Karl Martin Adam, a junior Philosophy major, has won a Holzbock Scholarship for the 2013-2014 school year. Karl will be able to apply the $3,500 award towards his future studies at Oakland. Congratulations to Karl!

Two current philosophy students will be presenting at the upcoming Michigan Academy Annual Conference. On Friday, March 22, Jessica Dalton and James Tierney will be presenting their papers at Hope College. Jessica's paper is entitled "Beauty as enhancement: the ethics of cosmetic surgery," and James's paper is entitled "Mirror neurons and self-awareness: does V.S Ramachandran’s 'Tell-Tale Brain' really get at the heart of consciousness?" Congratulations to Jessica and James and good luck!  

The Philosophy Department is pleased to announce the 5th annual Philosophy Essay Contest. The author of the winning essay will receive $1000. Submissions are due by March 30th, 2013. For contest details, see here.

Congratulations to Ray Miller, the recipient of the 2013 Eugene Howe McDonald III Memorial Philosophy Award. The philosophy department gives the Eugene Howe McDonald III Memorial Philosophy Award annually to the senior-level philosophy major who has demonstrated excellence and hard work in her or his studies, judged based on overall GPA in coursework at Oakland University. The award is intended to support students while they are applying for graduate school and/or professional school and/or professional employment after graduation.

The Philosophy Department announces two talks for the winter 2013 semester:

• Danielle Wenner, a bioethics fellow at the Cleveland Clinic, will be speaking on January 11 from 4-5:30 p.m. (location TBA). 
• Mark Huston, a professor of philosophy at Schoolcraft College, will give a talk entitled "Bridging the Intuition Gap: Between Experimental Philosophy and Moderate Rationalism." Huston's talk will take place on January 18 from 5–6:30 p.m. in Gold Room C, Oakland Center.

Professor Eric LaRock mentored a local high school student on a research project which has won her a $10,000 scholarship. 

Daniel Springer '12 is this year's winner of the Philosophy Department's Essay Contest for his essay "Organ Donation, Autonomy, Presumed Consent, and Mandated Choice." Congratulations to Daniel!

Kevin O'Bryan, a junior Philosophy major, has won a Holzbock Scholarship for the 2012-2013 school year. Kevin will be able to apply the $3,000 award towards his future studies at Oakland. Congratulations to Kevin!

Congratulations to Professor Eric LaRock for winning a highly competitive research fellowship. Next winter he will be working on a project called Neuroscience and the Soul with Jeffrey Schwartz (UCLA, Medical School), Richard Swinburne (Oxford), Dean Zimmerman (Rutgers), Tim O'Connor (Indiana), William Hasker (Huntington), J.P. Moreland (Talbot), and many more participants. All of these scholars are proponents of emergentism (in one form or another), so Professor LaRock is likely to learn a lot from them in the process of working out the details of his own evolutionary emergentist account of consciousness and persons.

View the Philosophy Department's news archive.