February 13, 2006
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417
AMHERST, Mass.—J. David Velleman, professor of philosophy at New York University, will give the inaugural Amherst Lecture in Philosophy, titled “So It Goes,” at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 9, in the Cole Assembly Room (Red Room) in Converse Hall at Amherst College. The Amherst Lecture in Philosophy will invite a distinguished philosopher to Amherst College to give a public lecture. All lectures, along with supplemental materials, will be freely available through a fully archived, catalogued and searchable publication on the ALP Website. The Amherst Lecture in Philosophy is supported from the Forry and Micken Fund in Philosophy and Science, and is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.
Velleman is a 1974 graduate of Amherst College and received a Ph.D. degree in philosophy from Princeton University in 1983. His most recent book, Self to Self (2005), brings together essays on personal identity, autonomy and moral emotions. Although the essays were written independently, they are unified by the encompassing thesis that there is no single entity denoted by “the self,” as well as by themes from Kantian ethics, psychoanalytic theory, social psychology and Velleman’s work in the philosophy of action. His work in the philosophy of action includes the book Practical Reflection (1989) and a series of papers titled The Possibility of Practical Reason (2000). He has also published papers on the right to die and (with Paul Boghossian) the metaphysics of color. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation, Velleman serves (with Stephen Darwall) as founding co-editor of Philosophers’ Imprint.
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