Schedule 2023-24

Fall 2023

October 23
Rosa Cao (Stanford)  
“Can Swampmodels Have Inner Representations?” - abstract

November 13
Kareem Khalifa (UCLA)
"Inquiry, Risk, and Impartiality: Lessons from the Kerner Commision." - abstract

November 27
Hanti Lin (UC Davis)
"Context-Sensitivity and Ockham's Many Razors." - abstract

Spring 2024

April 8
Dale Jamieson (NYU)
"Am I Responsible for Climate Change?" - abstract

May 6
Margaret Gilbert (UC Irvine)
"Notes Toward a General Epistemology." - abstract

May 20
Lisa Raphals (UC Riverside)
Note! Canceled event.

Schedule 2022-23

Fall 2022

September 30
Elizabeth Schechter (Indiana University)
"The Evidence in Self-Deception" - abstract

November 18
Carlotta Pavese (Cornell University)
Canceled

December 2
C. Thi Nguyen (University of Utah)
Canceled

Winter 2023

Spring 2023

April 14
Lauren Ross (UC Irvine)
"Causal Varieties in Science" - abstract

May 19
Ray Briggs (Stanford University)
"Counterpossible Triviality, Potentiality, and Actuality" - abstract

June 2
John Carriero (UCLA)
“Ontological Demotion and Spinoza” - abstract

Schedule 2021-22

Fall 2021

October 15
Rachel Singpurwalla (University of Maryland, College Park)
"Civic Friendship in Plato's Republic" - abstract

November 5
Rachel Zuckert (Northwestern University)
"Thomas Reid’s Disjunctive Realist Aesthetics" - abstract

November 19
Sam Cumming (UCLA)
"Indefinites, reference, and truth conditions" - abstract

Winter 2022

January

February

March 4

Spring 2022

April 15
Ryan Preston-Roedder (Occidental College)
"Love and Social Justice"  - abstract

May 6
Zoë Johnson King (USC)
"Working on Yourself" - abstract

May 27
Michael LeBuffe (University of Otago)
"The Identity of Indiscernibles and Human Essence in Spinoza's Ethics" - abstract

Schedule 2020-21

Fall 2020

October 23
Sharon Street (New York University)
"On Recognizing Oneself in Mirrors and in Others"

November 20
Peter Railton (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
"What Normativity Could be" - abstract

December 4
Jeanette Kennett (Macquarie University)
"Truthfulness and Sense-making: Two Modes of Respect for Agency" (co-authored with Steve Matthews) - abstract

Winter 2021

January 22
Kenny Easwaran (Texas A&M University)
"A New Method of Value Aggregation" - abstract

February 19
Miriam Schoenfield (University of Texas at Austin)
“Can Bayesianism Accommodate Higher Order Defeat?” - abstract

March 12
Umrao Sethi (Brandeis University)
"Sensible Individuation and Over-Determination" - abstract

Spring 2021

April 30
Donald Ainslie (University of Toronto)
"The Passions of David Hume" - abstract

May 21
Andrew Chignell (Princeton University)
“Hope, Despair, and the Primacy of the Practical” - abstract

June 4
Jeff McMahan (University of Oxford)
"Conflicting Intuitions About Causing People to Exist" - abstract

Schedule 2019-20

Fall 2019

October 4
Evan Thompson (University of British Columbia) 
"What’s in a Concept? Conceptualizing the Nonconceptual in Buddhist Philosophy and Cognitive Science" - abstract
Note! This colloquium starts at 4:30pm and ends at 6:30pm.

October 25
John MacFarlane (UC Berkeley)
"Seeing Through the Clouds" - abstract

November 8
Rima Basu (Claremont McKenna College) 
"Indecent Philosophy: Mapping The Moral Terrain of Philosophical Inquiry" - abstract

November 15
Susan R. Wolf (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
"Criticizing Blame" - abstract 

November 22 
Sam Elgin (UC San Diego)
"Physicalism and the Identity of Identity Theories" - abstract 

Winter 2020

January 31
Lisa Shabel (Ohio State University) 
"Kant's 'Schematism'" - abstract

February 21 
Pamela Hieronymi (UC Los Angeles) 
"Fairness, Sanctions, and Condemnation" - abstract

March 6
Julia Staffel (University of Colorado, Boulder)
"Eyeballing the Evidence" - abstract

Spring 2020

May 8
CANCELED EVENT!
Julia Annas (University of Arizona)

May 29
CANCELED EVENT!
Sharon Street (New York University)

June 5
CANCELED EVENT!
Henry T. (Hank) Greely (Stanford Law School)

Schedule 2018-19

Fall 2018

October 12
Barry Loewer (Rutgers University) 
"What Breathes Fire into the Equations?" - abstract
October 19
Wes Holliday (UC Berkeley)
"Another Problem in Possible World Semantics" - abstract
November 9
Angela Smith (Washington and Lee University) 
"Deep Responsibility" - abstract
November 16 
Allen Buchanan (Duke University & King's College) 
"The Evolution of Moral Progress" - abstract

Winter 2019

January 11
Elliott Sober (University of Wisconsin) 
"When Is the Simpler Theory Better?" - abstract
January 18
Alison Gopnik (UC Berkeley) 
"Life History and Learning: Childhood As a Solution to Explore-Exploit Tensions" - abstract
Note! Professor Gopnik's talk takes place in the Price Center, East Forum 4th Floor.
February 22 
Voula Tsouna (UC Santa Barbara) 
"Is Virtue a Form of Techne? The Case of Plato's Charmides" - abstract

Spring 2019

April 5
Ralph Wedgwood (University of Southern California)
"Measuring Beliefs' Incorrectness" - abstract
April 12
Joseph Carens (University of Toronto)
"On the Relationship between Normative Claims and Empirical Realities in Immigration" - abstract 
May 3
José Luis Bermudéz (Texas A&M University)
"Framing Decisions: Rationality and Intensionality" - abstract
May 10
Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside)
"Is There Something It's Like to Be a Garden Snail?" - abstract
May 17
Barbara Herman (UC Los Angeles) - abstract
"Challenges of Beneficence: Revising the Terms"
May 24
Seana Shiffrin (UC Los Angeles)
"Learning from Lawyers about Deception" - abstract
Note! Professor Shiffrin's talk takes place at the Faculty Club, Atkinson Pavilion.
May 31
Houston Smit (University of Arizona)
"The Representation <I Think> and Its Origin in Pure Apperception" - abstract

Schedule 2017-18

Fall 2017

September 29
Shamik Dasgupta (UC Berkeley)
"Realism and the Absence of Value" - abstract

October 13 CANCELLED!
Evan Thompson (University of British Columbia)

October 27
Cailin O'Connor (UC Irvine)
"How to Beat Science and Influence People" - abstract

November 17
R. A. Briggs (Stanford University)
"Real-Life Newcomb Problems?" - abstract

December 1, 2:30-4:00PM
Special Event: Discussion Seminar
Andrew Light
University Professor of Philosophy, Public Policy, and Atmospheric Sciences at George Mason University, and Distinguished Senior Fellow in the Climate Program at the World Resources Institute, in Washington, D.C. 
"From Public Scholarship to Political Practice" - abstract
 Note! No reception.

Winter 2018

January 12
Tommie Shelby (Harvard University)
"Prison Abolition? The Uses and Abuses of Incarceration" - abstract

February 2
Jenann Ismael (University of Arizona)
"The Link Between Time, Totality, and Determinism" - abstract

March 12 
Note! This event takes place on a Monday 2-4pm followed by a reception.
Frances Kamm (Harvard University)
"Direction and Distribution in Life: Lessons from 'Benjamin Button'" - abstract

Spring 2018

April 6
Mark Schroeder (University of Southern California) 
"Persons as Things" - abstract

April 20
Hannah Ginsborg (UC Berkeley)
"Skepticism and Quietism about Meaning and Normativity"

April 27
David Danks (Carnegie Mellon University)
"Handling Complexity" - abstract 

May 25
Elizabeth Harman (Princeton University)
“Is Subjective Moral Truth Explanatorily Prior to Objective Moral Truth?” - abstract

June 1
Suzanne Obdrzalek (Claremont McKenna College)
"Platonic Dualism Revisited" - abstract

Schedule 2016-17

Fall 2016

September 30
Richard Bett (Johns Hopkins University)
"Living as a Sceptic"

October 14
Sandra Harding (UCLA)
"Another Logic of Scientific Inquiry? Engaging with Latin American Perspectives" - abstract

October 28
Philip Pettit (Princeton University and Australian National University)
"Three Fallacies about Doing Good" - abstract

November 17
Gail Fine (Cornell University and Oxford University)
"Plato on the Grades of Perception: Theaetetus 184-6 and the Phaedo" - abstract
Note! This event takes place on a Thursday.

Winter 2017

February 10
Robert Gooding-Williams (Columbia University)
"Delany's Two Principles, the Argument for Emigration, and Revolutionary Black Nationalism" - abstract

Spring 2017

April 7
Evan Thompson (University of British Columbia)
Cancelled! 

May 5
Jeremy Waldron (NYU)
"What Do Philosophers Have Against Human Dignity?" - abstract

May 19
Michael Wedin (UC Davis)
Cancelled!

May 26
Sally Haslanger (MIT)
"Culture and Critique" - abstract

June 2
Adrienne Martin (Claremont McKenna College)
"What Kind of a Debt is a Debt of Gratitude?" - abstract

Fall Quarter 2015

October 23
Katie Elliott (UCLA)
"The Applicability Problem for Chance Explanation" - abstract

November 13
Dorothea Frede (University of Hamburg)
"Equal but Not Equal: Plato and Aristotle on Women as Citizens" - abstract

November 20
Gwen Bradford (Rice University)
"The Badness of Pain" - abstract

Winter Quarter 2016

February 26
James Kreines (Claremont-McKenna College)
"Hegel, Dialectic, and Metaphysical Grounding" - abstract

Spring Quarter 2016

April 8
Ralph Bader (Merton College, Oxford)
"Liberty, Threats, and Ineligibility" - abstract

April 15
Alyssa Ney (UC Davis)
"Are the Questions of Metaphysics More Fundamental Than Those of Science?" - abstract

April 22
Peter Railton (University of Michigan)
"Intuition and Intuitions in Ethics" - abstract

April 29
Manuel Vargas (University of San Francisco) CANCELLED!

May 20
Sally Haslanger (MIT)
"Social Practices and Ideology" - abstract 

May 27
Nellie Wieland (CSU, Long Beach)
"Quotation in the Wild" - abstract

Fall Quarter 2014

October 10
Connie Rosati (University of Arizona)
"Welfare and Rational Fit" - abstract
Note! This event takes place on a FRIDAY 4-6PM.

October 13
Michael McKenna (University of Arizona)
"Facing the Luck Problem for Compatibilists" - abstract

October 27
Calvin Normore (UC Los Angeles)
"What is in the Picture? Descartes and Some Scholastics on Thought and Representation" - abstract

December 8
James Weatherall (UC Irvine)
"Theoretical Structure and Theoretical Equivalence" - abstract


Winter Quarter 2015

March 9 
Alan Thomas (Tilburg University)
"Rawls, Piketty and the 'New Inequality'" - abstract

March 18
Gerhard Schurz (University of Duesseldorf)
"Inductive Scepticism and the Optimality of Meta-Induction" - abstract
Note! This event takes place on a WEDNESDAY 2-4PM.

Spring Quarter 2015 

March 30
Don Rutherford (UC San Diego)
"Spinoza's Ethics: Perfectionism and Naturalism?" - abstract

April 6
Juha Saatsi (University of Leeds)
"Between Realism and Anti-realism? Theory-progressivism about Fundamental Physics" - abstract

April 13
Paolo Mancosu (UC Berkeley)
"In Good Company? On Hume's Principle and the Assignment of Numbers to Infinite Concepts" - abstract

April 24
Charles Mills  (Northwestern University) (Henry Allison Chair Invited Lecture) 
Note! This event takes place on a FRIDAY, 4-6PM.
CANCELLED!

May 8
Charles Mills (Northwestern University) (Henry Allison Chair Invited Lecture)
"Black Radical Kantianism" - abstract
Note! This event takes place on a FRIDAY, 4-6PM

May 15
Daniel Hausman (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
"Equality of Opportunity, Cultural Differences, and Familial Intimacy" - abstract
Note! This event takes place on a FRIDAY, 4-6PM

June 8
Seana Shiffrin (UC Los Angeles)
"The Moral Neglect of Negligence"

Fall Quarter 2013

October 18
Pierre Destree (University of Louvain)
"Aristotle on the Value of Art" - abstract

October 25
Tomasz Bigaj (University of Warsaw)
"On Essences and Haecceities in Modern Physics" - abstract

November 15
Kenneth Taylor (Stanford University)
"Toward a Metaphysically Modest Semantics" - abstract

Winter Quarter 2014

February 14
Leif Wenar (King's College London)
"Unity-Based Moral and Political Theory" - abstract

February 28
Jeremy Howick  (University of Oxford)
"What Counts as a Placebo Is Relative to a Target Disorder and Therapautic Theory: Defending a Modified Version of Grünbaum's Scheme" - abstract

March 7
Nancy Cartwright (UCSD)
"There Are Mechanisms - And Then There Are Mechanisms"

March 10
Holger Lyre (Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg)
"The Socially Extended Mind" - abstract
Note! This event takes place on a Monday 2:00pm-4:00pm.

March 14
David Wiens (UCSD)
"An Internal Problem for Ideal Theory" - abstract

Spring Quarter 2014 

April 4
Seth Yalcin (UC Berkeley)
"The Modality of Quantification" - abstract
This event is cosponsored with the Linguistics Department at UCSD.

April 8
Roberto Fumagalli (University of Bayreuth)
"On the Neural Enrichment of Economic Models: Recasting the Challenge" - abstract
Note! This event takes place on a Tuesday 2:00pm-4:00pm.

April 11
Tamar Schapiro (Stanford University)
"What are Theories of Desire Theories of?" - abstract

May 2
Gary Watson (USC)
"A Moral Predicament in the Criminal Law" - abstract

May 9
Krista Lawlor (Stanford University)
"What is Known and the Limits of Deductive Inference" - abstract

May 16
Roberta Millstein (UC Davis)
"Re-examining the Darwinian Basis for Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic" - abstract
This event has been CANCELLED.

May 30
Anjan Chakravartty (Notre Dame)
"Voluntary Commitments and the Epistemology of Science" - abstract

Fall Quarter 2012

October 5

Ned Hall (Harvard University)
"Physical and Metaphysical Modality" - abstract

October 12

Quayshawn Spencer (University of San Francisco)
"How to Be a Biological Racial Realist" - abstract

October 26

Jason Stanley (Rutgers University, cosponsored with Linguistics)
"Knowing wh-to" - abstract 

November 9

Terry Irwin (University of Oxford)
"Is Aristotle a Virtue Theorist?" - abstract

November 16 

Josh Ober (Stanford University)
"Relevant Expertise Aggregation: An Aristotelian Middle Way for Epistemic Democracy" - abstract 

Note! The event on November 16 has been moved to the Michel de Certeau Room, Literature Bldg., 1st floor, 2:00pm to 4:00pm.

Winter Quarter 2013

January 4

Neil Sinhababu (National University of Singapore) - abstract
"Ethical Reductionism"

March 18

GunnarBjörnsson (University of Gothenburg) - abstract
"Having Your Strings Pulled: An Error Theory for Manipulation Arguments"
Note! This event takes place on Monday, March 18, 2:00-4:00pm, H&SS 8025 

Spring Quarter 2013 

April 19

Oliver Pooley (University of Oxford)
"Relativity, the Open Future, and the Passage of Time" - abstract 

April 26

Gary Watson (USC) - CANCELLED

May 3

Gideon Yaffe (USC)
"In Defense of Criminal Possession" - abstract

May 10

Barbara Herman (UCLA)
"Love and Morality" - abstract 

May 17

Robin Jeshion (USC)
"Dehumanizing Slurs" - abstract 

May 24

Ruth Chang (Rutgers University) 
"Do We Have Normative Powers?" - abstract 

Fall Quarter 2011

October 14

Peter Graham (UC Riverside)

"Perceptual Entitlement and Natural Norms" - abstract

October 21

Sven Bernecker (UC Irvine)

"On the Relation between Truth and Knowledge" - abstract

November 18

Jessica Wilson (University of Toronto, Canada)

"Indeterminacy in the World" - abstract

December 2

Richard Kraut (Northwestern University)

"An Aesthetic Reading of Aristotle's Ethics" - abstract

Winter Quarter 2012

March 2

Sandy Mitchell (University of Pittsburgh)

"Representation Pluralism: the Case of Protein Folding" - abstract

March 9

Bonnie Kent (UC Irvine)

"Aquinas, Scotus, and the Fragmentation of Virtuous Character" - abstract

Spring Quarter 2012

April 20

Patricia Easton (Claremont Graduate University)

"More than an Occasion for a Cause: Louis de la Forge on Real Mind-body Interaction" - abstract

April 27

Jean Roberts (University of Washington)

"Was Socrates a Teacher of Rhetoric?" - abstract

May 4

Igal Kvart (Hebrew University & Rutgers)

"Rational Assertabiity, the Steering Role of Knowledge, and Pragmatic Encroachment" - abstract

May 11

Mark Wilson (University of Pittsburgh)

"Is There Life in Possible Worlds?" - abstract

May 25

Michael Huemer (University of Colorado)

"The Duty to Disregard the Law" - abstract

June 1

Amy Kind (Claremont McKenna College)

"How Imagination Gives Rise to Knowledge" - abstract

In honor of UC San Diego's 50th anniversary, our year-long colloquium series is themed "UCSD Philosophy: Then and Now" which will showcase the research of current departmental faculty and former departmental affiliates.

Fall Quarter 2010

October 8

Clinton Tolley (UC San Diego)

"Kant on the Content and Object of an Intuition"

October 29

Michael Weisberg (University of Pennsylvania)

"Getting Serious About Similarity" - abstract

November 5

Saul Smilansky (Haifa University, Israel)

"Hard Determinism and Punishment: A Practical Reductio" - abstract

November 12

Lawrence Shapiro (University of Wisconsin)

"Mental Manipulations and the Problem of Causal Exclusion" - abstract

Spring Quarter 2011

April 8

Samuel Rickless (UC San Diego)

"Berkeley's Master Argument" - abstract

April 15

Wayne Martin (University of Essex)

"Ubi Inletabilitas Ibi Virtus:  Melancholy, Virtue and Self-Consciousness" - abstract

April 16 (agenda)

Symposium in honor of UC San Diego's 50th Anniversary

Event to showcase research of current departmental faculty and former departmental affiliates to present their current work and discuss the department's traditions. Speaker line-up includes Henry Allison, Paul Churchland and Avrum Stroll, Philosophy Professor Emeriti - UC San Diego; and Wayne Martin, Professor of Philosophy - University of Essex, England.

May 13

Chris Hitchcock (California Institute of Technology)

"‘Cause’ in ‘Causal’ Decision Theory?" - abstract

May 27

Kyle Stanford (UC Irvine)

"The Difference Between Ice Cream and Nazis: Evolution and the Emergence of Moral Objectivity" - abstract

June 3

Jeff King (Rutgers University)

"'Descriptive Readings' of Indexicals and Demonstratives" - abstract

Fall 2009

October 16

Michael Friedman (Stanford University)

"Scientific Rationality after Kuhn"

October 23

Robert Pippin (University of Chicago)

"What is Conceptual Activity? On the McDowell-Dreyfus (Hegel-Heidegger) Debate"

November 20

Christian Wuthrich (University of California, San Diego)

"Space and Time Do Not Exist, Fundamentally"

December 4

Rick Grush (University of California, San Diego)

"The Psychological Basis of Demonstratives"

Winter 2010

January 22

John Fischer (University of California, Riverside)

February 12

Maudemarie Clark (University of California, Riverside)

March 5

John Perry (Stanford University)

March 15

Frank Arntzenius (Oxford University)

"Physics and the Existence of Mathematical Objects"

Spring 2010

April 9

Jonathan Cohen and Craig Callender (University of California, San Diego)

"Special Sciences, Conspiracy, and the Better Best System Account of Lawhood"

April 23

Adrienne Mayor (Stanford University)

"The Poison King: Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy"

May 7

Niko Kolodny (University of California, Berkeley)

May 21

Rachana Kamtekar (University of Arizona)

"Politics in Socrates' 'Defense of Justice'"

May 22-23

West Coast Plato Workshop - Third Annual Conference

Topic: Plato's Phaedrus

June 4

Derk Pereboom (Cornell University)

"Nonreuctive Physicalism and Mental Compositional Properties"