The club dates to well before my time, as I only started at Seton Hall University in fall 2016. It’s gone through countless iterations and changes over the years, brought about by the revolving door of new students who join the club upon starting college and leave upon graduating. Its history is one of continual reinvention.
Since I took over as the faculty advisor in 2016, we have always had a president, vice president, treasurer, and someone in charge of social media, meeting organization, announcements, and the like. Being an officer requires a non-trivial amount of work, so they’re usually chosen by first asking for volunteers among active club members. If we don’t have enough volunteers, we ask philosophy majors who we think would do a good job.
We aim to meet every two weeks, but during busy times of the year (e.g. midterms, finals), we meet monthly.
The students running the club have a lot of initiative, which makes my job easy. I show up to the meetings, bring food whenever possible, make sure the relevant paperwork is filled out, and chime in occasionally to run through some arguments for/against various views being discussed. My biggest contribution is bringing in guest lecturers (in-person and remotely) to give students the opportunity to interact with philosophers doing cutting edge work in their field.
I lean on philosopher friends to give talks at Seton Hall University sponsored by the Philosophy Club. The term “sponsored” here is used loosely since we typically don’t have a budget for these talks.
Having speakers come in-person or remotely has been the highlight of the club for many members. It gives them an opportunity to learn about some philosophical issues that might not be on their radar and, more importantly, to partake in a philosophical dialogue with really sharp professional philosophers. By interacting with philosophers outside our department, they are exposed to a broader range of philosophy, both in terms of content and style.
Some more recent examples include Amitabha Palmer (University of Texas) talking to students about how to productively engage with conspiracy theorists online. David Hershenov (Buffalo) gave an interesting talk on whether hell could be just and James Stacey Taylor (The College of New Jersey) made an argument for premortem kidney markets.
The club benefits students through life-changing philosophical conversations. Every conversation we have is life-changing in the sense that our lives are technically different than they were before. On a more serious note, it provides an important sense of community for the students, which has been all the more important during COVID-19 when campus was pretty bare. It offers serious intellectual engagement for the students and faculty alike. It has brought some philosophically inclined students into our department as secondary majors or minors. More generally, it’s just been a great deal of fun for everyone involved.
Pre-Covid we had a social media presence. Once COVID-19 hit and we started meeting remotely via Microsoft Teams, we ended up just communicating there and via email. We still maintain a Facebook page and an Instagram account, which we’ll restart once we go back to in person meetings in the fall.
Travis Timmerman
Travis Timmerman is an assistant professor of philosophy at Seton Hall University who specializes in normative ethics, applied ethics, and the philosophy of death. He has taught a wide array of courses, including the philosophy of death, environmental ethics, paradoxes, philosophy of time, medical and bioethics, philosophy through film, the philosophy of food, and more.
He completed his MA and PhD in philosophy at Syracuse University. Before Syracuse, he completed a BA in philosophy, as well as a BS and MA in political science at Arizona State University.
You can read more about him on his website (https://www.travistimmerman.com/) and find his work on his PhilPeople page (https://philpeople.org/profiles/travis-m-timmerman).
