and by that I mean disproportionate pollution forced on children, poor people, minorities and workers — is a social justice issue, because unfair pollution burdens take away not only poor people’s money, but something that’s even more important: their lives and their health.”
The magazine also cited Shrader-Frechette for involving students in the fight against environmental injustice.
“My students and I (in the Center for Environmental Justice and Children’s Health at Notre Dame) work mainly with poor, black, Latino, Native-American, and Appalachian communities,” she said. “We simply try to provide some scientific help so that the people are able to protect themselves, especially their children. We can do maybe 30 projects a year, pro-bono. That’s a lot, but only because the Notre Dame students are so generous, so brilliant, and so committed to social justice. They’re just wonderful.”
Although cancer annually kills 600,000 Americans, Shrader-Frechette says many of these premature deaths are preventable by avoiding scientific errors in impact assessment and by enforcing pollution laws. Government and U.N. groups agree, noting that up to 90 percent of cancers are “environmentally induced and theoretically preventable.”
Children are more sensitive to pollutants, Shrader-Frechette said, and their annual cancer incidence rates are increasing 40 percent faster than those of adults. She points out that minority cancer rates also are much higher, partly because most industrial polluters locate in poor or minority neighborhoods, and minorities must breathe air that is typically twice as polluted as in white neighborhoods.
Working with local community members, Shrader-Frechette and her students revealed both scientific errors and ethical problems in the impact assessment used when, without community consent, a multinational corporation attempted to site a substandard uranium-enrichment plant in the African-American community of Homer, La. The case is regarded as the first major victory against environmental racism in the United States.
In 2004, Shrader-Frechette became only the third American to win the World Technology Award in Ethics. The U.S. National Science Foundation has continuously funded her research since 1982.
Shrader-Frechette, who also is a fellow of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1998. She has held senior professorships at the University of California and the University of Florida. An award-winning teacher as well as a researcher, she has published more than 350 articles and 15 books that have been translated into 11 languages. Her 2007 book, “Taking Action, Saving Lives,” published by Oxford University Press, has just been nominated for a National Book Award.
Shrader-Frechette earned her mathematics degree from Xavier University and a doctorate in philosophy of science from Notre Dame. She has done post-doctoral work in biology, in economics, and in hydrogeology.
Philosopher, Michael Detlefsen, receives $1.1 million grant from French National Research Agency
July 23, 2007
Michael Detlefsen, professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has been awarded a prestigious $1.1 million senior Chaire d’Excellence from the French National Research Agency (ANR). The award, along with matching financial support provided by the institutions that nominated him − the University of Paris, University of Nancy, and Collège de France − will support a four-year research project on the history and philosophy of mathematics.
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Philosopher Ralph McInerny's autobiography published
April 24, 2006
"I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You: My Life and Pastimes," an autobiography by Ralph McInerny, professor of philosophy and Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame, has been published by the University of Notre Dame Press.
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Expert on poverty and welfare to deliver lecture March 30
March 23, 2006
Lawrence Mead, professor of politics at New York University, will deliver a talk titled "Welfare Reform: Implications for the War on Poverty" at 7 p.m. March 30 (Thursday) in DeBartolo Hall at the University of Notre Dame.
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Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas to be celebrated at Basilica Mass
January 24, 2006
By Michael O. Garvey
The feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, patron saint of students and universities, will be observed at the University of Notre Dame with a vigil Mass at 5:15 p.m. Friday (Jan. 27) in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.
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Lecture series to focus on 18th-century feminist Wollstonecraft
October 6, 2005
Examining the life and political theory of 18th-century Anglo-Irish feminist, writer and intellectual Mary Wollstonecraft is the focus of a lecture series sponsored by the Program in Gender Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
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A half century of Ralph McInerny
July 26, 2005
Ralph McInerny, professor of philosophy, director of the Jacques Maritain Center and Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame, can be pointed in his disapproval of recent trends in his chosen academic discipline. "Philosophy itself has now become a form of Radical Chic," he says, deriding those comfortably employed philosophers who "fly about the world to talk to one another and deny that there is a world to fly around or that anything they or anyone else might say makes sense."
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Plantinga discusses evolution and Christianity
July 18, 2005
A renowned philosopher from the University of Notre Dame supports recent comments by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn that belief in evolution as accepted by some in science today may be incompatible with Christian beliefs.
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