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Winner of the W. Preston Warren award for excellence in Philosophy and the Tustin Award for outstanding achievement in Philosophy and Psychology We asked our graduating seniors to tell us a bit about their time studying philosophy at Bucknell. This week, we’ll be showcasing our students’ answers. Favorite philosophy class at Bucknell: Arabic Philosophy! Taking this course was refreshing because it allowed me to approach metaphysical and epistemological questions through a traditional standpoint so different from my own. After every class, I felt my mind filled with wonder. Favorite philosopher, philosophical quote, or philosophical question: Angela Davis because Black women […]

We asked our graduating seniors to tell us a bit about their time studying philosophy at Bucknell. This week, we’ll be showcasing our students’ answers. Favorite philosophy class at Bucknell: Philosophy of Space and Time was the very first philosophy class and I had me hooked from the very start. Aside from my desire to engage with mathematical concepts philosophically, I was infatuated with the paradoxes that Professor Balcells introduced throughout the course. To this day, I still think about them frequently. Favorite philosopher, philosophical quote, or philosophical question: How should I live? (Aristotellian) Every day, I seek answers to […]

The Philosophy Department recently welcomed Professor Jason Stanley, Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University to campus to give the 2022 Roy Wood Sellars Lecture. In fact, Professor Stanley was our Sellars Lecturer for 2020, scheduled for March 19th, 2020 — that is, a few days after much of the country shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. His lecture, “Free Speech and its Discontents” drew on research he has been pursuing in a book in progress (co-authored with David Beaver) entitled The Politics of Language and philosophically engaged issues that have very much been part of recent public […]

October 13th at 4:30PM Traditional Reading Room, Bertrand Library (free and open to the public) Sponsored by the Philosophy Department and the Bucknell Humanities Center Knowledge of the external world is a persistent problem for empiricists, because if our ideas all come from experience, there does not seem to be a way to pierce the veil of perception to access anything beyond our sensations. Locke defines knowledge as the agreement of ideas, making it extremely subjective. This definition seems to create a further problem insofar as knowledge of the external world should have some conformity with an objective state of […]

The Philosophy faculty has been busy over the last year or so. A few highlights: Professor Adam Burgos published two essays on the topic of political resistance — an ongoing research project of his: “Legitimacy, Resistance and the Stakes of Politics” in Philosophy & Social Criticism; and “A Dialectical Taxonomy of Resistance” in The Harvard Review of Philosophy. Professor Maria Balcells presented her paper “Moving from A to B: dynamic experience, persistence, and becoming” at the 7th annual meeting of the International Association for the Philosophy of Time in July 2022. Her paper critically examined the claim that the passage […]

We asked our graduating seniors to tell us a bit about their time studying philosophy at Bucknell. This week and next, we’ll be showcasing our students’ answers. Favorite philosophy class at Bucknell: Arabic Philosophy, I loved the chance to debate the role of religion and philosophy and debate their influence with Professor Groff. It opened me up to so many perspectives I would have never come across elsewhere. I feel like I learned so much about my own values in that class. Favorite philosopher, philosophical quote, or philosophical question: “As a mark is not set up for the purpose of […]

We asked our graduating seniors to tell us a bit about their time studying philosophy at Bucknell. This week and next, we’ll be showcasing our students’ answers. Favorite philosophy class at Bucknell: I’d have to say Philosophy of Art. It cemented my love of axiology and value theory, was a small class with superb instruction and conversation, and of course, included a nice dose of Kant. Favorite philosopher, philosophical quote, or philosophical question: As much as I hate to say it, Kant has won me over. His philosophy is comprehensive, internally coherent, and relatively infallible, despite him being one of […]

We asked our graduating seniors to tell us a bit about their time studying philosophy at Bucknell. This week and next, we’ll be showcasing our students’ answers. Favorite philosophy class at Bucknell: Greek Philosophy! I loved Turners lectures and being able to relate mythology to philosophy. Favorite philosopher, philosophical quote, or philosophical question: “Death is nothing to us” – Epicurus Favorite memory from a philosophy class or philosophy department event?: I loved the first ever campfire talk with s’mores that we did this spring. What are your plans post-graduation?: I’m going to work at Epic the medical software company in […]

We had a great turnout and a great time at the 2021 celebration of World Philosophy Day. Great to see everyone. Here are some photos.

Click through for descriptions of the Philosophy courses on offer for the Spring ’22 semester.