Faculty News
Summer 2008: Kenneth Barber
Kenneth Barber, the long-time Director of Graduate Studies in the Philosophy Department, died unexpectedly and suddenly on May 30 after a brief illness. Ken joined the Department as an Assistant Professor in 1966, after receiving the PhD in philosophy from the University of Iowa, where he studied with Gustav Bergmann, Edwin Allaire, and Herbert Hochberg. Ken specialized in the Empiricist tradition in early modern philosophy, and instructed many generations of graduate students about his favorite philosophers. He also shepherded many generations of graduate students through the Philosophy Department’s graduate program. Ken’s most recent term of office as DGS began in 1985, when Peter Hare was chair, and continued, while John Kearns and Carolyn Korsmeyer chaired the Department, until his death. During that time, Ken gave graduate students the information, advice, and guidance that they needed. Ken was a voracious reader of literature as well as philosophy, and an avid collector of modern first editions. A wise and witty presence, Ken Barber made a strong and lasting contribution to the Philosophy Department and its graduate program.
Spring 2008: Carolyn Korsmeyer
Carolyn Korsmeyer was honored by means of a Humanities Institute Scholar Session in April entitled Bodily Senses: A Cross-Disciplinary Conversation on Taste, Smell and Touch. The presenters included Susan Feagin, Research Professor, Department of Philosophy and Editor of The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Temple University; Rosemary Feat, Professor in Romance Languages and Executive Director of The Modern Language Association, University at Buffalo; and Janet Lyon, Associate Professor of English, Women's Studies, and Science, Technology, and Society, Pennsylvania State University.
Spring 2008: Jiyuan Yu
Jiyuan Yu was appointed a Humanities Institute Faculty Fellow for the Spring 2008 semester. In April, he presented the Humanities Institute Faculty Fellow Lecture entitled "Philosophy and Cultivation of Virtue: Greece and China. A discussion of Yu's work in this context can be found at: http://www.asianstudies.buffalo.edu/contrib/newsletter/documents/ASN13.5.pdf
Spring 2008: Peter Hewitt Hare (1935-2008)
In the early morning of January 3rd, Peter Hare passed away quietly in his sleep. He was the victim of a pulmonary embolism. An obituary notice for Peter appeared in The Buffalo News January 9th.
A memorial celebration was held at 2pm on March 29, 2008 at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, New York. The organizers invited Peter's friends to speak at this celebration. They especially encouraged attention drawn to the diversity of Peter's intellectual and aesthetic pursuits. Also available were photos taken while traveling with him, photos of things that he enjoyed, and of Peter himself. Written statements (and in electronic form as well) were solicited for presentation at the memorial, and preservation afterwards for the family.
Many former colleagues and students have written the department expressing their condolences. Here are exerpts from some of those messages:
Chandana Chakribarti: Peter was a member of my dissertation committee. I have been so fortunate to work under him. He was a great mentor and excellent guide.
John Corcoran: Here is a link to John's piece Remembering my Life with Peter Hare.
Cerasel Cuteanu (Universitatea Constantin Brancusi): On behalf of the College of Letters and Social Sciences of the Constantin Brancusi University in Targu-Jiu, Romania, I am writing to express our deepest sorrow for the loss of an incredible person, philosopher and professor -- Dr. Peter Hare. We had the great opportunity of meeting Peter last September at the international conference on pragmatism we organized at our university. We had unbelievably many things to learn from him. He was an outstanding thinker and a global philosopher.
Eva Koespell: Here is a link to Eva's piece Part of the Team.
Valerii Kuvakin (Moscow State University): The sad news about Peter’s death is so unexpected and shocking. I knew Peter for more then 25 years. He was one of the first Americans who opened his mind and home to the Russian students in early 80th. . It was period of the Could War and we were looking for mutual understanding and friendship. Peter and his marvelous wife Daphne were so open and friendly for all of us. He and Daphne introduced to us the best patterns of American culture and character. Peter happily combined the features of American democracy and nobility, high intelligence and curiosity, seriousness and sense of humor. I visited his home in Buffalo many times feeling very comfortable, calm, and happy. I never felt any distance between us in spite of huge difference in terms of our backgrounds and history. He was very sensitive about the Russian affairs and welcomed any step of my country toward democracy. Peter was one of the first sponsors of newly formed Russian Humanist Society, his visit to Russia (Novosibirsk) as a lecturer of the Summer school in 2006 was great opportunity to see and listen to him. He appeared to us again as a wise man of broad competence, deep knowledge of American and world culture, and the person of reach life experience. Peter’s death is great lost for us. Many Russians will keep good memory about this wonderful and kind personality.
Zosimo Lee: Peter lived a happy and productive life, and was a very charming man and prodigious philosopher.
Tim Madigan: I was thinking back fondly on all the crazy skits that Peter encouraged me to perform at various Philosophy Department events. His great humor was always an inspiration to me!
Marcus Marenda: Last time I saw Peter, we had an enjoyable conversation in the hallway. I have the fond memory of his trademarked excitely softening "of course, of course...you know".
http://www.philosophy.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/hare/
Fall 2007: Barry Smith
Coordinated evolution of ontologies to support biomedical data integration paper now published in Nature Biotechnology: http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v25/n11/full/nbt1346.html
Summer 2007: Jiyuan Yu
Jiyuan Yu was appointed as the Aristotle Lecturer for the Philosophy Summer School: China, US and Britain session on Ancient Philosophy (July-August 2007) held at Shandong Universtiy, China. Each year the summer school selects four lecturers world wide who are well known and from top universities.
Spring 2007: Kah Kyung Cho
Kah Kyung Cho was invited by the International Federation of Philosophical Societies to its 22nd World Congress of Philosophy, Seoul, Korea in the summer of 2008 as one of three principal speakers on the topic "Tradition, Modernity and Post-Modernity: Eastern and Western Perspectives".
Spring 2007: Kah Kyung Cho
Kah Kyung Cho was invited to present at the BK 21 Distinguished Philosophy Lecture Series at Seoul National University on March 15, 2007.
Spring 2007: Barry Smith
Barry Smith has received a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Science, a part of the National Institutes of Health, for work on PRO: A Protein Ontology in Open Biomedical Ontologies, which is designed to allow more precise descriptions of proteins and more accurate prediction of their biological properties. He will work as part of a team led by Cathy Wu of Georgetown University.
Spring 2007: Jiyuan Yu
Jiyuan Yu was offered the status of Affiliated Chair Professor, Department of Philosophy, Renmin University of China, Beijing, an honorary position.
Spring 2007: Barry Smith
Barry Smith has received funding from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund to organize a training workshop on Infectious Disease Ontology to be held in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories in September 2007.
Fall 2006: Jiyuan Yu
Jiyuan Yu was invited as Keynote Speaker for the international conference "Western Philosophy and Modern China" dedicated to the opening of the Museum of China's Introduction of Western Philosophy, Zhongshan University, Guanzhou, China in December 2006.
Spring 2006: Kah Kyung Cho
Kah Kyung Cho was inducted as a member of the "Leading Philosophers of the World" (Phenomenology) by the International Biographical Center, Cambridge, England in May 2006.
Spring 2004: David Hershenov
David Hershenov is the recipient of a 2004 Young Investigator Award. This is a university-wide award for researchers at the beginning of their careers who have already done exceptional work. The award was presented at a ceremony on May 26, 2004.
Spring 2004: Barry Smith
Barry Smith has been promoted to the rank of SUNY Distinguished Professor. Appointment to this rank, the highest a faculty member can achieve in our institutional system, is a rare and special event. Only three faculty from UB were so honored this year and only eight in the entire SUNY system.
Professor Smith, Julian Park Professor of Philosophy, is internationally reputed as one of the most creative scholars working in the field of applied ontology. He is the force behind some of the most revolutionary applications of philosophical ontology in the emerging field of informatics especially in the biomedical and geographic information sciences. Smith is involved with the Integrative Graduate Research and Education Training Program (IGERT) and directs the Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science (IFOMIS) at the University of Leipzig, Germany. The philosophy ontology program (MA in Philosophy with a specialty in Ontology and Information Science) at the University at Buffalo has evolved under his direction. Professor Smith edits The Monist: An International Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry, one of the oldest and most prestigious philosophy journals in the U.S.
Spring 2004: Barry Smith
The Volkswagen Foundation has awarded 913,200 euros (the equivalent of 1,125,000 U.S. dollars) to Professor Barry Smith for his project "Forms of Life: Philosophical Dimensions of Contemporary Biomedical Research." The project is in collaboration with Professor Heinz Sass of the Institute for Genetics, University of Leipzig and Professor Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer, Institute for Philosophy, University of Leipzig.
Barry Smith, recently-named SUNY Distinguished Professor at the University at Buffalo, is the director of the Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Sciences (IFOMIS).
Project details:
"Forms of Life: Philosophical Dimensions of Contemporary Biomedical Research" is an interdisciplinary collaborative project involving philosophers, biologists and medical informaticians. Its goal is a unified, synoptic and philosophically grounded theory of the most important founda-tional concepts of biomedical research. This theory will be developed and refined in close collaboration with scientists engaged in empirical research. It is designed to serve as the foundation for a new strategy for organizing and integrating information in the domain of biomedical informatics, and thus to show how philosophical research can enjoy a genuine practical relevance. It should thus also have con-sequences for philosophy itself, for example by providing new impulses for bioethics and medical ethics and by contributing to a new self-understanding of philosophy.
About the Volkswagen Foundation:
The Volkswagen Foundation initiative is focused on the cultural sciences and humanities disciplines. Scientists are invited to define project themes which take up problems of current importance to the wider society, problems which are in addition capable of being resolved only through interdisciplinary collaboration and if possible involve also the natural sciences. The Volkswagen Foundation will in this way contribute to the networking of scientists working on research projects in the humanities and also to stimulating work which spans the disciplines.
Fall 2003: John Corcoran
The University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) has conferred on John Corcoran the degree Doctor Honoris Causa. To celebrate this occasion the Department of Logic and Moral Philosophy organized an international symposium in his honor. It was held on October 9-10, 2003 at CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS AVANZADOS/CASA DE EUROPA Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and organized by the Área de Lógica y Filosofia de la Ciencia de la U.S.C. Department of Logic and Moral Philosophy Faculty of Philosophy.
Supported by:
- Sociedad de Lógica, Metodología y Filosofía de la Ciencia en España
- Sociedad Española de Filosofía Analitica
Sponsored by:
- Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología
- Xunta de Galicia
- Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
Organizing Committee:
- José M. Sagüillo (President)
- Concha Martinez (Secretary)
- José L. Falguera (Secretary)
Professor José Sagüillo, Catedratico (Distinguished Professor) of Logic at the University of Santiago de Compostela is a former graduate student in philosophy at the University at Buffalo.
Dr. Corcoran is a logic professor in the philosophy department at the University at Buffalo and 2002 recipient of a "Sustained Achievement Award" for senior University scholars.