Le Moyne College Calendar

Is everything physical? Will all theories about the natural world reduce to scientific theories? Will answers to these questions affect our everyday lives? Professor Craig DeLancey, Ph.D., of SUNY Oswego will answer these questions. Philosophers have often sought to project progress in the sciences to some limit, from which they expect to define the "physical." DeLancey’s alternative conception of the "physical" will emphasize explanation claims with respect to a particular kind of projection of current science. Besides avoiding philosophical challenges, this alternative conception has the added benefit of clarifying why debates about whether everything is physical matter to us. Furthermore, DeLancey will argue that many features of the natural world are, in a specific sense, information dense. This argument casts additional doubt on any attempt to construct a universal reduction to the physical.

Professor DeLancey is a philosopher and writer. He received a joint PhD in philosophy and cognitive science from Indiana University, along with an MA in computer science. His research in philosophy is concerned with the philosophy of mind, and in particular emotion and consciousness. His book Passionate Engines: What Emotions Reveal About Mind and Artificial Intelligence [title in italics] was published by Oxford University Press.