Proceedings and Addresses
September 2007 (Volume 81, Issue 1)

Letter from the Secretary-Treasurer

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To All Members of the Association:

The one hundred and fourth Annual Meeting of the Eastern Division will be held from Thursday, December 27th through Sunday, December 30th, 2007, at the Marriott Waterfront Hotel, Baltimore, and neighboring hotels. All program sessions, as well as the book exhibits and the large evening receptions, will take place at the Marriott Waterfront. Hotel accommodations at convention rates are available at the Marriott Waterfront, the Marriott Courtyard Hotel, Pier V Hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn/Homewood Suites, and the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel. (The rates vary slightly from one hotel to another, but in all cases are below the rates at the last two Eastern Division meetings.) Some interview tables will be at the Pier V Hotel and the Renaissance Harborplace. There will also be interview suites at all of these hotels.

The Marriott Courtyard, Pier V Hotel, and Hilton Garden Inn/Homewood Suites are all within two blocks of the Marriott Waterfront. The Renaissance Harborplace is further, but still an easy 15-minute walk from the Marriott Waterfront; a fast walker can cover the distance in just over 10 minutes (crede experto). There will also be a free water taxi service during daytime hours between the Renaissance Harborplace and the Marriott Waterfront. At the back of the program, along with the usual meeting room floor plans, is a map showing the locations of the various hotels. I suggest that you make reservations at your earliest convenience. (Please Note: Suite reservations for interviewers are handled through Linda Smallbrook at the National Office; see the Hotel Suite Information page at the end of the program, along with the regular hotel reservation and registration forms.)

This issue of the Proceedings contains the following items:
(1) The complete program, including the program for group meetings.
(2) An advance registration form for individuals.
(3) An advance registration form for departments planning to interview candidates at the meeting and wishing to use the APA Placement Service.
(4) Forms for room reservations and room reservations at student rates.
(5) A table reservation form for the receptions.

Additional copies of the full program will be available at the Registration Desk.
Please Note: It is expected that by the time you read this, meeting registration, Placement Service registration for departments, and reception table reservation (in other words, the operations corresponding to items (2), (3) and (5) above) will also be available online on the APA web site. Please check at http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa.

1. Registration
Rates for registration are as follows:
APA Members: $50
Non-members: $60
Student members: $10

These rates are the same as for the previous five years. Of the $50 the Eastern Division collects from each APA member, $35 will be returned to the National Office to cover the salaries of staff members essential to the functioning of the Division. The remaining $15 will go to offset meeting expenses directly. All those participating in the meeting are expected to register, and to wear their name badges to signify that they have done so. The staff conducts random checks at the meeting, and those who have not registered are asked to do so immediately.

Persons who are not now members may take advantage of the lower registration fee for members by joining the APA. Regular and student membership application forms are available from the APA National Office, on the APA’s web site (http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa), and will be available during the meeting at the APA Registration Desk. The APA Registration Desk will be open on:

Thursday, December 27: 3:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Friday, December 28: 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, December 29: 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 30: 8:30 a.m. to Noon

Only registrants are entitled to attend the Reception on December 28th at no additional charge. Non-registrants who wish to attend this reception must purchase a $10 ticket; tickets will be available at the door to the reception. For those who register, name badges will serve as proof of registration.

2. Placement Service
The APA Placement Service functions mainly as a channel of communication between interviewers and job applicants. It can be particularly valuable when other arrangements fail to function properly. For this reason, interviewers and candidates, even those who plan to use the Placement Center for no other purpose, should inform the Placement Center about how they may be contacted in case of an emergency. The placement process will operate most smoothly when appointing officers and applicants make preparations for their part in advance of the Annual Meeting and when interviews are arranged prior to the meeting on the basis of listings in Jobs for Philosophers. Detailed information about the APA Placement Service can be found elsewhere in this issue of the Proceedings.

A Placement Ombudsperson, either the Chair or a member of the APA Committee on Academic Career Opportunites and Placement, will be available in the Placement Service area for anyone encountering problems with the interviewing process.

3. Book Exhibits
The publishers’ book exhibit area is open at the following times:

Friday, December 28: 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Saturday, December 29: 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 30: 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

4. Presidential Address
The Presidential Address will be delivered by Anthony Appiah at 6:00 p.m., December 29th. The title of the address is “Experimental Philosophy.”

5. Carus Lectures
The Eastern Division is pleased this year to host the Paul Carus Lectures, to be given by Bastiaan Van Fraassen. The general title for the three lectures is Appearance, Reality, and [the] I. Lecture I, “On Neurath’s Ship: Naturalism (?),” will be given at 1:30 p.m. on December 28th; Lecture II, “On What There Is: Realism (?),” at 1:30 p.m. on December 29th; Lecture III, “On Being Somewhere: The Self Delusion (?),” at 11:15 a.m. on December 30th. There will also be a Carus Reception from 4:30-6:00 p.m. on December 28th.

6. John Dewey Lecture
At its 2004 meeting, the Eastern Division Executive Committee accepted a generous offer from the John Dewey Foundation to fund a John Dewey Lecture at each annual meeting. The Dewey Lecture is given by a prominent and senior (typically retired) American philosopher who is invited to reflect, broadly and in an autobiographical spirit, on philosophy in America. The Eastern Division is pleased to announce that its second John Dewey Lecture will be given by Hilary Putnam at 2:45 p.m. on December 29th (session VI-L). The lecture will be immediately followed by a reception.

Nominations are invited for future Eastern Division Dewey Lecturers. The 2008 Dewey Lecturer will be J.B. Schneewind. At its annual meeting on December 27th, the Executive Committee will establish a short list of candidates for Dewey Lecturer in 2009, and will take into account nominations received from members. Please send all nominations by November 15th to the Office of the Secretary-Treasurer, Department of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218-2686, or by email to rbett1@jhu.edu.

7. Receptions and Reception Tables
There will be Receptions on the nights of December 28th, from 8:00 p.m. to Midnight, and December 29th, from 9:00 p.m. to Midnight. The large round tables at the Receptions will be numbered. A chart will be distributed at registration giving the table locations along with an index showing, for each table, who has reserved it.

Departments and societies are invited to reserve tables for a fee of $25 per table for both nights. If you wish to reserve a table, please fill out and mail the form included in the back pages of this issue of the Proceedings or call or email Ms. Linda Smallbrook at the National Office (Phone: 302-831-1113; Fax: 302-831-3372; email: lindas@udel.edu). The deadline for making table reservations is December 12th.

8. Business Meeting and Voting Membership
The annual Business Meeting will be held on December 29th at 11:15 a.m. There will be reports from Divisional and National Officers and Committees.

According to the Association’s Bylaws, regular membership is given by an act of the Executive Director on behalf of the Board of Officers. Each year the list of regular members that appears in the November issue of the Proceedings is used as the list of eligible voters for the three subsequent Divisional meetings. Certification of persons as voting affiliates of the Eastern Division will take place at the entrance to the Business Meeting itself, for those wishing to attend and to vote.

9. Resolutions
(a) All resolutions to be presented for inclusion on the agenda of the Business Meeting as separate items must be submitted in writing to the Secretary-Treasurer at least nine weeks in advance of the Annual Meeting (by October 25, 2007) in order to be properly announced to the membership.
(b) No question of a substantive nature other than routine business shall be in order under “New Business” unless it has been received by the Secretary-Treasurer three weeks in advance of the Annual Meeting (by December 6, 2007) for transmission to the Executive Committee, except if three-fourths of the Eastern Division affiliates in attendance at the Business Meeting vote that such a question should be taken up at that meeting.
(c) According to section 5.5.D of the Bylaws of the APA, “Resolutions which purport to represent the sense of a Division on matters of public policy may be voted on only by mail ballot authorized by the annual Business Meeting of that Division. Such mail ballots will include relevant minutes of the meeting and a summary of the arguments presented.”
(d) The Eastern Division Executive Committee has the prerogative to order a mail ballot on any question of a substantive nature other than routine business that may come before the Business Meeting.
(e) There is a Resolutions Subcommittee of the Executive Committee consisting of the Vice President, the Divisional Representative to the Board of Officers, and the Secretary-Treasurer, each of whom is available to consult with members before and during the Annual Meeting, on the preparation of resolutions.

10. The 2008 Program Committee
The 2008 Program Committee invites contributions for the 2008 Annual Meeting that will be held in Philadelphia on December 27-30. The 2008 Program Committee is composed of:

Tamar Gendler (Chair)
Kenneth Baynes
Richard Bett (ex officio)
Cian Dorr
Steven Gross
Eva Kittay
Christia Mercer
Ram Neta
Lorenzo Simpson
Shannon Sullivan
Laurence Thomas
Iakovos Vasiliou
Scott Weinstein

The deadline for submitted papers for the 2008 meeting is February 15, 2008. For further details on how and where to submit papers for consideration, see the section on Paper Submission Guidelines elsewhere in this issue.

The 2008 Program Committee welcomes nominations, including self-nominations, for commentators and session chairs. In selecting commentators and chairs, the Program Committee tends to prefer, other things being equal, persons who have not made frequent appearances on the Eastern Division Program in the past few years. Nominations should be sent to the Chair of the Program Committee, Tamar Gendler, Department of Philosophy, Yale University, P.O. Box 208306, New Haven, CT 06520-8306. Nominations should be received by the Chair no later than April 1, 2008; they should include a short list of significant or representative publications by the nominee, and should indicate the nominee’s area(s) of specialization. (A curriculum vitae is not required for this purpose.)

11. Graduate Student Travel Stipends and the William James Prize
The Eastern Division is pleased to announce that there are two sources of financial support for junior members of the Association who wish to submit papers for consideration for the Eastern Division program. One source is the Graduate Student Travel Stipends, the other is the William James Prize. The guidelines for both are given below.

Graduate Student Travel Stipends. The Eastern Division will award a $300 travel stipend for any paper written by a graduate student that is accepted by the Program Committee in its normal, blind-review process. Eligibility is restricted to APA members or student associate members who are graduate students in good standing in an M.A. or Ph.D. program in philosophy. A graduate student may submit a paper either as a colloquium paper or as a symposium paper. Authors who are willing to have a shortened version of a symposium paper considered as a colloquium paper should submit the shortened version, along with a shortened abstract, simultaneously with the submission of the symposium paper. Authors must comply with all rules, including those intended to ensure the integrity of the process of blind-reviewing, that govern normal submissions to the Program Committee (see the APA Paper Submission Guidelines and the Eastern Division Paper Submission Information elsewhere in the Proceedings or on the APA web site, http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa), with two modifications. First, the author must indicate that the paper is being submitted for consideration for a graduate student travel stipend. If the paper is submitted electronically, this is to be done by checking the relevant box on the online submission form; if it is submitted by mail, the paper must be accompanied by a cover letter indicating that the paper is in competition for a graduate student stipend. (This information is not to be included in the paper itself.) Second, whichever method of submission is used, the author must also supply, at the time of submission, documentation from the author’s institution showing that the author is a graduate student in good standing.

William James Prize. The Eastern Division will award the William James Prize to the best paper in the area of American Philosophy that is both (a) written by a philosopher who received the Ph.D. after January 1, 2003, or is a graduate student, and (b) accepted for inclusion in the Eastern Division program by the Program Committee through the normal process of blind-reviewing. Thanks to a generous gift from Professor and Mrs. John Lachs, the James Prize carries with it an honorarium of $300. For purposes of competition for the James Prize, American Philosophy is to be construed broadly as including not only studies of the work of significant thinkers in the history of American Philosophy but also creative extensions or applications of the ideas, methods, or results of traditional American Philosophy to philosophical issues of current interest or lasting importance.

A paper may be submitted for the competition for the James Prize either as a colloquium paper or as a symposium paper. Authors who are willing to have a shortened version of a symposium paper considered as a colloquium paper should submit the shortened version, along with a shortened abstract, simultaneously with the submission of the symposium paper. Authors must comply with all rules, including those intended to ensure the integrity of the process of blind-reviewing, that govern normal submissions to the Program Committee (see the APA Paper Submission Guidelines and the Eastern Division Paper Submission Information elsewhere in the Proceedings or on the APA web site, www.udel.edu/apa). In addition, each submission for the competition for the James Prize must be accompanied by a letter from its author both (a) stating either the date on which the author’s Ph.D. was granted if the author has already received the Ph.D., or the fact that the author is a graduate student if that is the case, and (b) expressing the author’s wish to have the paper considered for the James Prize. (The paper may, as usual, be submitted either electronically or by mail, but the letter must be mailed.)

The competition for the William James Prize in 2008 will be judged by a subcommittee of the 2008 Program Committee. Its members are Tamar Gendler (Chair of the Program Committee, serving ex officio), Richard Bett (Secretary-Treasurer of the Eastern Division, serving ex officio), and two other committee members.

In the event that no entrant marked specifically for the William James Prize competition is accepted by the Program Committee, the Program Committee will survey the Graduate Student Travel Stipend recipients to see whether any of those papers qualifies by topic for the James Prize. If one (or more) does so qualify, it (or the best one) will receive the William James Prize instead of a Graduate Student Travel Stipend. No paper may be awarded both the William James Prize and a Graduate Student Travel Stipend.

Each recipient of an award will be acknowledged in the printed program for the annual Eastern Division Meeting.

12. APA Prize Reception
There will be a special reception for the presentation of awards, at which all meeting registrants are welcome. This reception is sponsored by Polity, an independent British press who partners with Blackwell for marketing purposes. The prize reception will take place at 5:45-6:45 p.m. on December 28th. The awards to be presented include the Graduate Student Travel Stipends and William James Prize, as well as a number of national APA prizes; the specifics are listed with the announcement of the reception in the main program.

13. The 2009 Program Committee
The Eastern Division’s Committee on Committees, whose ex officio members are the Vice President, the Divisional Representative to the Board of Officers, and the Secretary-Treasurer, invites nominations, including self-nominations, for membership on the 2009 Program Committee. Nominees should be voting affiliates of the Eastern Division. Each nomination must be accompanied by the nominee’s curriculum vitae and must be received by December 1, 2007, at the Office of the Secretary-Treasurer, Department of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218-2686.

On behalf of the Executive and Program Committees, I extend to every member of The American Philosophical Association a warm invitation to take part in our one hundred and fourth Annual Meeting.

Cordially yours,
Richard Bett, Secretary-Treasurer