Award-Winning Faculty Member to Present Chambliss Lecture in Late October

KUTZTOWN, Pa. – Dr. Mohammad Ashraf Adeel, professor and department chair of philosophy, will present the Chambliss Faculty Award lecture at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 26 in the McFarland Student Union Building Alumni Auditorium. His lecture titled, “On the Very Nature of Understanding,” will also be available virtually at https://kutztown.zoom.us/s/98702721144

Adeel began at KU in 2006 and is extremely passionate about philosophy, with interests in contemporary philosophy of language and science and modern Islamic thought and epistemology. He has published countless articles in accredited journals over the years. Recently, one of his books on language and underdetermination in Quine and Davidson has been recognized as the most comprehensive material on the subject, epistemological pluralism.

Adeel is also a faculty member at South Asia Center and University of Pennsylvania and previously a professor at the University of Peshawar in Pakistan. He has held the position of president of the Pakistan Philosophical Congress in the past, was founding vice chancellor of Hazara University and was a senior visiting fellow at Linacre College in Oxford. He also is passionate about writing plays and poetry where two of his poetry anthologies in Urdu have been widely commended.

In his talk, Adeel will compare the view of a 20th century German philosopher, Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), with the views of three modern Epistemologists on the nature of understanding. His lecture will seek to address what understanding is and how it is different from knowledge and will also include the various forms of understanding.

Adeel was one of the 2020 winners of the KU Chambliss Faculty Research Award. The Chambliss Award, inaugurated in 2004 through a gift from Dr. Carlson R. Chambliss, professor emeritus, is meant to recognize the very highest achievement in research and scholarship and can be awarded only once in a person's career.