Join us virtually or in-person (Auerbach 320) this Wednesday, Feb. 4 from 1 p.m.–2 p.m. for our next meeting of the University of Hartford Philosophy Club as Clark Sexton presents "The Logical Implications of the Concept of a Right to Free Speech."
In the months since Charlie Kirk’s murder, there has been some jostling over whether it should be characterized as an assassination. Apropos of this, a news item recently appeared about the resolution of a law suit temporarily reinstating a faculty member at Clemson University after having being terminated for characterizing Kirk’s killing as a case of karma. (Article)
Amidst the discussion this sparked of whether a professor, or anyone else for that matter, should be punished or disciplined for saying such a thing on the grounds of the right to freedom of speech, it was retorted by some that regardless of such a right, people ought to have to face the consequences of their own speech. This presentation is in part an attempt unpack the confusion inherent in such a statement.
Clark Sexton of Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas, earned doctorates both in Computer Science from Kansas State University and in Philosophy from the University of Kansas. His research in Computer Science was in Artificial Intelligence, and, more specifically, Natural Language Processing. For this research, he implemented an NLP system that could parse a wide range of syntactic structures of English, perform type-checking to determine whether a sentence is meaningful, and disambiguate certain ambiguous expressions.
Clark continued his exploration of the relations of meanings in his dissertation in Philosophy, in which he presented a brief history of the analytic/synthetic distinction, replied to Quine's objections, and provided and presented arguments for his own account of the distinction.
Outline of Presentation:
The University of Hartford Philosophy Club has an informal, jovial atmosphere. It is a place where students, professors, and people from the community at large meet as peers. Sometimes presentations are given, followed by discussion. Other times, topics are hashed out by the whole group.
Presenters may be students, professors, or people from the community. Anyone can offer to present a topic. The mode of presentation may be as formal or informal as the presenter chooses.
Come and go as you wish. Bring friends. Suggest topics and activities. Take over the club! It belongs to you! Just show up! - Brian Skelly bskelly@hartford.edu 413.273.2273.