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Philosophy Professor Pia Antolic-Piper to Lecture at Washington and Lee

Pia Antolic-Piper, professor of philosophy at James Madison University, will lecture at Washington and Lee University on Oct. 19 from 5 p.m. in Huntley 327.

Antolic-Piper will speak on “How Practical is Practical Philosophy? Roger Bacon on the Full Task of Moral Philosophy.” Her talk is free and open to the public and is sponsored by W&L’s philosophy department.

“My talk will center on the medieval thinker Roger Bacon,” said Antolic-Piper. “It will be mostly an exercise in the history of philosophy insofar as I will retrace Bacon’s reflections on what moral philosophy is and what it should be. However, Bacon’s arguments are also of enduring relevance in that, in a certain sense, there are universally true insights that can be gleaned from them and that pertain to the potential of moral philosophy to go beyond conceptual analysis and normative arguments and to extend to moral motivation.”

Selected publications of Antolic-Piper’s include “Beyond Bosnia: Ethical Reasoning in Political Deliberations about Humanitarian Intervention,” chapter in “The Role of Intelligence in Ending the War in Bosnia in 1995” (2014); “Roger Bacon,” in “Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy;” Roger Bacon’s “Opus maius. Selections from Moral Philosophy,” introduction and translation, Latin to German (2008); “Experience and Demonstration: The Sciences of Nature in the 13th and 14th Centuries,” co-edited, (2007).

Her research includes the history of philosophy (with emphasis on medieval philosophy, ancient philosophy and 13th-century metaphysics and ethics), feminist philosophy and aesthetics, aesthetics and ethics, the use of poetry in ethics, philosophy of mind and feminist philosophy.

Antolic-Piper attended Goethe-University in Frankfurt and received an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy.