Speakers spark interest in philosophy on campus
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The conference was held by Prometheus, the Hopkins undergraduate philosophy journal, and featured several student speakers from universities all over the country.
Yitzhak K. Melamed, a professor of Early Modern Philosophy, German Idealism and Metaphysics at Hopkins, delivered the keynote presentation on Baruch Spinoza's Deification of Existence.
"According to Spinoza, God's true essence is necessary existence," Melamed said, discussing the difference between God's essence and God's attributes.
Melamed also discussed the implications of God's given name, Jehovah, and the complications that arise when religion and philosophy collide.
Other speakers included Joseph Rees of American University, who presented his paper on the difficulties with language and presuppositions, and Ashley Bohrer of George Washington University, who discussed the relationship between Marxism and the culture of art, as well as the burden of living in a capitalistic society.
Michael Winnett, a Hopkins senior, talked about the implications of human existence, and Tara Rhoades of the University of Delaware presented her paper on Klein's Infinitism and justified beliefs.
The conference concluded with a presentation by Jeremy Goodman, a junior at Brown University. Goodman opened discussion on his paper, entitled "Open Moral Questions and Hard Mental Problems."
The conference ran from 9:30 a.m. until approximately 4:30 p.m. While attendance was sparse in the early morning hours on Homecoming weekend, the later speakers garnered a fairly large audience of undergraduate and graduate students.
In September, sophomore philosophy majors Cuong Nguyen and Shane Steinert-Threlkeld decided to revive Prometheus, which had stopped publishing in 2007.
The group initially consisted of weekly discussion forums comprised entirely of undergraduate students. Graduate student Matthew Holtzman served as Prometheus's advisor.
"We wanted to start a community of philosophers here at campus who could talk about things that are not discussed at the Hopkins campus in classes," Nguyen said.
"Classes can be very constricting, and Prometheus discussions allow us to talk outside of class in an open and democratic forum of freethinkers."
Since then, Nguyen and Steinert-Threlkeld have received submissions for Prometheus's online publication as well as the print publication, from universities in five countries, including McGill University in Canada and Oxford University.
"I'm very encouraged by the number of students who are interested in philosophic discourse," Nguyen said.
"I'm happy that we've encouraged this kind of discussion and garnered this kind of interest at the Hopkins campus here at Homewood. It's been a very spiritual and uplifting experience."
In addition to the Philosophy Conference, Prometheus has offered a collection of seminar speakers from the graduate philosophy department during the semester.
These speakers, including James Gilmore, Matthew Holtzman and Alexander James, have focused on philosophers such as Wittengenstein, Heidegger, Berkeley and Plato.
Last Sunday's conference served as an advanced extension of the group's weekly seminar series.
"We established the conference to promote philosophic discourse and community in the program," Steinert-Threlkeld said.
Prometheus's first print publication was distributed to conference attendees.
Bound in a professional booklet, the publication consisted of various philosophical essays from students all over the world.
Prometheus is published in print once a year; the online edition is available monthly at the group's Web site, http://www.prometheus-journal.com.
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