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             David Bowden Suits.     .
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David B. Suits
Curriculum Vitae
July 2002

Department of Philosophy
Rochester Institute of Technology
92 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester NY 14623-5604
(585) 475-2463
email: dbsgsh@rit.edu

Education
M.S., Computer Science, R.I.T., 1992
Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Waterloo, 1977
M.A., Philosophy, University of Waterloo, 1969
B.A., Philosophy, Purdue University, 1968
Ph.D. Dissertation
The Political Theory of Lysander Spooner

Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Death, Philosophy of Law

Areas of Competence
Early Modern Philosophy, Pragmatism, Logic, Ethics, Social/Political Philosophy

Teaching Experience
1984 – present: Associate Professor, R.I.T.
1977– 1984: Assistant Professor, R.I.T.
Summer, 1970: Visiting Instructor, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia
1968 – 1977: Instructor and Teaching Assistant, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario

Publications
Epicurus: His Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance, co-editor with Dane R. Gordon (forthcoming from the R.I.T. Cary Graphics Arts Press).
"A Peircean Approach to Katastematic Pleasure", forthcoming in Epicurus: His Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance.
"Body Snatchers: The Invasion of Philosophy", Philosophy Now 34 (December 2001/January 2002).
"Why Death is Not Bad for the One Who Died", American Philosophical Quarterly 38 (January 2001).
"Steep Cliff Arguments", Argumentation 13 (1999).
"Fictional Characters Are Just Like Us", Philosophy and Literature 18 (March 1994).
"Out of the Chinese Room", Computers and Philosophy 4 (July 1989).
"Sometimes True and Unequivocally Indeterminate", Computer Language 5 (August 1988).
"Some Considerations About the Discovery of the Principles of Justice", Eidos 1 (1978).
"On Hobbes’s Argument for Government", Reason Papers, No. 4 (Winter 1978).
"On Locke’s Argument for Government", Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Winter 1977). (This article has been used for a number of years by the University of Waterloo and by The University of Saskatchewan in their readings for Political Philosophy classes.)
"The Question of Political Action", Option, Vol. 4, No. 4 (February 1977).
Other Publications
"The DEC Rainbow 100", Byte, April 1984.
"The NEC Advanced Personal Computer", Byte, October 1983.
"Changing Your Keyboard’s Repeat Speed", NexWorld, September 1983.
"The Vedit Text Editor", NexWorld, September 1983.
"Program: Fascism?", Prometheus, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Spring 1983).
Color Graphics for Intecolor 3651 and Compucolor II Computers (Hilton, NY: J.J. Charles Publishing, 1981).
"On Hobby Critics", Creative Computing, November 1981.
"Base Arithmetic", Creative Computing, May 1981.
"The Integer Choice Game", Kilobaud Microcomputing, August 1980.
Plus numerous others in the field of computers (as co-editor of Colorcue [1981-1983] and editor and publisher of Nexus [1984-1987]), and local aviation (in The 44 Flyer [Experimental Aircraft Association, Chapter 44], as both contributer and editor).

Papers Presented
"Egoism: What’s in it For Me?", Ethics Across the Curriculum, RIT, 13 November, 2001.
"The Identity of Thought and Thing: Timelessness in the Archaic Mind", colloquium on the Origins and Nature of Language, R.I.T., January, 1990.
"Why We Have No Right to Life", Peace Studies Conference, R.I.T., 7 April, 1989.
"Time, Change and Clocks", Dept. of Philosophy, SUNY Buffalo, 28 April, 1988; and elsewhere.
"The Educational Model", Symposium on Bloom and Hirsch, R.I.T., 6 April, 1988.
"The Implicit Limits of Explicitness", Colloqiuim on the Enlightenment, R.I.T., January, 1986.
"Time and Change", Symposium on Time, R.I.T., February, 1985.
"Some Questions Concerning the Existence of God", Liberal Arts Faculty Forum, Spring, 1984.
"Is There an Absolute Right and Wrong?", Society for Individual Liberty, Rochester, NY, December, 1981.
Invited participant in a symposium on anarchism, University of Waterloo, Spring, 1980.
"Lysander Spooner, Natural Law, and Skepticism", colloquium on Lysander Spooner, sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies and the Center for Libertarian Studies, New York, NY, December, 1979.
"Laws, Judges and Police", Dept. of Philosophy colloquium, SUNY Geneseo, October 1977.

Works In Progress
The Singularity of Death: An Epicurean Perspective. (Under review by Oxford University Press.)
"Ain’t Misbelievin’: Belief, Context and Emotional Response to Fiction". How is it that we respond emotionally to fictional events — events which we know are not taking place? Answer: We believe that they are taking place.
"The Nature of Belief". I am trying to argue for a new view of belief, which, not by accident, supports (and is supported by) my position with respect to emotional responses to fiction and my extension of an Epicurean attitude about death.
Sentences and Symbols: An Introduction to Modern Logic Techniques. This is my textbook which I have duplicated for use in classes in symbolic logic. (I have decided not to seek publication, since that would considerably increase its price for the students. Besides, there are already 1001 other titles on the market.)

Other
Referee for American Philosophical Quarterly (2001).
Symposia arranged and hosted:
"Artificial Intelligence" (Spring, 1984)
"Philosophy of Mind" (Fall, 1987)
"The Origins and Nature of Language" (Winter, 1990)
"Hedonism" (Spring, 1992)
"Epicurus: His Continuing Influence & Contemporary Relevance" (Spring, 2002). Co-hosted with Dane Gordon. The proceedings of this two-day, international conference are being published by the R.I.T. Cary Graphics Arts Press.
Professional Memberships
Creighton Club (New York State Philosophical Association)
American Philosophical Association
Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies (supporting member)
American Association of Philosophy Teachers

 

 


David B. Suits, College of Liberal Arts
Rochester Institute of Technology

David Suits always knew he would end up in teaching. There was never any question. Winning an Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching confirms his single-minded pursuit of an academic career. “I’m thrilled to have an acknowledgement of the occupation I value the most,” he says.

Suits, a professor of philosophy in the College of Liberal Arts, brings passion and energy to his classroom lectures, and a bit of humor.“A non-humorous life is not worth living,” he says. “My passion is philosophy—I like to bring it to the classroom. On several occasions I’ve stopped class to jot down ideas”.

Suits works hard to relate his subject matter to the present, finding philosophy in unexpected places, such as movies, political cartoons and jokes. He says: “The students all have these fundamental concerns: What should I do? How should I act? How can I appreciate death? No one can escape these questions.”Suits finds that students are drawn to philosophy. Classes in the philosophy department typically fill up fast. “I have the impression that students of all sorts come to love philosophy quickly.”

When Suits came to RIT in 1977, the philosophy department consisted of himself and fellow Eisenhart Award winner Jack Sanders. Now there are eight philosophy faculty members and two emeritus professors.

Suits earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy from the University of Waterloo in 1969 and 1977. In 1992, he finished a second master’s degree in computer science at RIT to broaden the interdisciplinary focus of his course, Philosophy of Mind.

Widely published in philosophy and computer science, Suits’ current work focuses on the metaphysics of death. His other research interest is the philosophy of mind.Suits co-edited an anthology on Epicurus that will be published next year and wrote a book on Epicurus currently under review for publication. In 1996 and 1997, Suits won Provost Productivity grants to develop and teach interdisciplinary courses.

In 1997, he won a Liberal Arts Advisory Board’s Scholarship Applied to Teaching Award. In 1998, he won a College of Liberal Arts Faculty Research Fund grant and, in 2002, a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities in support of the conference Suits coordinated on Epicurus.

Suits’ personal interests include playing the classical guitar and woodwinds, and flying. He was reading about aviation when one of his philosophy students inquired about his interest. Unbeknownst to Suits, his student was an eager flight instructor and offered to teach him.“So, he was giving me flying lessons and I was giving him philosophy lessons,” Suits says. “We both gave each other good grades.“There’s something really romantic about an open-air biplane—open cockpit, leather jacket, white silk scarf—I can’t pass it up. It’s too wonderful.”

(From RIT News & Events - May 16, 2003)