Undergraduate Students
The Bingham Prize
Each May the Philosophy Department awards the Bingham Prize to a deserving undergraduate. This award is designed to recognize and award undergraduate excellence in Philosophy. The Philosophy Department will present the prize of $500 and an engraved medal to the winner. The winner will present the prize-winning essay as a paper at the award ceremony. The guidelines are as follows:- You must be an undergraduate student at OSU who has taken a philosophy course during the present school year.
- You must have written the essay since May of the previous year.
- You must have your essay endorsed by a Teaching Associate or a Faculty person.
A Brief History
William E. Bingham was born in England in 1884. He was compelled to terminate his formal education at the age of 14, and five years later he emigrated to Canada, where he assiduously prepared himself for enrollment in college. He studied philosophy at Ohio State University from 1914 to 1916 and upon graduation proceeded to Cornell University to pursue a graduate degree. However, in April 1917, with the threat of world war looming on the horizon, William Bingham enlisted in the United States Navy and a year later graduated from Annapolis as an ensign. In November of 1918 he married. Within a month after returning to duty he drowned when a boatload of sailors on patrol near Gibraltar capsized in heavy seas. His remains are located in the Arlington National Cemetery.
<The post-war philosophy students here at Ohio State reacted to the untimely death of William Bingham first by producing a memorial issue of their yearbook, The Thinker, and then by deciding to create a memorial award to commemorate his bravery and memory. By 1921 a medal was commissioned by a famous French medalist and for a number of years this was offered as the award. In 1936 there was no medal available for the recipient, and during the Second World War the dies were lost. In 1944 an again in 1958, unsuccessful efforts were made to replace the cast. It appears that during some of this time the department awarded a picture of the medal to the winners of the prize. In addition, books were frequently awarded as well, and in 1950 an award of $25 was offered for the purchase of books. In the 1960's, a new medal was commissioned by the department, but it was not considered as attractive as the original. Finally, in 1981, the Department secured one of the original medals and had a new mold for this medal made. Current winners receive a copy of the original medal (shown below) and a cash prize of $500.00. The undergraduate scholar is then invited to present the winning paper to the faculty and fellow students at an award ceremony.
Contact the Department for more information concerning the contest including rules and submission deadlines.
Note: While there have been some years in which a Bingham Medal was not awarded, we know that the following list has significant omissions. We regret these omissions and ask your assistance in correcting them. If you, or someone you know, received a Bingham Medal that is not indicated below, or if you can help us with the titles of winning papers where they are missing, please contact Don Hubin.
Past Bingham Award Winners |
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|---|---|---|
| Year | Bingham Winner | Paper Title |
| 2009 | Timothy J. Leffel | "Should an Intuitionist Accept Church's Thesis?" |
| 2008 | John Wasserman | "On Death" |
| 2007 | Not Awarded | Not Awarded |
| 2006 | Michael Ondrick | "The Moral Status of Lies with Regard to Consequentialism and Deontology -- or -- Chuck Meets an Untimely Demise Once Again" |
| 2005 | Neil Lall | "Montague's Justice-Based Self-Defense Against Innocent Attackers" |
| 2004 | Whitney Gegg-Harrison | "An Examination of Kripke's "A Puzzle About Belief" |
| 2003 | Andy Chupick | "Justification and Religious Belief: God and the Given" |
| 2002 | Jason Allan Miller | "The Metaphysical Status of Modal Property Attributions" |
| 2001 | Benjamin Beebe | "Between Gauthier and the Sensible Knave: A Possible Reconciliation" |
| 2000 | John Glass | "Kant and the Transcendental Unity of Apperception" |
| 1998 | Elizabeth Tropman | "Externalism, Vernacular Explanation and Explanatory Relevance" |
| 1997 | Stephanie Partridge | "God Endures" |
| 1995 | Steven Blatti | "Locke on Extension in Atoms" |
| 1994 | Natalie Slavens | "Maimonides on Creation" |
| 1993 | James Okapal | "Morals By Accident" |
| 1991 | John Sarefield | "Berkeley and the Problem of Other Minds" |
| 1990 | Maria Dawn Senediar | "Lawyers for Indigents" |
| 1989 | Todd Lekan | "Dostoevsky and Sartre on Freedom" |
| 1987 | Scott Davison | "Could God Foreknow Human Free Actions?" |
| 1985 | Jonathan Kandell | |
| 1984 | Mark Svede | |
| 1982 | Mark Lance | "Reference Without Causation" |
| 1981 | Kenneth Rose | "Theoria: Participatory Metaphysics" |
| 1980 | Mark Lance | "Observation Sentences and Aesthetic Perception" |
| 1979 |
Nancy Peters
Christopher Wilson |
"On Austin and the Star-speck"
"Some Relevant Reflections on Goldman's Analysis of Knowledge" |
| 1968 | Nancy Weber | |
| 1967 | Jim Blue | |
| 1966 | Alexander Mosley | |
| 1965 | Jeffrey Parker | |
| 1964 | Lyle Angene | |
| 1963 | James Child | |
| 1946 | George Little Williams | |
| 1939 | Eugene P. Drucker | |
| 1935 | Raymond Mikesell | |
| 1934 | Nathan Grundstein | |
| 1932 | Francis McPeak | |
| 1931 | Mary Sabine | |
| 1930 | Robert Gunning | |
| 1929 | J. B. Rieker, Jr. | |
| 1928 | Thomal A Faulhaber | "Justice" |
| 1924 | Kenneth Smoke | |
| 1923 | Florence Everhard | "Evolutionism and Ethics" |
| 1922 | Eugene Derby |
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