Four Westminster College Students Attend Philosophy Conference

Four Westminster College students attended the Fourth Annual Fall Conference of the Northeast Ohio Philosophy Consortium (NEOPC) held at John Carroll University.

Attending the conference were: Dr. David Goldberg, assistant professor of philosophy at Westminster College; Kara Gerhart, junior philosophy major and daughter of Michael and Linda Gerhart of Donegal; Bradley Steines, junior political science and business administration major and son of Gerald and Kathy Steins of Beaver Falls; Nicholas Turko, a senior religion major and son of Michael and Louise Turko of Pulaski; and Ashely Williams, a junior philosophy major and daughter of Debra Cochran and Ronald Williams of Washington.

While at the conference Goldberg and Williams presented papers.

"'Nietzsche and Yeats: The Influence of a Thinker on a Thinker' deals with the relationship that exists between Nietzsche's philosophy and Yeats' poetry," Williams said. "I attempted to prove that Yeats' aesthetic reconstruction of Nietzsche's philosophy benefited both men's work in a way that would not have been possible if both had been philosophers."

"'National Identity, a Vacuous Alternative' concerns modern attempts at nation-building, especially those that are currently under way in Iraq and Afghanistan, suggesting that part of the failure in both cases is that national identity is a construct that is psychologically inadequate to the process of forming a community," Goldberg said.

"The NEOPC began as an arena for undergraduate students interested in philosophy to interact with faculty, graduate students, and fellow undergraduates from a variety of institutions," Goldberg said.

For more information, contact Goldberg at (724) 946-7153 or e-mail goldbedw@westminster.edu.

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