NEH Summer Institute awards

NEH Summer Institute on Consciousness and Intentionality: Awards

These are the official awards from the NEH summer institute, awarded at the end of the institute on August 2, 2002. A few of these awards, indicated with a "*", were determined by a poll of participants. Other awards were determined by the arbitrary discretion of an arbitrary judging committee.

Faculty Awards

*Best paper by a visiting faculty member: Fred Dretske, "How Do You Know You're Not a Zombie"; Brian Loar, "Transparent Experience and the Availability of Qualia" (tie).

*Best presentation by a visiting faculty member: Bob Brandom, "No Experience Necessary".

*Best discussion session by a visiting faculty member: Chris Peacocke, general discussion.

*Funniest visiting faculty member: John Searle

Longest presentation: Susan Hurley

Shortest presentation: Colin McGinn

*Best week (N.B. poll taken midway through week 6): Week 1 (9 votes), week 4 (6 votes), week 2 (5 votes), week 5 (3 votes), week 3 (2 votes)

Questioner awards

*Best questioner: Scott Sturgeon

*Best question: Debbie Tollefsen (to Searle: "I don't mean to sound confrontational, and I've read all your books, but...")

Most questions: David Pitt, Susanna Siegel (tied on 47)

*Longest questioner: Leora Weitzman

*Best finger abuse: Kati Balog

Most irrepressible finger: George Downing

Fiercest finger: Cara Spencer

Most concise questioner: Michelle Montague

Best maker of distinctions: Brad Thompson

Most modest questioner: Casey O'Callaghan

Most thoughtful questioner: Steve Horst

Most skeptical questioner: Aaron Zimmerman

Most animated questioner: Susanna Siegel

Loudest questioner: John Hawthorne

Quietest questioner: Janet Levin

Biggest blurter: Scott Sturgeon

Most transgressive: Amy Schmitter

Philosophical awards

Most shameless materialist: Tom Polger

Most shameless dualist: Bill Robinson

Most shameless representationalist: Paula Droege

Most obsessed with hallucination: Nick Georgalis

Most obsessed with brains-in-vats: Leora Weitzman

Most questions mentioning Kant: Becko Copenhaver

Most references to the child development literature: George Downing

Most dubious about introspection: Maja Spener

Most dubious about transparency: Amy Kind

Most cognitive phenomenology: David Pitt, Charles Siewert (tie)

Least cognitive phenomenology: Bill Robinson, Leopold Stubenberg (tie)

Special effects and such

Best sound effect: Bill Lycan ("woo...")

Best gesture: Aaron Zimmerman ("justification")

Best multisensory illustration of a philosophical point: Becko Copenhaver ("whoomp", illustrating the oblique perspective)

Best timing: Debbie Tollefsen ("Woo...")

*Best one-liner: David Chalmers (Searle: "Husserl did everything through introspection, and he published his first drafts. My methodology is completely different..."; Chalmers: "Second drafts.")

*Funniest participant: Aaron Zimmerman

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