Amy Schmitter's
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Associate Professor and Associate Chair (Graduate Studies)
Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta
2-70 Assiniboia Hall
Edmonton, Alberta
CANADA T6G 2E7
Ph.D. (Philosophy), University of Pittsburgh.
Personal Email: amyDOTschmitterATualbertaDOTca
Office: Assiniboia
Hall 2-70
Phone: (780) 492-9030
Graduate Program Inquiries: philgrad@ualberta.ca
Graduate Program Information: http://www.philosophy.ualberta.ca/Graduate%20Program.aspx
annual meeting calendar
my c.v.
Teaching 2012-2013:
Fall 2012: Phil 400:
“Topics in Philosophy of Mind: Perception & Intentionality,” and Phil 442
& 546: “Spinoza and Leibniz”
Winter
2013:
Phil 270: “Political Philosophy”
Some
past seminars:
“Seminar on Descartes”
“Women and Early Modern
Philosophy”
“Hume’s Ethics & Aesthetics”
“Passions in the 17th
Century”
Fourth Year Honours
Seminar: “The Parting of the Ways:
the origins of the split between analytic and continental philosophy”
Fourth Year Honours
Seminar: “Philosophy as a Way of Life & the Art of Living”
“Marx”
Professional:
I am currently Graduate Chair for the Philosophy Department.
Before coming to the University of Alberta, I taught at the University of
Pittsburgh, Hamilton College in New York state, and
the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. I have also been a Visiting
Scholar at the University of California at Berkeley and at New York University,
and during 2002-03, held a Fellowship at the Stanford Humanities Center,
Stanford University. I have received several awards for Summer Institutes and
Seminars from the National Endowment for the Humanities (U.S.A.). I also
serve on various committees, including the Religious Studies Advisory Council
for the U of A, the editorial board of the Canadian
Journal of Philosophy, the Program Committee for the Pacific Northwest-Western
Canada Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, and review committees for several
grant organizations. Recently, I was also a member of the local and program
organizing committee for the Hume Society's
Annual Conference in 2012
and of the program committee for the Central Division Meetings of the American
Philosophical Association in 2012 in Chicago. (I have my fill of committees . .
.)
My main areas of
research and writing are the history of early modern philosophy and philosophy
of art. But those are broad and eclectic areas that (necessarily) take me into
many different topics, historical periods and approaches to philosophy. My
teaching interests and educational history cover yet further fields. The result
is that I know (or "know") a little bit about many different things.
A summary of my current interests and recent work is below. Some of my work can
be found on-line: The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A recent book review is here: Notre Dame
Philosophical Reviews.
There is also an interview where I express various half-baked opinions
about the philosophy of art here (p. 20): http://www.visualartsalberta.com/docs/vaaa_springnewsletter07.pdf The second half is here (p.26): http://www.visualartsalberta.com/docs/vaaaVoice_1_2008.pdf
(Thanks to the
interviewer, Al Henderson, who did an excellent job, and deserves a much better
interview subject.)
Areas of Specialization:
History
of Early Modern Philosophy, Philosophy of Art, History of Metaphysics &
Philosophy of Mind, History of the Emotions, Feminist Approaches to the History
of Philosophy
Areas of Competence:
Metaphysics,
Post-structuralist French Thought (Derrida,
Foucault), Feminist Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Political Philosophy, 19th
Century German Philosophy (Marx, Nietzsche), 20th Century Continental
Philosophy (Heidegger, Existentialism), Ancient Philosophy (Aristotle),
Medieval Philosophy (Scholasticism)
Some Other Areas of Interest:
Renaissance
and 17th Century Art History, Methodology of Art History, Literary Criticism
and Methodology, 17th & 18th Century Studies, Philosophy of History,
Non-Technical History of Mathematics and Logic
Some Recent and Forthcoming
Publications:
Forthcoming
“Cartesian Ideas and Representational Reality” [working
title], The Cambridge Companion to
Descartes’s Meditations, ed. D. Cunning (Cambridge U. Press, 2014)
“Thomas Hobbes,” in Sourcebook in the History of
Philosophy of Language, eds.
B. Hill, H. Lagerlund & R.J. Stainton
(Springer, 2013 or 2014)
“Evaluating Character and Beauty (The Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals and “Of the Standard of
Taste”)” [working title], Reading Hume on
the Principles of Morals: Essays on the Second Enquiry, ed. J. Taylor
(Oxford U. Press, 2013)
(with Leah K. A. Spencer)
“Judgments of Taste and Feeling Norms: Lessons from Hume for a Naturalised Feminist Aesthetics,” Feminist
Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art: The Power of Critical Visions and Creative
Engagement,
ed. L.Ryan Musgrave, Springer Verlag [forthcoming
2013?]
“The Passions: Taxonomy and Terminology,” The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in
the Eighteenth Century, ed. J. Harris, Oxford U. Press, [in press] -- .pdf draft here
“Passions and Affections” The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century,
ed. P. Anstley, Oxford U. Press [in press], pp.
442-71 -- .pdf draft here
“Family Trees: Sympathy, Comparison and the Communication of
the Passions in Hume & his Predecessors,” for Emotion and Cognitive Life in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy,
ed. L. Shapiro and M. Pickavé, Oxford U. Press, [in
press], pp. 255-76
“Responses to Vulnerability: Medicine, Politics and the Body
in Descartes and Spinoza,” for Rhetoric and Medicine in Early Modern Europe,
ed. S. Pender & N.Struever, Ashgate
[in press]
"Universalização e Uniformidade: sentimentos e padrões no juízo de gosto em Hume" (translation
of "Universalizability and Uniformity: Sentiments and Standards in Hume's
Judgment of Taste"), tr. Paulo Pimenta Marques,
for Leituras de Hume, ed. Livia
Guimaraes, UFMG Press, Belo Horizonte, Brazil [in
press?]
2011
“Natural Passions, Reason and Religious Emotion in Hobbes
& Spinoza,” Passions and Passivity: Claremont Studies in Religion
2009, ed. I. Dalferth
& M. Rodgers, Mohr Siebeck, 2011, pp. 49-68
Review
of P. Machamer & G. Wolters, Interpretation: Ways of Thinking about the
Sciences and the Arts for Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
(July 2011)
2010
“Descartes’s
Peepshow: Critical Review of Deborah Brown, Descartes
and the Passionate Mind,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 40,
September 2010, pp. 485-508
2009
Review of P.
Hoffman, Essays on Descartes, for Notre Dame
Philosophical Reviews,
September 2009.
“Making an Object of Yourself: Hume on the Intentionality of
the Passions”, Topics
in Early Modern Philosophy of Mind, ed. J. Miller, Springer, pp. 223-40
2007
“How to Engineer a
Human Being: Passions and Functional Explanation in Descartes,” A
Companion to Descartes, ed. J. Broughton & J. Carriero, Blackwell Press, pp. 426-44 (rev.paper
ed. 2010)
2006
"OBRAZUJAC
WLADZE: REPREZENTACJA I LAS MENINAS"
(translation of "Picturing Power: Representation and Las Meninas" from Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,
1996), ed. Andrzej Witko,
in Tajemnica Las Meninas
(Wydawnictwo AA: Kraków, 2006),
pp. 303-330
“Theories of the
Emotions in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” for The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (“Main Document,” “Historical Background,”
“Descartes,” “Hobbes,” “Spinoza,” “Malebranche,” “Shaftesbury,” “Hutcheson,”
“Hume”), ms. ~150 pp. [May 2006; substantial revision 2010]
2005
Review of N. Lemos, Common Sense:
a Contemporary Defense, in Philosophy
in Review, December 2005.
"The Passionate
Intellect: Reading the (Non-)Opposition of Intellect
and Emotion in Descartes," in Persons
and Passions: Essays in Honor of Annette Baier,
ed. J. Jenkins, J. Whiting, and C. Williams (Notre Dame University Press,
2005), pp. 48-82
. . .
Some Recent and Upcoming
Presentations:
2012 and upcoming
TBD, Philosophy Department Colloquium, Boston University,
April 2013
TBD, Scientia Workshop, University
of California, Irvine, February 2013
“’I’ve Got a Little List:’ the Classification of the
Passions and Forms of Explanation in 17th Century Philosophy,” Symposium
on Early Modern Theories of the Passions, American Philosophical Association –
Eastern Division, Atlanta, GA, December 2012
TBD, Philosophy Department Colloquium, University of
Calgary, Date TBD
TBD, Philosophy Department Colloquium, University of Alberta, 27 September 2012
“’I've Got a Little
List:’ the Classification of the Passions and Forms of Explanation in 17th
Century Philosophy,” Philosophy in Assos, Assos (Behramkale), Turkey, July 2012
“Responses to Vulneerability:
Medicine, Politics and the Body in Descartes and Spinoza, (with a Dash of
Hobbes),” Spinoza Symposium, University of Washington, Seattle, March 2-3, 2012
2011
“Evaluating Beauty and Character: Reading the Second Enquiry through 'of the Standard of
Taste,'” for panel on "Aspects of Hume at 300,” Western Canadian Philosophical Association, Lethbridge,
AB, October 2011
“Who’s Afraid of the Rare, Good Judge?,”
Panel on “Feminist Interpretations of Hume’s Aesthetics: Problems and
Projects,” American Society for Aesthetics
Annual Meeting,
Tampa, FL, October 2011
Commentator on Ryu Susato, “The Association of Ideas in Hume’s Social
Philosophy,” Hume Society Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, July 2011
Workshop on Reading Hume on the Principles of Morals, University of San Francisco, San Francisco,
CA, USA, Spring 2011
2010
"Hume and Feminist Philosophy" (plenary panel), Hume Society Conference, Antwerp, Belgium, July 2010
"Natural Passions, Reason & Religious Emotion in
Hobbes and Spinoza," Mid-Atlantic Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy,
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA, April 2010
"The Truth in Formalism: Interpretation and Expanding
the Scope of Perception," Eastern Division Meetings of the American
Society for Aesthetics, Philadelphia, PA, April 2010
2009
"Descartes,
Representation and the Intelligibility of Sense-Perception," NY-NJ
Research Group in Early Modern Philosophy, John Jay College, New York, NY, USA,
October 2009
Commentator on Jackie Taylor, "Sympathy and
Pride," Hume Society Conference, Halifax, Nova Scotia, August 2009
"Natural Passions, Reason and Religious Emotion in
Hobbes and Spinoza," Claremont Philosophy of Religion Conference: Passions and Passivity, Claremont
Graduate University, February 2009
2008
"Responses
to Vulnerability: Medicine, Politics and the Body in Descartes &
Spinoza," Philosophy Department Colloquium, Vanderbilt University, October
2008
“Universalizability and Uniformity: Sentiments and Standards
in Hume’s Judgment of Taste" (short version), WCPA, Edmonton, October 2008. [also presented at Eastern Division Meetings of the American
Society for Aesthetics, Philadelphia, PA, USA, April 2008]
"Hume on the Emotions"
(panel), Hume Society Conference, Iceland (Reykavik,
Hólar, Akureyri), August
2008.
Comments on Lilli Alanen (Uppsala University): “Spinoza on the passions and
self-knowledge: The Case of Pride,” Workshop on Emotions & Cognition, Simon Fraser University Harbour Centre, Vancouver, BC, May 2008
"Responses to
Vulnerability: Medicine, Politics and the Body in Descartes &
Spinoza," Hale Ethics Series, Rochester Institute of Technology,
Rochester, NY, April 2008
“Universalizability and Uniformity: Sentiments and Standards
in Hume’s Judgment of Taste,” Eastern Division Meetings of the American Society
for Aesthetics, Philadelphia, PA, April 2008
2007
"Hobbes and
the Really Big Stick: Representation, Incorporation and“Artifice”
in the Construction of Social Power,” Symposium, Eastern Division Meetings of
the American Philosophical Association, Baltimore, MD, December 2007
[shorter
version presented at Western Canada Philosophical Association Meetings,
Vancouver, BC, October 2006 (comments by Sam Black); also Canadian
Philosophical Association Annual Congress, London, Ontario, May 2005 (read by
Jennifer Welchman; comments by Dennis Klimchuk)]
"Universalizability
and Uniformity: Sentiments and Standards in Hume’s Judgment of Taste," III
Colóquio Hume, Universidade
Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil,
August 2007 (thanks to Livia, Anice
& Bruno!). Schedule: http://grupohume.blog.terra.com.br/
[previous version
presented at Hume Society Conference, Boston, MA, August 2007 (comments by
Peter Kivy). Website: http://www.humesociety.org/conferences/boston-cfp.html]
2006
"Seeing
Double: What -- if Anything -- Do We Need to Know to Appreciate Artworks?"
Philosopher's Café Series, Stanley A. Milnar Library,
Edmonton, AB, December 2006
“Making an Object of Yourself: on the Intentionality of the
Passions” (comments by Talia Bettcher), Topics in
Early Modern Philosophy of Mind Conference, Queens University, November 2006;
earlier version also presented at Hume Society Conference, Tokyo, Japan, August
2004
“Engineering Human Nature: Representation and Functional
Explanation in Descartes’s Meditations” (comments by Jack MacIntosh),
Canadian Philosophical Association Annual Congress, Toronto, Ontario, June 2006
“Aesthetic
Formalism as Tool and as End,” Symposium on Art versus the Aesthetic:
Explorations in Philosophy and Sensuous Expression,” Carleton University, Ottowa, Ontario, March 2006
2005
“Decoding Dessein and Looking at Funny Faces in 17th Century French
Art,” Edmonton Art Gallery Public Lecture, November 2005
2004
“The View from
Where We Are: Descartes on the Eternal Truths, My Nature and its Sources,"
Pacific Northwest –Western Canada Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy Inaugural
Meeting, Seattle, Washington, October 2004, also Philosophy Department
Colloquium, University of Calgary, March 2004
“Representation and the Problem of ‘Meaning’ in
Sense-Perception: What Descartes Saw and Reid Missed” (comments by Byron
Williston), Canadian Philosophical Association Annual Congress, Winnipeg,
Manitoba, May 2004
"Direct Realism and Representationalism:
Can This Distinction Be Saved?” (comments by Kirstie Laird), Canadian Philosophical Association Annual
Congress, Winnipeg, Manitoba, May 2004
Some Additional
Work in Progress:
“The Truth in Formalism; Aesthetic Formalism as Tool and as
End”
"Neither Sex Nor Gender: on Concept-Metaphors of 'Male'
and 'Female'"
"Constitutive
Conditions and Having a Reason: Leibniz's Distinction Between Necessary and
Contingent Truths"
Mind, Sign and Representation: a Study of Descartes (working title for book)
Passions, Affects and Sentiments: a Genealogy of Early
Modern Theories of the Emotions (working title for book)
Editor for a Supplementary Volume of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Conatus in Early Modern Philosophy:
Striving, Tendency, Power (working title)
Editor for a Supplementary Volume of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Hume in Alberta (working title)
Links:
Department
of Philosophy, University of Alberta
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