Philosophy

Jaylen Hargrove Presents Research at 2026 Academic Symposium

dbocchino — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 12:40:24 +0000

On Wednesday, April 29, 2026, Philosophy major Jaylen Hargrove (’26) presented his research on morality and physiology in a poster session entitled “Do moral and pragmatic judgments differ in their physiological correlates?”. Jaylen presented his research at SPU’s 27th Annual Academic Symposium.

Great work Jaylen!

Dr. Valdez Presents Paper at AI Conference

dbocchino — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 14:36:10 +0000

On Saturday, April 18, 2026, Dr. Edgar Valdez presented a paper entitled “Artificial Unintelligence: Truncating Inquiry in The Age of Large Language Models” at the Confronting the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence conference, University of Scranton (PA).

Dr. Murphy Presents Paper at ACTC Conference

dbocchino — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:19:04 +0000

On Saturday, March 21, 2026, Dr. Daniel Murphy presented a paper entitled “Hegel on Mind, Freedom, and Norms” at the 31st annual conference of the Association for Core Texts and Courses (Tempe, AZ).

Dr. Nir Eyal Speaks on Biosecurity Threats in 2025 Filosa Lecture

dbocchino — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 14:33:32 +0000

On December 1, 2025, Dr. Nir Eyal presented a talk entitled “The Increasing Global Biosecurity Threat: Bioethics Questions”. Dr. Eyal is the inaugural Dr. and Mrs. Stanley S. Bergen Professor of Bioethics and the inaugural Henry Rutgers Professor of Bioethics in the Department of Health Behavior, Society, and Policy at the Rutgers School of Public Health.

Dr. Eyal’s talk was the main event of 2025 in the Filosa Bioethics Lecture Series, which is co-hosted by the Philosophy and Biology Departments, and is funded by Dr. Michael Filosa, a 1953 graduate of SPU.

Dr. Eyal is author or co-author of over 150 publications, and also has served as the director of the Center for Population-Level Bioethics. His research focuses on questions in population-level bioethics, and his work involves many subfields and areas in bioethics. He is especially interested in questions of health security, pandemic response, the ethical allocation of resources for health, ethical research involving human participants, and ethical health promotion policies.

Dr. Eyal has given hundreds of talks and presentations internationally, nationally, regionally, and locally. He has also won numerous fellowships and prizes, including the Lady Davis Fellowship of Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Mark S. Ehrenreich Prize in Healthcare Ethics Research.

Thanks to Dr. Eyal for being our 2025 Filosa speaker!

Friendsgiving 2025

dbocchino — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:58:45 +0000

On Monday, November 24, 2025, the Philosophy Department and the Philosophy Club co-hosted Friendsgiving in the Philosophy Department. With some great food, socializing, and of course, philosophical conversations, our Friendsgiving day brought our Philosophy community together toward the end of the semester. Thanks to all for coming!

World Philosophy Day 2025

dbocchino — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:58:41 +0000

On Thursday, 11/20/25, in recognition of World Philosophy Day, the Philosophy Department and the Philosophy Club co-hosted hosted a philosophy lunch and celebration in McIntyre! The event was well attended by many students and a number of faculty members.

There was a memorial for longtime Philosophy Department professor, Dr. William (Bill) Evans, who passed away during the fall semester. In addition, all of those attending engaged in a number of philosophical discussions and a debate at the end of the event. We are looking forward to another great World Philosophy Day in 2026!

Dr. Valdez Presents Paper at Latinx Philosophy Conference

dbocchino — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 13:16:15 +0000

On Thursday, 5/1/25, Dr. Edgar Valdez presented a paper entitled “Precapitalist Latin America: Juan Bosch on the Absence of Feudalism” at the Latinx Philosophy Conference held at Pennsylvania State University.

Phi Sigma Tau Induction

dbocchino — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 13:03:04 +0000

On Thursday, May 1, the Philosophy Department inducted two students into the Saint Peter’s University Epsilon Chapter of Phi Sigma Tau, the National Philosophy Honors Society. Isabelle Riza Bautista is a Chemistry, Mathematics, and Philosophy triple major and Tiffany Mata Licona is a Cyber Security major and Philosophy minor. Both students will proudly wear their purple and white honors cords when they graduate later this month as members of the Class of 2025.

Philosophy Club Hosts Debate

dbocchino — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 14:55:32 +0000

On 4/28/25, the SPU Philosophy Club hosted a debate in the Philosophy Department. Thanks to all of the Club members for participating!

Dr. Valdez Presents Paper at Integral Ecology Colloquium

dbocchino — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 13:26:17 +0000

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On 3/7/25, Dr. Edgar Valdez presented a paper entitled “Self-Transcendence in Lonergan and Laudato si: the Epistemic Dimension of Integral Ecology” at the Integral Ecology Colloquium on the 10th Anniversary of Laudato Si, Marquette University.