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Monday 8am - 4:30pm Tuesday 8am - 4:30pm Wednesday 8am - 4:30pm Thursday 8am - 4:30pm Friday 8am - 4:30pm

http://www.philosophy.ucla.edu/

UCLA Philosophy Department, 390 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA (2026)

03/12/2025

Join us for “One Kind of Adaptationism,” a talk by Rose Novick (University of Washington) as part of the History, Philosophy, and Science of Science (HPASS) speaker series.

🗓️ Fri, Mar 14th
⏰ 4:00 - 6:00 PM PDT
📍 Dodd 275 & Zoom

Link to RSVP in the comments below ⬇️

Abstract: There is only one kind of adaptationism: explanatory adaptationism. Explanatory adaptationism claims that adaptation is the “big question” in evolutionary biology, and natural selection is the “big answer”. In recent decades, philosophers of biology have largely come to agree, first, that explanatory adaptationism is only one kind of adaptationism among many (at the high end, seven) and, second, that these kinds are logically independent and so can, in principle, be accepted or rejected in any combination. On the surface, this is true. Beneath the surface, it is not. When the arguments supporting various forms of allegedly non-explanatory adaptationism are interrogated closely, each turns out to essentially rely on explanatory adaptationism. The different kinds of adaptationism should be recognized as different ways of understanding the import of explanatory adaptationism. In the end, every adaptationist is an explanatory adaptationist.

02/06/2025

Join us for “Contractualism and Intuitionism,” a talk by T. M. Scanlon, Harvard University.

🗓️ Fri, Feb 7th | 4-6pm
📍 Royce Hall 314

Stay after the talk for a light reception!

Link to RSVP in the comments below ⬇️

Abstract: A reexamination of the contractualist theory of right and wrong put forward in What We Owe to Each Other and subsequent papers, considering the reasons for finding the view appealing as well as important problems with it, including overdemandingness, the charge of circularity, and the wholesale exclusion of interpersonal aggregation. A new account of aggregation is proposed.

01/21/2025

Join us via Zoom for “Sweet Spots in Modal Metaphysics,” a talk by Stephen Yablo, MIT.

🗓️ Fri, Jan 24th | 4-6pm PT
📍 Zoom

Link to register in the comments below ⬇️

Abstract: "De re modal plenitude holds that all transworld modal profiles are exemplified. Where this table sits, there are a bazillion other things categorically indiscernible from it but taking different paths through logical space. Five metaphysical puzzles are (re)examined through plenitudinarian spectacles. They’re to do with identity over time (the Ship of Theseus puzzle), identity across worlds (Chisholm’s paradox), how coincidents come by their different profiles (the grounding problem), things’ curious tendency to be found at their 'modal sweet spot,' bang in the middle of their zone of tolerance (the centrality problem), and how properties definitive of a thing can be losable (the problem of contingent non-accidents). Plenitudinarianism is presented less as a panacea than a theoretical option not to be overlooked."

Stephen Yablo works in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophical logic, and the philosophy of language and math. Older papers are collected in Thoughts and Things (Oxford, 2009-10). Aboutness (Princeton, 2014) develops a truthmaker-based theory of sentential subject matter, and casts about for applications. He gave the Hempel Lectures at Princeton (2008), the Lockes at Oxford (2012), and the Whitehead Lectures at Harvard (2016). Recent work (some in progress/regress) includes “The Bandersnatches of Dubuque,” “Leverage: A Model of Cognitive Significance,” “Relevance without Minimality,” “Fine-Grained Evidence,” and “Tangled up in Grue.”

12/05/2024

Best of luck to the UCLA Ethics Bowl Team as they head up to Stanford this weekend for the 2024 Regional Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl (IEB)! ✨

The Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) holds the IEB every year. This is UCLA’s first time competing!

Under the leadership of philosophy PhD student Colleen Hanson (Team Coach) and philosophy majors Sasha Smelyanskiy and Isabella Lam (Team Co-Captains), the team will debate 12 assigned cases and their ethical implications in competition with other universities.

Congratulations on all your hard work thus far, and we wish you all the best at the competition this Saturday, Dec 7th! 🏆

12/03/2024

Join us for “Truth, Approximate Truth, and the Pessimistic Meta-Induction,” a talk by F**d Dizadji-Bahmani (Cal State LA) as part of the History, Philosophy, and Science of Science (HPASS) speaker series.

🗓️ Wed, Dec 4th | 5-7pm
📍 Dodd Hall 247 & Zoom

Swipe to read the talk abstract! ➡️

Link to RSVP in bio ✨

11/19/2024

Join us for “Bias: Some Surprising Truths,” a talk by Thomas Kelly, Princeton University!

🗓️ Fri, Nov 22nd | 4-6pm
📍 Dodd Hall 167 & Zoom

Stay after the talk for a light reception!

Link to RSVP in the comments below ⬇️

Abstract: In this talk, I’ll argue for three claims about bias that many people find deeply counterintuitive if not obviously false: (i) Externalism about bias: a person can count as biased because of their social environment, even if all of their internal cognitive processes are functioning impeccably; (ii) Rationality requires bias: in some cases, rationality can require a person to be biased, in a pejorative sense of ‘bias,’ and the only way to escape being biased is to be irrational; (iii) Introspection is necessarily unreliable: the empirically well-documented fact that introspection is a highly unreliable way to tell whether we’re biased isn’t a contingent fact about our psychologies. Rather, it’s something that holds of necessity: even God could not have made us highly reliable detectors of our own biases by way of introspection.

Thomas Kelly is a Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, where he has taught since 2004. Prior to coming to Princeton, he was a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, where he received his PhD, writing a dissertation under the supervision of Robert Nozick, Derek Parfit, and James Pryor. He works primarily in epistemology and has addressed topics such as the significance of disagreement, the nature of evidence, and the relationship between theoretical and practical rationality. His book Bias: A Philosophical Study appeared from Oxford University Press in 2023.

11/18/2024

Join us for “Against Self-Location,” a talk by Emily Adlam (Chapman University) as part of the History, Philosophy, and Science of Science (HPASS) speaker series.

🗓️ Wed, Nov 20th | 5-7pm
📍 Dodd Hall 247 & Zoom

Link to RSVP in the comments below ⬇️

Abstract: In this talk, I will make a distinction between pure self-locating credences and superficially self-locating credences, and then argue that there is never any rationally compelling way to assign pure self-locating credences. I will first argue that from a practical point of view, pure self-locating credences simply encode our pragmatic goals, and thus pragmatic rationality does not dictate how they must be set. I will then use considerations motivated by Bertrand’s paradox to argue that the indifference principle and other popular constraints on self-locating credences fail to be a priori principles of epistemic rationality, and critique some approaches to deriving self-locating credences based on analogies to non-self-locating cases. Finally, I will consider the implications of this conclusion for various applications of self-locating probabilities in scientific contexts, arguing that it may undermine certain kinds of reasoning about multiverses, the simulation hypothesis, Boltzmann brains and vast-world scenarios.

10/14/2024

Join us for “Faith and World,” a talk by Anil Gomes, Trinity College, Oxford!

🗓️ Fri, Oct 18th | 4-6pm
📍 Kaplan Hall 193 & Zoom

Stay after the talk for a light reception!

Link to RSVP in the comments below ⬇️

Abstract: What connection, if any, is there between being self-conscious and being related to an objective world? Answers to this question thread through early modern discussions of the mind and then again, transmuted and transformed, across different twentieth-century traditions. My aim today is to clarify the question and set out some of the routes by means of which philosophers have attempted to establish a connection. The intent is to make salient two points: first, the relevance to the question of Lichtenberg’s enigmatic remarks on the ‘I think’, and second, the role that faith and practice play in answering it.

Anil Gomes is Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Trinity College, Oxford, and a Professor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy in the University of Oxford. He has written on a range of topics in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and the work of Iris Murdoch.

09/11/2024

Join us on Sept 20-21 for SLIME 3 (Studies in Linguistics, Information, Meaning, and Expression), a workshop at UCLA!

📍 Royce Hall 306
🗓️ Sept 20-21, 2024

The conference is “pre-view.” Talk recordings are available on the official SLIME website linked in the comments below. Check it out to view the full conference program and RSVP info too! 🔗

08/23/2024

We’re thrilled to share that Professor Vida Yao’s article “Eros and Anxiety” from Synthese was selected for the 43rd volume of the Philosopher’s Annual! 🎉

The goal of the Philosopher’s Annual is to “select the ten best articles published in philosophy each year—an attempt as simple to state as it is admittedly impossible to fulfill.” The 43rd volume covers the literature from 2023. 🏆

Professor Yao’s “Eros and Anxiety” explores the following: “Recent philosophical interest in ‘transformative experiences’ is largely motivated by L. A. Paul’s arguments that such experiences challenge our hopes to live up to an ideal she believes is upheld within western, wealthy cultures. If these experiences reveal information to us about the world and ourselves that is in principle unavailable to us before we undergo them, it seems that there is no hope for us to be ‘rational’, ‘authentic’ and ‘autonomous’ masters of our own lives. Supposing that Paul is right about this, how concerned should we be? Here, I challenge the ideal of rational ‘self-realization’ that guides Paul’s project, and which must be granted in order to motivate the problem purportedly generated by experiences that drastically change what we want and what we know.”

Visit the link in the comments below to learn more and read the full list of selections. ✨

Congratulations to Professor Yao on this remarkable achievement! 👏

08/01/2024

We’re excited to share that doctoral student Kyle Scott is a recipient of UCLA’s Distinguished Teaching Award for the 2023-24 academic year! The award celebrates exceptional teaching and commitment to student success.

Kyle, who began his doctoral work at UCLA in 2018 and started teaching in 2019, has trained fellow teaching assistants, taught an upper-division course on ethics and led another class on the philosophy of work. His dissertation focuses on alienated and unalienated labor, drawing perspectives from sources ranging from Aristotle to Marx.

Six senate faculty, three non-senate faculty, and five teaching assistants are selected from a highly competitive pool of nominees each year to receive the award. Kyle will be recognized along with the other honorees from across campus on October 11th at a ceremony hosted by the Academic Senate and the Teaching and Learning Center.

Read more about Kyle’s instructional approach and insights into student engagement at the link in the comments.

Congratulations to Kyle and all the honorees!

07/23/2024

If you’ve ever filled out federal documents for a job, college application, or healthcare provider, you’re probably familiar with questions about race and ethnicity that consist of five racial categories — American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and white — and one ethnic category — Hispanic or Latino. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sets these categories.

On March 29, 2024, the OMB announced it would revise the race and ethnicity categories used in the U.S. Census.

In an article he wrote for the UCLA Humanities Division, Professor Kareem Khalifa offers a philosophical perspective on the new OMB race and ethnicity classifications.

“The most striking aspect of that decision is that the OMB no longer draws a sharp line between race and ethnicity,” writes Khalifa.

“[A]s a philosopher, I believe this question — the deceptively complex notion of how we define the terms ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ — extends the age-old philosophical question about the nature of reality. In this case, the emphasis is on social rather than physical reality.”

Read the full article at the link in the comments below.

UCLA Philosophy Department

03/12/2025

02/06/2025

01/21/2025

12/05/2024

12/03/2024

11/19/2024

11/18/2024

10/14/2024

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08/01/2024

07/23/2024

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Tuesday	8am - 4:30pm
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