UPCOMING EVENTS FOR THE 2025-2026 ACADEMIC YEAR
Colloquia
The Philosophy Department presents a number of colloquia throughout the academic year. Speakers are drawn from international as well as American universities. Many of them are from campuses in the region, including UC Davis, where our visiting faculty customarily give a talk to the Department. The links to the left give names, dates, and titles of past colloquia since 1995. The Web pages covering the years from 1998 on also contain digital photographs of nearly all of the speakers.
Colloquia Schedule - 2024-25
All talks will be held at 1:10pm in the department library unless noted
Check out the department Google calendar here.
2025 Fall
September 26: Laura Soter (York University)[w/ Kevin Lande coming for MENTaL]
October 10: Fictional/mythological Phil language workshop: (w/ Chris Tillman, Zvolensky, Ben Caplan and Joshua Spencer)
October 17: Mark Balaguer (California State University, Los Angeles)
November 7: Huaping Lu-Adler (Georgetown University)
2026 Winter
January 30: Per-Eric Milam (Cal State Long Beach)
February 6: Sean Carroll (Barrall lecture series) (Johns Hopkins University) (Notes: This even will take place at 3pm instead of 1:10pm; Details are provided below)
February 20: Rachel Achs (University of California, Santa Cruz)
March 6: Eric Mandlebaum (CUNY Graduate Center)
2026 Spring
April 3: Fabrizio Cariani (University of Maryland)
April 17: Jenann Ismael (Johns Hopkins University)
April 24: Julia Nefsky (University of Toronto at Scarborough)
May 15th: Karen Lewis
May 29th: Dan Korman (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Upcoming Conferences:
- Dex X (April 20-21)
- DEX will be held April 20-21, 2026 in the Andrews Conference Room.
- Barrall Family Lecture Annual Series (Feb 6, 3pm to 5pm; Location: Walker Hall, Room 1310)
- Finding Yourself in a Large Universe
Sean Carroll, Johns Hopkins and Santa Fe Institute
Abstract: Modern physics frequently envisions scenarios in which the universe is very large indeed: large enough that any allowed local situation or observer is likely to exist more than once, perhaps an infinite number of times. Multiple copies of you might exist elsewhere in space, in time, or on other branches of the wave function. I will argue for a unified strategy for dealing with self-locating uncertainty that recovers the Born Rule of quantum mechanics in ordinary situations, and suggests a cosmological measure in a multiverse. The approach is fundamentally Bayesian, treating probability talk as arising from credences in conditions of uncertainty. Such an approach doesn't work in cosmologies dominated by random fluctuations (Boltzmann Brains), so I will argue in favor of excluding such models on the basis of cognitive instability.
Discussion Groups
Discussion groups meet weekly in various topics. These groups provide an outlet for graduate students to suggest and discuss selected readings specific to their research interests, present their work and receive valuable feedback, and rehearse for presentations.
DaGERS - Davis Area Group in Ethics and Related Subjects
Bio Lab - Davis Group for Philosophy of Biology
MENTaL - Mind, Epistemology, Neuroscience, Thought, and Language
Llemmma - Language, logic, epistemology, mind, mathematics
Awards Ceremony
Each year at the end of Spring Quarter, the Philosophy Department holds an awards ceremony, in which are awarded Departmental Citations for outstanding work by undergraduates, and the Michael V. Wedin Teaching Award to graduate students who have distinguished themselves as teaching assistants.
Graduate Student Philosophical Society
The Graduate Student Philosophical Society organizes an annual conference in collaboration with the graduate students in philosophy at UC Berkeley and Stanford. The conferences rotate between the three universities.
Philosophy Club
The undergraduate Philosophy Club meets weekly to discuss philosophical topics. The schedule and location of meetings can be found at the club's web site, here.