Faculty Profiles

Patricia A. Sayre

Professor
Philosophy
24 Spes Unica Hall, Rm 161 E

Phone 

Education 

PhD, University of Notre Dame
BA, Wheaton College

Research Interests 

  • Wittgenstein
  • History and philosophy of logic
  • The problem of other minds
  • Moral psychology
  • The meaning of life

Courses Recently Taught 

  • PHIL 110W: Introductory Philosophy
  • PHIL 220: Introduction to Logic
  • PHIL 235: Philosophy of Human Existence
  • PHIL 331: Descartes to Skepticism
  • PHIL 410: Philosophers of Consequence: Wittgenstein
  • PHIL 341: Mind, Knowledge, and Reality

Creative and Scholarly Work 

  • "The Dialectics of Trust and Suspicion." Faith and Philosophy 10, no. 4 (1993): 567-584.
  • “Beauty: A Manifesto.” Presented at the 4th Global Conference on Beauty, Oxford, England, September 2014.
  • “Wittgenstein’s Grave: On Philosophical Pilgrimage.” Presented at the 2nd Global Conference on Sacred Journeys, Oxford, England, July 2015.
  • “Empathy: Responding to a Pathology.” The Personalist Forum 15, no. 2 (2003): 290-301.
  • "Wittgenstein and the Possibility of Religious Belief," Wissen und Glauben: Beitrage des 26, ed. Winfreid Loffler and Paul Weingartner. Internationalen Wittgenstein Symposiums, vol. XI, Kirchberg am Wechsel: Osterreichische Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellshaft, (2003).
  • "Philosophy as Profession" (pp. 241-255 in What Philosophy Is, eds. Havi Carel and David Gamez, London: Continuum Press, 2004.
  • "Primo Levi on Language and Personhood: A Linguistic Odyssey" (with Linnea Vacca, pp. 115-130 in Memory and Mastery: Primo Levi as Writer and Witness,  ed. Roberta Kramer, Albany: SUNY Press, 2001)
  • "Moral Psychology and Persons" (Becoming Persons: Proceedings of the Second Conference on Persons, vol. 2, ed. Robert N. Fisher, Oxford: 1996.)
  • "The Philosophical Life as Literature: Fictional Renditions of Wittgenstein" (The Cresset, vol. LVI, No. 6 (1993), pp. 5-11.)
  • "The Task of a Theory of Meaning" (Metaphilosophy, vol. 21, no. 4 (1990) pp. 348-366.)