2024 Philosophy Department Newsletter
Message from the Chair
Department Spotlights
Faculty Kudos
Alumni Class Notes
Message from the Chair
Greetings to all of our alumni from the George Washington University Department of Philosophy! The department has kept busy since our last newsletter. We are pleased to share with you a few of the exciting things happening in the department, including the achievements of our philosophy community.
Our two most recently tenured faculty members, Avery Archer and Vanessa Wills, both published books this year! Avery’s The Attitude of Agnosticism appeared in March (Cambridge University Press), and Vanessa’s Marx’s Ethical Vision appeared in August (Oxford University Press). Congratulations to both!
After a year on sabbatical, Professor Michèle Friend has returned to full-time teaching, and intends to offer her very popular short-term study abroad course in Philosophy of the Environment in spring 2025, with a week in Mexico over Spring Break.
Our other very successful short-term study abroad course—on Ancient Philosophy with a week in Athens in June—had to be suspended this past summer, but for a very joyful reason! Professor Mark Ralkowski, who developed and teaches the course, took parental leave after his first child was born. Congratulations! He’ll return to teaching in spring 2025, and the short-term study abroad course will be offered again in summer 2025.
As ever, thank you, alumni, so much for your support and involvement. Please stay in touch.
Sincerely,
Tadeusz Zawidzki
Department Chair
Department Spotlights
A Question of Ethics: A Discussion between Philosophy Professor David DeGrazia and Dean Paul Wahlbeck
In January 2024, the CCAS Spotlight Series featured a video conversation between Dean Paul Wahlbeck and Elton Professor of Philosophy David DeGrazia, who discussed the concept of “moral status” and the role of ethics on policies relating to AI, animal research and healthcare access.
Congratulations to our 2023-24 Thacher Fellows!
Since 2004, qualifying undergraduate philosophy majors have enjoyed the opportunity to research and write a thesis under the guidance of a faculty mentor during their final summer and academic year at GW through the Thacher Fellowship. This April, Thacher Fellows Lauren Grueninger and Grace Eberts successfully presented their respective research projects, “Gender Roles as Social Constructions: Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology” and “Challenging Medical Models: Exploring the Role of Hermeneutical Injustice in ASD Discourse.”
Afterwards, the fellows celebrated with others in the GW Philosophy community at the department’s popular annual Student-Alumni dinner at CIRCA Foggy Bottom.
Read on for abstracts from Grace and Lauren’s research.
Grace Eberts
- “Challenging Medical Models: Exploring the Role of Hermeneutical Injustice in ASD Discourse”
In this paper, I compare two competing perspectives on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): Jerome Wakefield’s Harmful Dysfunction Analysis (HDA) and the Disability Rights perspective advocated by the Neurodiversity Movement. Drawing on Miranda Fricker’s (2007) concept of “hermeneutical injustice,” I argue that relying on the HDA to determine ASD diagnosis and support services does serious harm. Hermeneutical injustice refers to the impact of systemic gaps in our interpretive resources that result in an inability to fully articulate or understand certain marginalized experiences. In line with disability rights approaches, I argue for the importance of incorporating autistic perspectives to avoid perpetuating hermeneutical injustice and devaluing the epistemic authority of those with ASD. I illustrate this with a detailed investigation of instances of hermeneutical marginalization by analyzing autobiographical narratives from autistic authors, exploring the emergence of new language within the autistic community, and examining theories on epistemic injustice from autistic self-advocates. I argue that Wakefield’s HDA overlooks hermeneutical justice and inadequately incorporates autistic perspectives into our understanding of ASD. In conclusion, I argue for increased consideration of the Neurodiversity Movement’s principles in ASD research and interventions, promoting a more hermeneutically inclusive approach towards individuals with ASD.
Lauren Grueninger
- “Gender Roles as Social Constructions: Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology”
Evolutionary psychologists assert that gender roles primarily arise from adaptations molded by natural selection to enhance survival and reproduction. They argue that behaviors associated with gender roles evolve through selection for advantageous psychological mechanisms. However, as I argue, in ascribing biological origins to these traits and behaviors, they essentialize gender roles, often relying on limited evidence and untestable hypotheses to do so. Furthermore, evolutionary psychologists are committed to adaptationism and as a result, they tend to prematurely rule out alternative explanations like social constructionist theories of gender roles. In this thesis, I address these theoretical and practical problems, ultimately concluding that evolutionary psychology cannot provide a satisfactory account for the origins of gender roles.
Faculty Kudos
- Avery Archer authored the book The Attitude of Agnosticism, which explores what it means to be agnostic about any topic—theological or non-theological. It is the first book-length monograph on agnosticism from a contemporary analytic philosophical perspective.
- David DeGrazia was quoted by Fortune in the articles “Why Big Pharma can’t quite the lab monkey business" and "What losing vision in one eye helped me understand about animal research.”
- Laura Papish was highlighted in the Washington Post article “Single on Valentine’s Day? We’ve got the right event in D.C. for you.”
- Mark Ralkowski authored the article “Larry David, Philosopher King” for The New York Times.
- Eric Saidel won the 2024 Morton A. Bender Award for his continued excellence in teaching.
- Vanessa Wills published the book Marx’s Ethical Vision, which shows that the founder of historical materialism held nuanced views about the role that morality played in political struggle. She also authored the article “Philosophy in Times Like These” for Los Angeles Review of Books.
Alumni Class Notes
- Clayten Eggleston, MA ’23, serves as a grants management specialist at the Administration for Community Living within the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
- Heather Fink, BA ’03, is a comedy filmmaker in Los Angeles. She will bring her solo show “QUICKSAND” to D.C. and N.Y. in 2025 to educate, entertain and influence caregiving and eldercare policy.
- Ananda Joy Hart, BA ’97, represents potential parolees at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. Most of her clients are lifers or third-strikers and all must show that they are suitable for parole in order to be released.
- Sydney Prochazka, MA ’09, was honored as one of the Cincinnati Business Courier’s Forty under 40 class members for her outstanding leadership at Mount St. Joseph University and in her community.
- Dylan Sapienza, BA ’22, is a product manager at New York Life Insurance Company, where he is currently working in research and development for innovative artificial intelligence products.