Sara J. Bernstein

Curriculum Vitae

(Download a .pdf)

Department of Philosophy
Box 90743
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708


Email:   sara dot bernstein at duke dot edu

Areas of Specialization

Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind

Areas of Competence

Cognitive Science, Philosophy of Science, Early Modern Philosophy, Nineteenth Century Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy              

Education

Ph.D, Philosophy, University of Arizona, 2010
  Dissertation: Essays on Overdetermination
  Advisors: L.A. Paul, Terence Horgan

M.A., Philosophy, University of Arizona, 2008

A.B. (Honors), Philosophy, University of Chicago, 2004

Employment

Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Duke University. 2010-

Papers

"Overdetermination Underdetermined" (under review)

"Tangled Up in Blue" (under review)

"It Takes Two" (under review)

"Nowhere Man: Time Travel and Spatial Location" forthcoming in Time Travel, ed. Richard Hanley, Oxford University Press (invited)

"Moral Overdetermination"

"Omissions as de re Possibilites"

"Come Together"

"Free Will and Mental Causation" (co-authored with Jessica Wilson)

Selected Presentations

"Omissions, Morality, and Possibility"

Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, Boulder, CO, August 2012.

"Omissions as Possibilities"

Pacific APA, Seattle, WA, April 2012.

"A Metaphysical Puzzle about Moral Difference"

Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, Boulder, CO, August 2011.

"Overdetermination Underdetermined"

Duke University, Durham, NC, February 2010.

Eastern APA, New York City, New York, December 2009.

PhilMilCog, Ontario, Canada, May 2009.

Eminees Series, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, May 2009.

Updating the Agenda for the Metaphysics of Mind, University of Missouri at St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, March 2009.

Philsoc Series, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, July 2008.

"Overdetermination and Counterfactual Sensitivity"

Pacific APA, San Diego, CA, April 2011.

Powers, Dispositions, and Singular Causation, Buffalo, New York, April 2008.

UCLA/ USC Graduate Conference, Los Angeles, California, February 2008.

Northwest Philosophy Conference, Portland, OR, October 2007.

"The Social Composition Question"

SoCal Philosophy Conference, Los Angeles, CA, November 2009.

Northwest Philosophy Conference, Forest Grove, Oregon, October 2009.

"Moral Overdetermination"

WiP Series, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, February 2009.

Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress (poster), Boulder, CO, August 2008.

Australasian Association of Philosophy, Melbourne, Australia, July 2008.

Selected Comments

On Jonathan Schaffer's "Apt Causal Models for the Law" at Pacific APA, Committee on Law and Philosophy, Seattle, WA, April 2012.

On Daniel Korman's "The Language of the Ontology Room" at Central APA, Chicago, IL, Februrary 2012.

On Randolph Clarke's "Absence of Action" at Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference, Bellingham, WA, August 2011.

On Alexander Pruss' "Aristotelian Forms and Laws of Nature" at Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference: Aristotelian Themes in Contemporary Metaphysics, Boise, Idaho, April 2011.

On Karen Bennett's "Construction Area (No Hard Hat Required)" at Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference, Bellingham, Washington, August 2010.

On Michael Hartsock's "Explaining Absences" at Pacific APA, San Francisco, California, April 2010.

On Justin Tiehen's "Explaining Causal Closure" at Northwest Philosophy Conference, Forest Grove, Oregon, October 2009.

On Kris McDaniel's "The Metaphysics of Axiology and the Welfare of Animals" at Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, Boulder, Colorado, August 2009.

On Kevin Sharpe's "Standard Compatibilism and the Problem of Causal Exclusion", Pacific APA, Vancouver, Canada, April 2009.

On Cathleen Muller's "Reply to Everett's 'Against Fictional Realism" at UMass Amherst Graduate Conference in Metaphysics, Amherst, MA, March 2009.

On David Shoemaker's "What's Identity Got to Do With It?" at Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, Boulder, CO, August 2008.

On Achille Varzi's "Boundaries, Conventions, and Reality" at Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference: Carving Nature at its Joints, Pullman, Washington, March 2008.

On Alexander Skiles' "Ordinary Objects and Overdetermination" at Northwest Philosophy Conference, Portland, OR, October 2007.

On Jason Turner's "Ontological Pluralism" at Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference, Bellingham, WA, August 2007.

Invited

Invited Participant, Carolina Metaphysics Workshop, Duck, NC, June 2011.

Invited Participant, Putting Powers to Work: A Conference on Causal Powers in Contemporary Metaphysics, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, April 2011.

Panelist (with J. Richard Gott, John Kessel, and John Roberts), A Time Travel Event, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, April 2011.

Invited Participant, Pittsburgh Causation Workshop, Pittsburgh Center for Philosophy of Science, Pittsburgh, PA, January 2008.

Invited Participant, Syracuse Mental Causation Workshop, Syracuse, NY, December 2007.

Fellowships and Awards 

H.B. Earhart Foundation Fellowship, 2008-2009.

Arizona Department of Philosophy Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student, 2007-2008.

Arizona Department of Philosophy Feinberg Dissertation Fellowship (merit-based), 2008.

Arizona Graduate Student Fellowship, 2004-2005.

Classes Taught

At Duke:

Philosophy 252S: Graduate Seminar on Metaphysics of Causation and Moral Responsibility (Fall 2011)

Philosophy 252S: Graduate Seminar on Meta-metaphysics (Spring 2011)

Philosophy 111: Appearance and Reality (Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011)

At Arizona:

Philosophy 264: Twentieth Century Philosophy (Spring 2008)

Philosophy 263: Nineteenth Century Philosophy (Fall 2007)

Philosophy 238: Philosophy in Literature (Spring 2007)

Philosophy 346: Minds, Brains, and Computers (Summer 2006)

Additional Education

Visiting scholar, UNC-Chapel Hill, 2009-2010.

Visiting student, MIT, 2008-2009.

Visiting scholar, Australian National University, June-July 2008.

Service

To the profession:

    Planning Committee, 2011 Chapel Hill Colloquium

    Conference organizer (with Peter van Inwagen, Michael Loux, L.A. Paul, and Dana Goswick),     Relational versus Constituent Ontologies, 2009-2010

  Referee:

    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

    Philosophical Quarterly

    Erkenntnis

    Philosophers' Imprint

    Dialectica

    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly

    Review of Philosophy and Psychology

    Routledge Press

    Philosophia

To the Arizona Philosophy Department:

    Conference organizer (with L.A. Paul), 2009 Arizona Ontology Conference, 2008-2009

    Conference organizer (with L.A. Paul), 2008 Arizona Ontology Conference, 2007-2008

    Graduate representative to the faculty, 2006-2007

    Committee on Graduate Placement, 2006-2007