About three years ago, a trio of professors joined together to create an international conference centered around political philosophy.

David Sobel, a philosophy professor at Syracuse University, teamed up with two professors at other schools to plan what the event would look like, and the trio pitched their idea to the Oxford Studies program.

The conference has since grown into an internationally renowned event, and top political philosophers will make their way to the SU campus this weekend for the Workshop for Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy.

SU will be hosting the third annual workshop from Friday to Sunday. The conference, which will be held in Barcelona next year, will feature speeches by professors from across the U.S., including keynote addresses by a UCLA professor and a University of Michigan professor. It is run by Sobel, along with Peter Vallentyne, a professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri, and Steve Wall, a professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona.

“It’s nice to be able to ask questions and have access to some of the best minds working in political philosophy right now,” Sobel said.

Oxford Studies approved Sobel, Vallentyne and Wall’s conference in 2012, and the first Workshop for Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy was held at the University of Arizona in 2013. The conference was hosted by Vallentyne at the University of Missouri in 2014.

This year Sobel will host the philosophy conference at SU. The event, which is free and open to the public, will include 10 presenters who were chosen based on the political philosophy papers they submitted for the event.

Vallentyne said philosophers from all across the country and world, including those from Cornell University, Oxford University and the London School of Economics and Political Science, will be in attendance. He added that this year, the conference has a nice mix of younger and older philosophers.

The organizers held an open submission for papers, Vallentyne said, inviting political philosophers to submit their papers for the conference. The papers were selected blindly in order to determine who would present at this year’s conference.

Ken Baynes, professor of philosophy at SU, said the event coordinators received about 120 papers for this year’s event for a limited amount of spots, making the conference very competitive.

Each of the 10 presenters will also be accompanied by a commentator and a chairperson, who presides over the talk.

Included in the 10 presenters are two keynote speakers: Seana Shiffrin from the University of California at Los Angeles and Elizabeth Anderson from the University of Michigan. This year’s Sanders Prize winner, Keith Hyams from Warwick University, will also be one of the presenters at the event.

This is the first year that the Sanders Prize will be awarded during the Workshop for Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. Hyams will receive $10,000 for having the best paper submitted by a junior philosopher.

Vallentyne said the plan is to give the award at the conference every two years. The $10,000 award, which is funded by the Mark Sanders Foundation, will always go to a junior philosopher — a graduate student or someone who received their doctorate less than 15 years ago.

Sobel said the event is exciting because it draws attention to the philosophy department at the different schools that host it.

“It’s an opportunity to exchange ideas about political philosophy and to hear what these philosophers have come up with,” he said.

Matt Koehler, an eight-year graduate student studying political philosophy at SU, said he is looking forward to attending different talks during the conference and picking the brains of the political philosophers who will be in attendance.

“First and foremost, it’s nice to get individuals excited about political philosophy,” Koehler said. “It’s also nice exposure for the philosophy department as this will raise our profile and bring good attention to the program.”

Published on September 16, 2015 at 10:24 pm

Contact Sara: smswann@syr.edu | @saramswann