2012-2013
On April 30, 2013, Jason Dana, Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, gave a talk on The Price Is Sexist: Taste Based Discrimination by Contestants on The Price Is Right for PPE's Behavioral Ethics Lab's lunch seminar series.
On April 19, 2013, Sigrid Suetens, from Tilburg University, gave a talk on Heterogeneous stake-sensitive guilt aversion for PPE's Behavioral Ethics Lab's lunch seminar series.
On April 18, 2013, Pascal Boyer, Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory at Washington University in St. Louis, gave a talk on The naturalness of social institutions: Evolutionary foundations of some social norms.
On March 28, 2013, Soo Hong Chew, Professor of Economics at National University of Singapore, spoke on Ambiguity, Familiarity, and the Equity Home Bias Puzzle:Theory and Evidence from Experiments involving Neuroimaging and Molecular Genetics.
Molly Melching, the founder and executive director of Tostan, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) whose mission it is to empower African communities for sustainable development and social transformation in the respect of human rights, spoke on Changing Harmful Social Norms in Traditional Societies at the 13th Annual Goldstone Forum on March 26, 2013.
Cristina Bicchieri and the Penn-UNICEF Summer Program on Advances in Social Norms and Social Change were featured in an article in the January-February 2013 issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette.
PPE welcomes visiting scholar, Karla Hoff, for the Spring 2013 Semester.
Cristina Bicchieri will give the Inaugural Address of the Ferrando Family Lecture Series in Philosophy at the University of Michigan in January.
Cristina Bicchieri will give the Silver Jubilee Lectures at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research ((IGIDR) in Mumbai, India, in January.
PPE welcomes visiting scholar, Francesca Lipari for the Spring and Fall 2013 terms.
PPE welcomes visiting scholar Karla Hoff, Senior Research Economist in the Development Economics Group at the World Bank, as a visiting scholar for the Spring 2013 term.
Cristina Bicchieri was interviewed by RAI, the Italian television, on game theory. Watch the interview here.
Cristina Bicchieri spoke on Social Progress: Psychology and Normative Constraints at the 2012 René Descartes Lectures at Tilburg University, The Netherlands on November 28 - 30, 2012.
On November 23, 2012, Sebastiano Bavetta and Pietro Navarra presented their new book The Economics of Freedom at Universita DeGli Studi Di Palermo.
On November 19, 2012, David G. Rand, Professor of Psychology at Yale and Research Scientist with the Human Evolutionary Biology Department at Harvard University, spoke on Spontaneous giving and calculated greed: Intuitive cooperation in social dilemmas.
On November 12, 2012, Fiery Cushman, Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences at Brown University, spoke on Action, outcome and value: From computational neuroscience to political dispute.
On November 8, 2012 Erik Angner, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Economics, and Public Policy and Fellow at theInstitute for Philosophy and Public Policy at George Mason University, spoke on Subjective Well-Being: When, and Why, It Matters.
On October 25, 2012 there was a Book Launch for The Economics of Freedom:Theory, Measurement, and Policy Implications by Sebastiano Bavetta and Pietro Navarra.
Sebastiano Bavetta and Pietro Navarra'sOn October 18, 2012, Cristina Bicchieri will speak on Social Norms and Social Change at the UNSPOKEN Conference: Create Space for Gender-Peace which is at the 2nd Annual Human Rights Festival.
PPE co-sponsored the keynote speaker, Ian Shapiro, for The Ivy League International student Networking Conference (ILINC) on October 12-13, 2012, which was developed and hosted by The Assembly of International Students (AIS).
PPE welcomes visiting student scholars Benedetta Neige Ferraccioli and Marta Vigneri for the Fall 2012 Term.
PPE welcomes visiting scholars Pietro Navarra, Professor of Public Sector Economics at the Università degli Studi di Messina, in Italy and Sebastiano Bavetta, Professor of Economics at Università degli Studi di Palermo, in Italy for the Fall 2012 Term.
PPE welcomes visiting scholar Jan Willem Lindemans for the 2012 Academic Year.
PPE welcomes Postdocoral Fellow Ting Jiang.
2011-2012
From July 2, - July 13, 2012 PPE hosted the third annual Penn-UNICEF summer program on Advances in Social Norms and Social Change.
Congratulations to Limor Bordoley, the first ever PPE recipient of the Rose Undergraduate Research Award. The Rose Award is the most prestigious research award granted by the College of Arts and Sciences. Her research project was called Rethinking the Six Day War: An Analysis of Counter Factual Explanations and was supervised by Professor Ian Lustick of Political Science.
Congratulations are also due to Caroline Cohn and David Shuldiner for being recognized for their research activities by The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF).
Douglas Miller a 2011 Penn Undergraduate Climate Action Grant in the amount of $5,000 for his “Sustainable Behavior Inducement” project.
On Thursday, April 19th, 2012, Jerry Gaus, James E. Rogers Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, spoke On the Appropriate Mode of Justifying a Public Moral Constitution.
On Thursday, April 12th, 2012, Steven Goldstone, Class of '67 and Non-Executive Chairman of the Board of ConAgra Foods, Inc., had a conversation with PPE majors.
On April 5th, 2012, Peter Vanderschraaf, Professor at the University of California Merced and Institute for Advanced Study, spoke on Artificial Natural Laws.
In March 2012, Cristina Bicchieri, spoke on Social Norm Entrepreneurship: Collective Action for Common Good? at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.
Edward Rendell, C'65, former governor of Pennsylvania and the former mayor of Philadelphia, spoke on America: Falling Apart, Falling Behind at the 12th Annual Goldstone Forum on March 20, 2012.
On March 15, 2012, Chiara Lisciandra, from the Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science at Tilburg University, spoke on Conformorality: A Study on Normative Judgment and Conformity.
On February 28, 2012, Cristina Bicchieri was featured in the University of Pennslyvania Almanac for her appointment as the Sascha Jane Patterson Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative ethics in the School of Arts and Scineces.
On February 2, 2012 the PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held it's annual PPE Alumni/Careers Panel.
PPE welcomes visiting scholar Karla Hoff, Senior Research Economist at the World Bank, for the Spring 2012 Term.
On December 20, 2011 Cristina Bicchieri was quoted in the article, Don't Meniton It: How 'Undiscussables' Can Undermine an Organization, published in Knowledge@Wharton.
On December 1, 2011 Alvin Goldman, Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, spoke on Don’t' Be a Know-It-All: Why Social Epistemology Can -- and Sometimes Should -- Promote Ignorance.
On November 10, 2011 Elliot Turiel, Professor of Cognition and Development atUniversity of California Berkley Graduate School of Education, spoke on Moral and Social Reasoning: The Role of Inequalities, Injustices, and Social Opposition.
On November 3, 2011 Gilbert Harman, James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, spoke on Moral Reasoning.
On November 2, 2011 James Kitts, Assistant Professor of Management at Columbia University, spoke on Group Processes, Social Norms, and Local Network Dynamics.
On October 27, 2011 Hugo Mercier, a Post Doctoral Fellow with the PPE Program, spoke on Why Do HumansReason?.
On October 16th and October 18th, 2011 Cristina Bicchieri was be featured on Resonance104.4fm, http://resonancefm.com/. A podcast of the show can be accessed on http://www.philosophynow.org/.
Pietro Navarra and Sebastiano Bavetta, from The London School of Economics, gave a lecture on 'Freedom of Choice: Theory, Measure and Policy Implications, on September 28th, 2011.
On September 8, 2011, Dan M. Kahan, Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, spoke about The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change.
PPE welcomes Postdoctoral Fellows Nicolas Baumard and Ryan Muldoon.
PPE welcomes visiting scholars Pietro Navarra, Professor of Public Sector Economics at the Università degli Studi di Messina, in Italy and Sebastiano Bavetta, Professor of Economics at Università degli Studi di Palermo, in Italy for the Fall 2011 Term.
2010-2011
On August 15, 2011 Hugo Mercier was interviewed about Did Reason Evolve For Arguing? on Point of Inquiry, the radio show and podcast of the Center for Inquiry.
On August 15, 2011 Hugo Mercier was interviewed on Big Picture Science on Radio SETI.
On July 28, 2011 Paolo Mefalopulos, Chief of Programme Communication at UNICEF in India and one of the participants in the 2011 Penn-UNICEF Summer Program on Advances in Social Norms and Social Change, published a blog entry, The Role of Social Norms in Achieving Behavior Change, about concepts he learned from the program.
On July 18th, 2011 Hugo Mercier was interviewed about The Arguments for Arguments on the Colin McEnroe Show on WNPR.
The recently concluded, second Penn-UNICEF Summer Program on Advances in Social Norms and Social Change, directed and created by Cristina Bicchieri, S. J. P. Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethis at The University of Pennsylvania and Gerrie Mackie, Associate Professor of Political Science at University of California, San Diego, has been highlighted in UNICEF's Internal Communication Network.
Steven F. Goldstone, PPE's funder, was featured in the Spring/Summer 2011 Penn Arts & Sciences Magazine.
On June 17, 2011 Cristina Bicchieri, PPE Program Director and Professor of Philosophy and Legal Studies, was named the Sascha Jane Patterson Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics.
Hugo Mercier published a reply in the June 15, 2011 New York Times, Researcher Responds to Arguments Over His Theory of Arguing, to the June 14, 2011 New York Times article, Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth, clarifying a common misconception drawn from the article.
Hugo Mercier, a Post Doctoral Fellow with the PPE Program, was featured in the June 14, 2011 New York Times article Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth.
On May 16, 2011 Hugo Mercier discusses Arguementative Theory in an interview on Counterpoint on ABC Radio National.
On April 27, 2011 Hugo Mercier was interviewed about The Argumentative Theory on the online salon at Edge.org
On April 5, 2011 Nassim N. Taleb, a successful hedge fund manager, professor of financial mathematics, bestselling NYT author of the "Black Swan" and philosopher, spoke at the 11th Annual Goldstone Forum on Antifragility: How To Live In a World We Don't Understand, and Enjoy it.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF) awarded PPE Major Douglas Miller a 2011 Penn Undergraduate Climate Action Grant in the amount of $5,000 for his “Sustainable Behavior Inducement” project.
PPE would like to congratulate Ben Moskowitz on being PPE's first ever Dean's Scholar. He is a simultaneously pursuing a PPE major and a Masters in Government at Fels. This is one of the highest academic honors available to students in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Brian Skyrms, Distinguished Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science and Economics at Universityof California Irvine, spoke on Signals, the Flow of Information, Collective Action on February 17, 2011.
The PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held the annual PPE Alumni Panel on February 10, 2011.
The Winter 2010 Penn Arts & Sciences Magazine published an article, Changing Norms to Change Lives, discussing the ongoing work of Cristina Bicchieri,Carol and Michael Lowenstein Professor of Philosophy and Legal Studies and director of the PPE program, as a human rights and social norms consultant for United Nations Children's Fund.
Iain McLean, Official Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College and Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford, spoke on The Scottish origins of nonestablishment and free exercise of religion in the US Constitution on December 6, 2010.
Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber's paper, Why Do Humans Reason? was featured in Oliver Burkeman's column This column will change your life: The power of persuasion in the November 26th, 2010 issue of The Guardian.
PPE has created videos of some of the recent alumni talking about how PPE has helped their career choices. The videos may be viewed here.
PPE welcomes visiting scholars Pietro Navarra, Professor of Public Sector Economics at the Università degli Studi di Messina, in Italy and Sebastiano Bavetta, Professor of Economics at Università degli Studi di Palermo, in Italy for the Fall 2010 Term.
2009-10
Summer, 2009: John Gasper, a PPE Post Doc, was hired as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Carnegie Mellon University Qatar.
Hugo Mercier, one of PPE's Post Docs was quoted in a Newsweek article on August 5, 2010, which was then picked up in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra.
PPE hosted the Penn-UNICEF summer program on Advances in Social Norms and Social Change from July 5 - July 16, 2010.
Francesco Guala, Professor of Economics at the University of Milan, spoke on Scanning the Humean Brain: The Neuroscience of Social Norms and Conventions on April 22, 2010.
Joseph Heath, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, spoke on The Status of Conventional Morality on April 15, 2010.
Josh Knobe, Professor of Cognitive Science and Philosophy at Yale University, spoke on Person as Scientist, Person as Moralist, on April 12, 2010.
John Ahlquist, Professor of Political Science at Florida State University, spoke on Provoking Preferences: Leaders, Followers, and Organizational Culture, on April 8, 2010.
The PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held the annual PPE Alumni Panel on Arpil 6, 2010.
Joseph Mazor, Post-Doctoral Research Associate at The Center for Human Values at Princeton University, spoke on
How to Divide Heterogeneous, Imperfectly Divisible Resources Equally: The Case for an Equal-Division-of-Proceeds Auction, on March 25, 2010.
Malcolm Gladwell, a prominent journalist, public intellectual, and author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Outliers: The Story of Success and What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures, spoke on culture and legislation at the 10th Annual Goldstone Forum on January 28, 2010.
Carlo Martini, Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science (TiLPS) at Tilburg University and Visiting Scholar with the PPE Program, spoke on The Role of Experts in the Epistemology of Economics on December 10, 2009.
The PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held Student Office Hours on November 20, 2009.
The PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held a PPE Information Session for prospective majors on November 2, 2009.
Gerry Mackie, Professor of Political Science at University of California, San Diego, spoke on Cognitive and Affective Aspects of Three Concepts of Liberty on October 29, 2009.
Hélène Landemore, Professor of Political Science at Yale University, spoke on Democracy and the argument from collective intelligence: the necessity of a dialogue between democratic theory and cognitive sciences on October 28, 2009. Read her Majority Rule paper here and her Democratic Reason paper here.
Stephen Stich, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, spoke on The Evolution of Morality? on September 24, 2009.
2008-9
The Goldstone Forum speaker for 2009-10 will be Malcolm Gladwell. Mr. Gladwell is a prominent journalist, and public intellectual. He is also the author of the influential and best-selling books: The Tipping Point (2000), Blink (2005), and Outliers (2008)
Summer, 2009: Erte Xiao, a PPE Post Doc, was hired as an Assistant Professor for the Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University.
On May 17, 2009, PPE held a reception for its graduating seniors.
In April, the Spring 2009 issue of SPICE, PPE's undergraduate student journal, was published.
PPE and History of Art Major Nathaniel Foulds, Class of 2010, was awarded a College Summer Humanities Internship at the Arthur Ross Gallery.
PPE Major Lauren Springer, Class of 2011, was awarded a College Summer Humanities Internship at the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Stephan Hartmann, Chair in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science in the Department of Philosophy at Tilburg University and Director of the Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science, spoke on Disagreement and Consensus in Science on April 29, 2009.
Ryan Muldoon, who has advised students for PPE, has been awarded a School of Arts and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Graduate Student.
Shaun Nichols, Professor of Philosophy at The University of Arizona, spoke on Normative Ethics and the Psychology of Moral Luck on April 2, 2009.
Dan Sperber, Research Director at the Jean Nicod Institute, CNRS, spoke on Epistemic Vigilance on Arpil 1, 2009.
Guido Moellering, Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, spoke on The Relationship between Trust and Deception on March 25, 2009.
Jason Dana, Assistant Professor of Psychology at The University of Pennsylvania, spoke on Reluctant Altruism on March 26th, 2009.
The PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held their Peer Mentorship Program kickoff event on March 19, 2009.
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at The University Center for Human Values, Princeton, spoke on The Life of Honor on March 19, 2009.
Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics and Princeton University and Nobel Laureate, 2008, spoke on The Economic Challenges Ahead at the 2008-9 Goldstone Forum on February 18, 2009.
Joe Kable, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke on Psychological and neural mechanisms for choosing between immediate and delayed rewards, on February 5, 2009.
Hugo Mercier, Post Doctoral Scholar with the PPE Program at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke on The Argumentative Mind on January 29, 2009.
The PPE Undergraduate Advisory Board held an Alumni Panel with a Q & A session for current PPE Majors featuring Rafael Burde of Primary Insight, affiliate of JP Morgan, Stuart Berger of Schactner & Portnoy (Law), Ari Friedman of Onex (Private Equity), Bain & Co, and Amna Nawaz of NBC Nightly News on January 27, 2009.
Cristina Bicchieri, Carol and Michael Lowenstein Professor of Philosophy and Legal Studies and director of the PPE program,
was featured in the Winter 2008 Penn Arts & Sciences Magazine in an article titled Losing the Turst Game?.
Cristina Bicchieri, Carol and Michael Lowenstein Professor of Philosophy and Legal Studies and director of the PPE program, has been knighted by the Italian government Cavaliere al Merito della Reppublica Italiana. This is one of the highest honors conferred by the Italian government for contributions in the field of arts and sciences.
Robert Wonderling, Pennsylvania Senator and Chairman of The Communications and Technology Committee, spoke on The Youth Vote in the Presidential Election & Efforts to Continue to Engage Young People in Public Service and the Political Process on November 13, 2008.
Geoffrey Goodwin, Assistant Professor of Psychology at The University of Pennsylvania, spoke on The objectivity of moral beliefs: Psychological findings and implications on November 6, 2008.
Chetan Dave, Assistant Professor for The School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas, spoke on Sen's Paradox with Intentions-Based Preferences and Loss Aversion: Theory and Experimental Application on September 25, 2008.
2007-8
Steve Levitt, Alvin Baum Professor of Economics and Director of the Becker Center on Price Theory at the University of Chicago and author of Freakonomics, spoke at the 2007-8 Goldstone Forum on April 21.
David Dillenberger, Princeton University, spoke on Preferences for One-Shot Resolution of Uncertainty and Allais-Type Behavior on February 15, 2008.
Giacomo Sillari, Post Doctoral Researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke on Coordination, Cognition, and Common Knowledge: How Social Conventions Work on February 1, 2008.
Lara Buchak, Philosophy Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University, spoke on Risk Without Regret on January 25, 2008.
Mark Pauly, Bendheim Professor and Professor of Health Care Systems, Business and Public Policy, Insurance and Risk Management, and Economics at The Wharton School, spoke on Health Care Economics in the USA on January 22, 2008.
Till Grüne-Yanoff, researcher at the Department of Philosophy and the History of Technology of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, as well as a visiting fellow at the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method of the London School of Economics, spoke on How Economists Reacquired Game Theory After Iits Biological Metamorphosis on January 18, 2008.
Colin Allen, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science and Professor of Cognitive Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, spoke on How to Reason Without Words: Inference as Categorization on January 17, 2008.
Justin Wolfers, Assistant Professor of Business and Public Policy at the Wharton School, spoke on Discrimination in the NBA on October 25, 2007.
Steven F. Goldstone, C ’67, has given $1.5 million to the School of Arts and Sciences to strengthen the undergraduate Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) program. Mr. Goldstone, who majored in political science at Penn, has been a key supporter of PPE since 2001, when he gave $2 million to the program. This recent gift will be used to expand PPE-sponsored activities and undergraduate research opportunities, and to support post-doctoral appointments and visiting professors.
PHILADELPHIA - Stephen Danley a University of Pennsylvania graduate from Germantown, Md., has won the prestigious Marshall Scholarship. Danley is the eighth Marshall Scholar from Penn and the University's sixth in the last seven years. Marshall Scholarships provide opportunities for young Americans of outstanding ability to study at educational institutions in the United Kingdom.
Danley, who earned a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from the College of the School of Arts and Sciences in 2007, plans to pursue an M. Phil. in comparative social policy at Oxford University in England.
"Stephen is a true Renaissance man," Penn Provost Ronald J. Daniels said. "He is a basketball star, a team leader, a poet, a New York Times blogger and a passionate student of social policy. We are extremely proud that he will represent Penn abroad as a Marshall Scholar."
2006-7
PPE sponsored Penn undergraduate student MicroFinance conference.
Dennis Thompson,Professor of Political Philosophy and Director, Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University, spoke at the 2006-7 Goldstone Forum on March 27.
PPE welcomes new faculty Jason Dana , Giacomo Sillari and Erte Xiao.
Erte Xiao wins Russel Sage Foundation Grant in Behavioral Economics. The grant is for research on a project titled: “Punish in Private and Praise in Public."
On March 24, 2007, PPE was proud to co-sponsor " Justice and the Social Contract": a symposium on Samuel Freeman's "Justice and the Social Contract." This was a conference in honor and celebration of the publication of Samuel
Freeman’s book, “Justice and the Social Contract: Essays on Rawlsian Political
Philosophy” (Oxford University Press 2006). Samuel Freeman is a Professor of Philosophy affiliated with the PPE progranm, and the former director of PPE.
Talk by Carol Gould, Director of the Center for Global Ethics and Politics at Temple University, spoke on March 15, 2007 on Transnational Power, Coercion and Democracy.
Till Grüne-Yanoff, Post Doc Researcher at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, spoke on "Learning from Economic Models" January 29, 2007, 4-5 PM, 104 Logan Hall.
Bill Titelman, Partner at Bernstein, Liebhard & Lifshitz, spoke on "Corporate Culture and the Threat to the American Way of Life: The View of a Radicalized Victim"
on November 20, 2006.
Sebastiano Maffetone, Professor of Political Philosophy, LUISS-Guido Carli University and Suor Orsola Benincasa University, Italy; Director, CERSDU (Center for Research and Studies on Human Rights)
spoke on Universal Duty and Global Justice on October 20, 2006.
2005-2006
New PPE student journal launched.
PPE is pleased to have distinguished philospopher Brian Skyrms vist the program and teach a course during the spring semester.
PPE has greatly revamped its undergraduate major in the 2005-6 academic year. Now PPE students have an enormous degree of choice in "individualizing" their major within themes, and can take classes in SAS, Wharton and the Law School.
PPE 2004-5 Goldstone Forum Speaker Thomas Schelling awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Science.
PPE Student Taylor Buley publishes book: "The Fresh Politics Reader: Making Current Events And Public Affairs Relevant to Young Americans"