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, Philosophy of Computing, 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

Additional Education

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

Visiting scholar, MIT, 2008-2009.

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

Employment

Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Duke University. 2013-2014

Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Duke University. 2010-

Publications

"Omissions as Possibilities" (forthcoming in Philosophical Studies)

Other Papers

"Overdetermination Underdetermined" (under review)

"Tangled Up in Blue" (under review)

"Trumping and Causal Connection" (under review)

"Actual and Counterfactual Redundancy"

"Moral Overdetermination"

"Free Will and Mental Causation" (with Jessica Wilson)

"Three Concepts of Time Travel" commissioned for Festschrift for Peter Van Inwagen

"Nowhere Man: Time Travel and Spatial Location" commissioned for Time Travel, ed. Richard Hanley, Oxford University Press

Review of Yuri Balashov's Persistence and Spacetime, for Mind

Selected Talks

TBA

Rice University, Houston, Texas, March 2014.

TBA

Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, July 2013.

University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, July 2013.

"Actual and Counterfactual Redundancy"

Causation: New Prospects, Collège de France, Paris, France, December 2013.

Australasian Association of Philosophy, Brisbane, Australia, July 2013.

Pacific APA, San Francisco, CA, March 2013.

"Mental Causation and Free Will"

The Metaphysics of Free Will, Norweigan University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway, April 2013.

"Omissions as Possibilities"

St. Louis University (keynote for St. Louis University Undergraduate Philosophy Conference), St. Louis, MO, April 2013.

Boise State University, Boise, ID, April 2013.

California State University-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, March 2013.

Values and Virtues, Beijing, China, November 2012.

Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, October 2012.

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

Pacific APA, Seattle, WA, April 2012.

"Time Travel: A Practical Guide"

Boise State University, Boise, ID, April 2013. (public lecture)

"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 Carolina Sartorio's "The Right Kind of Cause" at Back at the Ranch, Tucson, AZ, January 2013.

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, Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference, Bellingham, WA, August 2012.

Invited Participant, 2012 Carolina Metaphysics Workshop, Duck, NC, June 2012.

Invited Participant, 2011 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, Awards, and Recognition 

Teaching Evaluations in Top 5% of all Undergraduate Instructors at Duke: Fall 2011, Spring 2011, and Spring 2012

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:

Graduate Seminar: Philosophy of David Lewis (Spring 2013)

Philosophy of Space and Time (Spring 2013)

Graduate Dissertation Seminar (Spring 2013)

Graduate Seminar on Metaphysics of Time and Time Travel (Spring 2012)

Graduate Seminar on Metaphysics of Causation and Moral Responsibility (Fall 2011)

Graduate Seminar on Meta-metaphysics (Spring 2011)

Appearance and Reality (Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011)

At Arizona:

Twentieth Century Philosophy (Spring 2008)

Nineteenth Century Philosophy (Fall 2007)

Philosophy in Literature (Spring 2007)

Minds, Brains, and Computers (Summer 2006)

Service

To the profession:

  Referee:

    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

    Dialectica

    Erkenntnis

    Oxford University Press

    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly

    Philosophical Quarterly

    Philosophers' Imprint

    Philosophia

    Philosophical Studies

    Review of Philosophy and Psychology

    Routledge Press

To the Duke Philosophy Department:

    Search Committee, 2012-2013

    Search Committee, 2011-2012

    Founder and co-organizer (with Walter Sinnott-Armonstrong), Annual Triangle-Area    Philosophy Symposium

    Planning Committee, 2012 Chapel Hill Colloquium

    Planning Committee, 2011 Chapel Hill Colloquium

To the Arizona Philosophy Department:

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

    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