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Francis W. Gramlich Lectures

Dr. Francis W. Gramlich (1911-1973) began his career at Dartmouth College in 1940 as an assistant professor. During WWII, from 1942-1946, Dr. Gramlich was an officer and clinical psychologist in the Navy. In 1946 he returned to Dartmouth, where he was promoted to full professor, and in 1960 named the Stone Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, and held this position until 1973. He was chair of the Philosophy Department for a total of sixteen years, serving various terms from 1947 to 1971, and was responsible for rebuilding the department after a series of retirements.

Dr. Gramlich was educated at Princeton University, earning his BA summa cum laude in 1933, his MA in 1934, and his Ph.D. in 1936; his dissertation was titled “Symbolism and Meaning.” He was co-editor of two textbooks: “Philosophic Problems” and “Problems of Ethics.”

Dr. Gramlich was the founding director of Philosophy’s foreign study program at the University of Edinburgh; founding director of Dartmouth's Comparative Studies Center; and a former director of the East Asian Language and Area Studies Center at Dartmouth. Dr. Gramlich’s courses, “Philosophy of Human Nature” and “Philosophy of Mind,” were among the most popular on campus.

The Francis W. Gramlich Fund was established in memory of Dr. Gramlich through gifts from former students and colleagues (and Dartmouth matched all gifts on a one for two basis); the fund supports a public lecture in Philosophy and a student prize awarded annually by the philosophy faculty to the philosophy major who best exemplifies those qualities of mind and character that Professor Gramlich sought to develop in his students.

Thursday, April 4, 2024

Ruth Chang, Chair and Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Oxford

Thursday, April 4, 2024
4:30 PM
41 Haldeman (tentative)
Free and open to all

Talk title: "Does AI Design Rest on a Mistake?"

Abstract: "Two notorious problems plague the development of AI: 'alignment', the problem of matching machine values with our own, and 'control,' the problem of preventing machines from becoming our overlords, or, indeed, of dispensing with us altogether. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been thrown at these problems, but, it is fair to say, technologists have made little progress in solving them so far. Might philosophers help? In this talk, I propose a conceptual framework for thinking about technological design that has its roots in philosophical study of values and normativity. This alternative framework puts humans in the loop right where they belong, namely, in 'hard cases'. This framework may go some way in solving both the alignment and control problems."

Lecture History

XLIX. Ruth Chang - Thursday, April 4, 2024
"Does AI Design Rest on a Mistake?"

XLVIII. Michele Moody-Adams - Wednesday, April 12, 2023
"Reclaiming the Idea of 'the Human'"

XLVII. Chrsitine Korsgaard - Thursday, April 21, 2022
"The Human Good"

XLVI. Ruth Garrett Millikan - Friday, October 29, 2021
"40,000 Words in 14 Years"

XLV. Jenann T. Ismael - Wednesday, Apil 24, 2019
"Time, Totality, and Transcendence"

XLIV. Jack Copeland - Tuesday, November 14, 2017
"Physical Uncomputability and the Nature of Information Processing"

XLIII. Hannah Ginsborg - Friday, May 5, 2017
"Rule-Following Without Rules: Wittgenstein on the Normativity of Meaning and Content"

XLII. Nancy Cartwright - Thursday, May 19, 2016
"The Natural and the Moral Order: What's to Blame?"

XLI. Mohan Matthen - Friday, May 8, 2015
"Pleasure and Art"

XL. Philip Kitcher - Wednesday, April 16, 2014
"Climate Change - The Hard Problem"

XXXIX. Sally Haslanger - Wednesday, May 1, 2013
"Ideology, Moral Theory, and Social Change"

XXXVIII. Linda Alcoff - Friday, March 30, 2012
"Rape After Foucault"

XXXVII. Robert Pippin - Thursday, November 11, 2010
"Fatalism in Film Noir: 'Trapped by Oneself' in Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past"

XXXVI. Judith Butler - Friday, October 16, 2009
"Keeping Company with Oneself: Hannah Arendt On Responsibility"

XXXV. Thomas Pogge - Friday, April 3, 2009
"Unjust Social Rules: Killing and Causing Pain"

XXXIV. John Campbell - Monday, October 8, 2007
"The Causal Role of Perception"

XXXIII. Philip Pettit - Friday, October 13, 2006
"Made with Words: Hobbes on Human Nature"

XXXII. Elliot Sober - Monday, October 24, 2005
"The Design Argument"

XXXI. Ned Block - Monday, April 25, 2005
"Finding Consciousness in the Brain"

XXX. Julia Annas - Thursday, April 29, 2004
"Virtue Ethics and Social Psychology"

XXIX.William Lycan - Tuesday, April 22, 2003
"Free Will and the Burden of Proof"

XXVIII. Margaret Boden - Thursday, May 9th, 2002
"What's Life Got to Do With It?"

XXVII. Barbara Herman - Thursday, May 10th, 2001
"Moral Ends"

XXVI. Fred Dretske - Wednesday, October 27, 1999
"Ways of Being Conscious"

XXV. Ernst Tugendhat - Thursday, May 13, 1999
"Justification of Morality in Bernard Gert's Moral Theory"

XXIV. Hilary Putnam - Thursday, October 9, 1997
"Aristotle's Mind and the Contemporary Mind"

XXIII. David Lewis - Friday, October 11, 1996
"Elusive Knowledge"

XXII. Robert Nozick - Wednesday, April 17, 1996
"Is Truth Relative?"

XXI R. M. Hare - Thursday, September 29, 1994
"Foundationalism and Coherentism in Ethics"

XX. Donald Davidson - Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, November 2,3,4, 1993
Jointly sponsored with the Department of Religion's James & David Orr Memorial Lecture on Culture and Religion

A series of three presentations on "THE OBJECTIVITY OF VALUES":
"Can Values be Objective?"
"The Grounds of Objectivity"
"Agreements and Disputes"

XIX. Jonathan Bennett - Friday, April 16, 1993
"Mind and Brain in the Seventeenth Century"

XVIII. Amartya Sen - Friday, May 29, 1992
"Objectivity and the Social Sciences"

XVII. Patricia Smith Churchland - Friday, May 3, 1991
"Can the Brain Explain the Mind? A Neurophilosophical Update"

XVI. Amelie Okensberg Rorty - Thursday, April 19, 1990
"Solomon and Everyman: A Problem on the Morality of Expectation"

XV. Jaegwon Kim - Wednesday, April 12, 1989
"Modes of Perception and Convergence of Knowledge"

XIV. Judith J. Thomson - Wednesday, May 11, 1988
"Morality and Bad Luck"

XIII. Roderick M. Chisholm - Wednesday, April 22, 1987
"Intentionality: How we Refer to Things"

XII. Bernard A.O.Williams - Wednesday, May 14, 1986
"The Slippery Slope as a Moral Argument"

XI. Daniel Dennett - Wednesday, April 24, 1985
"The Myth of Original Intentionality"

X. John R. Searle - Friday, May 18, 1984
"What's Wrong with Using Computers to Model the Brain"

IX. Thomas Nagel - Wednesday, May 18, 1983
"Is Morality Too Demanding?"

VIII. Richard Wollheim - Wednesday, April 21, 1982
"What is Moral Psychology?"

VII. Ruth Barcan Marcus - Thursday, May 14, 1981
"More About Moral Dilemmas"

VI. Stephen E. Toulmin - Monday, April 21, 1980
"On Knowing Your Own Mind"

V. Kai Nielson - Thursday, May 3, 1979
"Morality and Human Situation"

IV. Herbert Fingarette - Friday, May 5, 1978
"How can we Make Sense of Suffering"

III. Maurice Mandelbaum - Friday, April 15, 1977
"Purpose, Chance and Necessity in Social Theory"
II. Sidney Hook - Tuesday, April 27, 1976
"Towards Greater Equality"

I. William Frankena - Friday, April 25, 1975
"The Ethics of Respect for Life"