News

Prof. Michael Rea has just been named John A. O’Brien Chair of Philosophy. This is the oldest endowed chair at Notre Dame, and is especially fitting in this case, since it was previously held by Mike’s dissertation director, Al Plantinga. 

The Templeton Prize, valued at  approximately $1.4 million, is one of the world’s largest annual awards given to an individual. It is meant to honor “a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.” Plantinga, the most important philosopher of religion of the last century, taught in the Philosophy Department at Notre Dame for almost 30 years before...

Professor Michael Rea gave this years Gifford Lectures held at University of St. Andrews from March 27th – April 5th. Past and present Notre Dame faculty to give the lectures include Alasdair MacIntyre, Alvin Plantinga, and Peter van Inwagen. The Gifford Lectures are the most prestigious lectures in the world for the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. You can find Prof. Rea’s full lectures here…

Grad Students Liz Jackson and Becca Chan have won the coveted Hammes Bookstore Basketball 5-on-5 tournament. Their teammates include undergraduate students Amanda Geiger (Finance and Political Science), Allie Griffith (English and American Studies), and Jackie Collins (Management Consulting). The game was a fight until the end, with Becca making the game-winning shot. 84 teams competed in this years women’s bracket.  For more information on Bookstore basketball, visit their website…

Prof. Janet Kourany has been selected as the second recipient of the Gender Studies Program’s Marian Mullin Hancock Teaching Award.   “Dr. Kourany’s students described her as a “generous and dedicated mentor” who expresses a genuine interest in her students and cares for them “both in the classroom and outside of it.” Students wrote that her classes – on topics of feminist philosophy of science and feminist epistemology, as well as...

This award recognizes graduate students who demonstrate excellent teaching at Notre Dame. Each recipient will receive an award certificate presented by Dr. Laura Carlson, Vice President and Associate Provost, Dean of the Graduate School. Congratulations, Paul!     …

Hannah specializes in the philosophy of biology and evolutionary game theory, and adds to the department’s strengths in the philosophy of science. She will be starting 2018-19.  Visit her web page at www.hannahrubin.net/  …

Aaron Wells won the Markus Herz Prize from the North American Kant Society for his paper “Mechanical Inexplicability and Extensive Magnitudes in Kant’s Critique of Judgment.” This is an award given every year to the best graduate student paper presented at one of the regional meetings of the NAKS. Aaron is the second consecutive Notre Dame graduate student to win the prize (Naomi Fisher won in 2015), and the fourth Notre Dame student...

What conceptual models shape our thinking about the mind and its activities or experiences?  The project is to recover a neglected model of the mind in Thomas Aquinas, according to which knowing is construed in terms of the realization, in the human knower, of a certain kind of being with certain exotic properties.  By examining the philosophical implications of this “metaphysics of intellect,” the book will provide new perspective on...

Professor Sean Kelsey has been awarded a (very prestigious and competitive) NEH Fellowship for the 2017-18 academic year for his research into Aristotle’s De Anima. Congratulations, Sean! More here.      …

University of Notre Dame seniors Christa Grace Watkins and Alexis Doyle have been selected to the United States Rhodes Scholar Class of 2017. Watkins, a native of Blacksburg, Virginia, and Doyle, of Los Altos, California, are two of 32 Rhodes Scholars selected from a pool of 882 candidates who had been endorsed by their colleges and universities. They are Notre Dame’s 18th and 19th Rhodes Scholars and will commence their studies at...

Professor Therese Cory’s paper “Knowing as Being? A Metaphysical Reading of the Identity of Intellect and Intelligibles in Aquinas” has been selected as the winner of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly’s 2016 Rising Scholar Award .…

The American Philosophical Association is pleased to announce that Professor Robert Audi (University of Notre Dame) has been awarded the 2016 Quinn Prize, the APA’s highest honor for service to the profession. Full story here.    …

More than $650,000 has been awarded to 15 projects in the second year of a research collaboration aimed at building new understanding about how religious and transformative experiences occur and shape lives.  It is co-directed by Michael Rea, a professor of philosophy, and Samuel Newlands, the William J. and Dorothy K. O’Neill Collegiate Associate Professor in Philosophy—both of the University of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters—and L.A. Paul, a professor of philosophy...

Anne Hamilton ’04 didn’t always know she wanted to be a filmmaker. She majored in philosophy in the College of Arts and Letters, but plans change, and now Hamilton is one of Hollywood’s up-and-coming directors. She recently signed with William Morris Endeavor after the successful world premiere of American Fable, a feature film she wrote, directed, and co-produced. The film made its debut at the South by Southwest festival in...