John MacFarlane

Department of Philosophy Tel: (510) 394–3321
University of California, Berkeley Fax: (510) 642–4164
314 Moses Hall #2390 Email: jgm@berkeley.edu
Berkeley, CA 94720–2390 Web: http://johnmacfarlane.net/

Academic Positions

University of California, Berkeley

  • Assistant Professor of Philosophy, July 01, 2000-June 30, 2004
  • Member, Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science, October 01, 2001-
  • Associate Professor of Philosophy, July 01, 2004-June 30, 2010
  • Professor of Philosophy, July 01, 2010-

Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris

  • Visiting Professor, September 20, 2010-October 10, 2010

Education

Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, 2000.

  • Dissertation: What Does it Mean to Say that Logic is Formal?
  • Committee: Robert Brandom (chair), Nuel. D. Belnap., Jr., Joseph Camp, Kenneth Manders, Gerald Massey

M.A., Classics, University of Pittsburgh, 1997.

M.A., Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, 1994.

A.B. summa cum laude, Philosophy, Harvard University, 1991.

Fellowships and Awards

Scheduled Fellow, Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, tbd

Research Enabling Grant, University of California, Berkeley, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2005, 2004, 2002, 2000

Humantities Research Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley, 2008, 2003

Nominee, Distinguished Faculty Mentors Award, University of California, Berkeley, Graduate Assembly, 2004

ACLS/Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Junior Faculty, 2003

The Philosophical Quarterly Essay Prize for “Future Contingents and Relative Truth”, 2002

Junior Faculty Mentor Grant, University of California, Berkeley, 2002

Michigan Society of Fellows (declined), 2000

Alan Ross Anderson Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2000, 1995

Michael R. Bennett Prize in Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, 1999

Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, 1992

Thomas T. Hoopes Prize, Harvard College, 1991

Papers

John MacFarlane, “Simplicity Made Difficult,” Philosophical Studies (forthcoming).

John MacFarlane, “What Is Assertion?,” in Assertion, ed. Jessica Brown and Herman Cappelen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

John MacFarlane, “Relativism and Knowledge Attributions,” in Routledge Companion to Epistemology, ed. Sven Bernecker and Duncan Pritchard (London: Routledge, forthcoming).

John MacFarlane, “Epistemic Modals Are Assessment-Sensitive,” in Epistemic Modality, ed. Brian Weatherson and Andy Egan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

John MacFarlane and Niko Kolodny, “Ifs and Oughts,” Journal of Philosophy 107 (2010), 115–143.

John MacFarlane, “Pragmatism and Inferentialism,” in Reading Brandom: On Making It Explicit, ed. Bernhard Weiss and Jeremy Wanderer (London: Routledge, 2010), 81–95.

John MacFarlane, “Fuzzy Epistemicism,” in Cuts and Clouds, ed. Richard Dietz and Sebastiano Moruzzi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 438–463.

John MacFarlane, “Double Vision: Two Questions About the Neo-Fregean Program,” Synthese 170 (2009), 443–456.

John MacFarlane, “Nonindexical Contextualism,” Synthese 166 (2009), 231–250.

John MacFarlane, “Comments on Brandom, ‘Elaborating Abilities: The Expressive Role of Logic’,” Philosophical Topics 36 (2008).

John MacFarlane, “Boghossian, Bellarmine, and Bayes,” Philosophical Studies 141 (2008), 391–98.

John MacFarlane, “Truth in the Garden of Forking Paths,” in Relative Truth, ed. Max Kölbel and Manuel García-Carpintero (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 81–102.

John MacFarlane, “Semantic Minimalism and Nonindexical Contextualism,” in Context-Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism: New Essays on Semantics and Pragmatics, ed. G. Preyer and G. Peter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 240–50.

John MacFarlane, “The Logic of Confusion,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (2007), 700–708.

John MacFarlane, “Relativism and Disagreement,” Philosophical Studies 132 (2007), 17–31.

John MacFarlane, “The Things We (Sorta Kinda) Believe,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (2006), 218–224.

John MacFarlane, “Logical Constants,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005, 2009).

John MacFarlane, “The Assessment Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions,” Oxford Studies in Epistemology 1 (2005), 197–233. Reprinted in Epistemology: An Anthology (second edition), ed. Ernest Sosa and Jaegwon Kim and Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).

John MacFarlane, “Making Sense of Relative Truth,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105 (2005), 321–39. Reprinted in Relativism: A Compendium, ed. Michael Krausz (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010).

John MacFarlane, “Knowledge Laundering: Testimony and Sensitive Invariantism,” Analysis 65 (2005), 132–8.

John MacFarlane, “McDowell’s Kantianism,” Theoria 70 (2004), 250–265.

John MacFarlane, “Future Contingents and Relative Truth,” The Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2003), 321–36.

John MacFarlane, “Frege, Kant, and the Logic in Logicism,” The Philosophical Review 111 (2002), 25–65.

John MacFarlane, “Aristotle’s Definition of Anagnôrisis,” American Journal of Philology 121 (2000), 367–383.

Reviews

John MacFarlane, “Review of Myles Burnyeat, A Map of Metaphysics Zeta,” The Philosophical Review 112 (2003), 97–99.

John MacFarlane, “Review of Colin McGinn, Logical Properties: Identity, Existence, Predication, Necessity, Truth,” The Philosophical Review 111 (2002), 534–7.

John MacFarlane, “Review of Stephen Neale, Facing Facts,” Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2002.08.15 (2002).

John MacFarlane, “Review of Michael Potter, Reason’s Nearest Kin: Philosophies of Arithmetic from Kant to Carnap ,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 39 (2001), 454–6.

Talks

A Puzzle about Modal Uncertainty

  • June 14, 2010, Workshop on philosophy of logic, IHPST, Paris.

Five Seminars on Assessment Sensitivity

  • June 07, 2010 - June 11, 2010, University of Bologna, Italy.

What You Ought to Believe

Ifs and Oughts

  • May 27, 2010, G[af], University of Buenos Aires.
  • January 15, 2010, Philosophy Colloquium, UC Irvine.
  • April 28, 2009, Syntax and Semantics Circle, UC Berkeley Department of Linguistics.
  • December 05, 2008, Philosophy Colloquium, University of Texas, Austin.
  • September 26, 2008, Philosophy Colloquium, University of Pittsburgh.
  • September 25, 2008, Philosophy Colloquium, University of Toronto.
  • May 30, 2008, Arché Contextualism and Relativism Conference, St. Andrews, Scotland.
  • April 18, 2008, Logic Colloquium, Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science, UC Berkeley.

Varieties of Disagreement

  • May 24, 2010, G[af], University of Buenos Aires.
  • April 30, 2010, Department of Philosophy, The New School.
  • November 13, 2009, Mini-conference on the work of François Recanati, University of Chicago, Workshop on Semantics and the Philosophy of Language.
  • May 20, 2009, Institute of Philosophy, University of London.
  • May 15, 2009, Conference on relativism, University College Dublin.

Epistemic Modals: Relativism vs. Cloudy Contextualism

Richard on Truth and Commitment

  • April 04, 2010, Author Meets Critics Session on Mark Richard, When Truth Gives Out, Pacific Division APA, San Francisco.

Fuzzy Epistemicism

  • January 29, 2010, Logic Colloquium, Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science, Berkeley.

Six seminars on assessment sensitivity

  • March 23, 2009 - April 03, 2009, University of Barcelona.

What Is Assertion?

  • May 24, 2008, Arché Assertion Conference, St. Andrews, Scotland.

Ought: Between Objective and Subjective

In Defense of Degrees

Assertion, Information, and Commitment

  • June 06, 2007, Relativism Seminar, Arché Center, St. Andrews, Scotland.
  • June 01, 2007, Oxford, Jowett Society.
  • May 09, 2007, UC Riverside, Philosophy Colloquium.
  • May 04, 2007, MIT, Philosophy Colloquium.
  • April 14, 2007, Keynote, Berkeley-Stanford-Davis Graduate Student Conference.
  • April 07, 2007, Pacific Division APA, Symposium on Context and Content.
  • March 29, 2007, Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, UNAM, Mexico City.

Comments on Bob Brandom’s “Elaborating Abilities: The Expressive Role of Logic”

Truth and Subjectivity

  • March 28, 2007, Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, UNAM, Mexico City.
  • January 11, 2007, UC Davis, Philosophy of Language Salon.
  • October 13, 2006, University of Connecticut, Philosophy Colloquium.

Epistemic Modals Are Assessment-Sensitive

  • November 03, 2006 - November 05, 2006, Linguistics and Philosophy Workshop, University of Michigan.
  • February 03, 2006, University of California, Berkeley, Logic and Methodology of Science Colloquium.

Comments on Peter Lasersohn, “Relative truth, speaker commitment, and control of implicit arguments”

  • September 29, 2006, Rutgers Semantics Workshop.

The Logic of Confusion

  • April 07, 2006 - April 08, 2006, Camp Out!, Pittsburgh.

Relativism and Disagreement

  • March 31, 2006, New York University, Philosophy Colloquium.
  • March 25, 2006, Symposium on Relative Truth in Semantics, Pacific Division APA, Portland.

Relativist Semantics for Epistemic Modals

  • December 30, 2005, Informational Session on Epistemic Modals, Eastern Division APA, New York.

On Some Objections to Relativist Semantics

  • November 11, 2005, Workshop on Relativism, University of Oslo, Norway.

Epistemic Possibility

  • October 27, 2005, UC Santa Cruz Philosophy Department.
  • June 10, 2005, Arche Center, St. Andrews, Epistemology Seminar.
  • May 20, 2005, Ohio State University, Philosophy Colloquium.
  • April 15, 2005, University of Chicago Wittgenstein Workshop.

Nonindexical Contextualism

  • October 21, 2005, UCLA Philosophy Colloquium.
  • September 17, 2005, Rutgers Semantics Workshop.

Truth in the Garden of Forking Paths

  • September 05, 2005, LOGOS Workshop on Relativizing Utterance Truth, Barcelona.

Making Sense of Relative Truth

  • June 13, 2005, Fourth International Conference on Logic and Cognition, Zhongshan (Sun Yat-Sen) University, Guangzhou, China.
  • June 08, 2005, Arche Center, St. Andrews, Philosophy Club.
  • June 06, 2005, Aristotelian Society, London.
  • June 03, 2005, Bristol University, Philosophy Department Research Seminar (and keynote speaker for the postgraduate conference “Novel approaches in the philosophies of the natural and mathematical sciences”).

Double Vision: Two Questions About the Neo-Fregean Programme.

  • June 09, 2005, Arche Center, St. Andrews, Philosophy of Mathematics Seminar.

Non-indexical Contextualism

  • June 08, 2005, Arche Center, St. Andrews, Vagueness Seminar.

Semantic Minimalism and Non-Indexical Contextualism

  • March 26, 2005, Pacific Division APA, San Francisco, Author Meets Critics Session on Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore, Insensitive Semantics.

Truth and Correct Belief

  • January 12, 2005, SOFIA Conference, Huatulco, Mexico, comments on Allan Gibbard.

Making Sense of Relativism About Truth

  • October 01, 2004, University of California, San Diego, Philosophy Colloquium.

How to Be a Relativist About Truth

  • May 21, 2004, University of California, Santa Barbara, Philosophy Colloquium.
  • April 02, 2004, Princeton University, Philosophy Colloquium.
  • March 11, 2004, Harvard University, Philosophy Colloquium.

In What Sense (If Any) Is Logic Normative for Thought?

  • April 25, 2004, Central Division APA, Chicago, Symposium on the Normativity of Logic.
  • March 05, 2004, University of California, Berkeley, Logic and Methodology of Science Colloquium.

Epistemic Friction: Reflections on Logic, Truth and Knowledge.

  • April 17, 2004, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Philosophy of Logic Workshop, Comments on Gila Sher.

A Relativist Semantics for ‘S knows that p’

Epistemic Modalities and Relative Truth

  • October 31, 2003, University of Utah, Philosophy Colloquium.

Frege, Kant, and the Logic in Logicism

  • April 24, 2003, University of Notre Dame, Seminar on Philosophy of Mathematics.
  • February 15, 2000, Princeton University.
  • February 11, 2000, New York University.
  • January 31, 2000, University of California at Los Angeles.
  • January 27, 2000, University of California at Berkeley.
  • January 18, 2000, University of Texas at Austin.

Double Vision: Two Questions about the Neo-Fregean Programme

  • March 28, 2003, Pacific Division APA, San Francisco, Author Meets Critics Session.

Future Contingents and Relative Truth

  • November 01, 2002, Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science Colloquium, UC Berkeley.

A Valuational (but notSupervaluational) Approach to Vagueness

  • June 15, 2002, ECAP 4, Lund, Sweden.
  • May 08, 2002, Working Group in the History and Philosophy of Logic, Mathematics, and Science, UC Berkeley.

Frege’s Unofficial Arithmetic

  • March 29, 2001, Pacific Division APA Symposium, San Francisco, comments on Augustin Rayo.

Topic-neutrality

  • September 15, 2000, Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science Colloquium, UC Berkeley.

What is Modeled by Truth in All Models?

  • April 08, 2000, Pacific Division APA Colloquium, Albuquerque.

Permutation Invariance and the Generality of Logic

  • February 03, 2000, Stanford University.

Aristotelian Matter Unified

  • January 21, 2000, University of California at Davis.
  • January 06, 2000, University of Michigan.

Aristotle’s Argument for the Substantiality of Matter

  • May 14, 1999, University of New Mexico.

Boghossian on the Analyticity of Logic

  • May 08, 1999, Central Division APA Colloquium, New Orleans.

Professional Activities

Member, New York Institute of Philosophy, Project on the Nature, Limits, and Significance of Disagreement (2007–2010).

Co-organizer, “Interpolations: A Conference in Honor of William Craig,” University of California, Berkeley, May 13, 2007.

APA Eastern Division Advisory Committee to the Program Committee (Logic, 2003–2006).

Advisory Board, Review of Symbolic Logic.

Editorial Board, Journal of Semantics.

Editorial Board (Philosophy of Logic), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Editorial Board (Philosophy of Language and Logic), Blackwell’s Philosophy Compass.

Editorial Board, Semantics and Pragmatics.

Member of American Philosophical Association.

Referee for American Philosophical Quarterly (2005), Australasian Journal of Philosophy (2003, 2006), Blackwell Philosophy Compass (2006), Canadian Journal of Philosophy (2009), Erkenntnis (2006), Ethics (2009), History and Philosophy of Logic (2002, 2008), Journal of Semantics (2009), Journal of Symbolic Logic (2001), Linguistics and Philosophy (2005), MIT Press (2001), Mind (2007), Mind (2009), Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic (2008), Nous (2004, 2007), Oxford University Press (2002, 2004, 2005, 2007), Philosopher’s Imprint (2006, 2007), Philosophia Mathematica (2004, 2005), Philosophical Papers (2004), Philosophical Review (2007), Philosophical Studies (2004, 2005, 2007, 2009), Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2005), Review of Symbolic Logic (2009), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2003)

Courses Taught

University of California, Berkeley:

  • Theory of Meaning

  • Aristotle

  • Philosophical Logic

  • First-Year Graduate Seminar

  • Introduction to Ancient Philosophy

  • Graduate Seminar: Assessment Sensitivity

  • Graduate Seminar: Brandom’s Making It Explicit

  • Graduate Seminar: Context Sensitivity in Semantics

  • Graduate Seminar: Logicism and Neologicism

  • Graduate Seminar: Vagueness

  • Graduate Seminar: Confused Reference

  • Graduate Seminar: Content without Structure

  • Dissertation Seminar

University of Pittsburgh:

  • Logic
  • History of Ancient Philosophy
  • Introduction to Philosophical Problems
  • Concepts of Human Nature

Dissertations Supervised

As Chair:

  • Omar Mirza (Logic), Naturalism and Darwin’s Doubt: A Study of Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (2003)

  • Fabrizio Cariani (Logic), The Semantics of ‘Ought’ and the Unity of Modal Discourse (2009)

As Inside member:

  • Elisabeth Camp (Philosophy), Saying and Seeing-As: The Linguistic Uses and Cognitive Effects of Metaphor (2003)

  • Johannes Hafner (Logic), From Metamathematics to Philosophy: A Critical Assessment of Putnam’s Model-Theoretic Argument (2005)

  • Bence Nanay (Philosophy), How Animals See the World: A Theory of Content for Action-Oriented Perceptual States (2006)

  • Andreas Anagnostopoulos (Philosophy), Aristotle on Change and Potentiality (2007)

  • Berislav Marusic (Philosophy), Skepticism Between Absurdity and Idleness (2007)

  • Kenneth Easwaran (Logic), The Foundations of Conditional Probability (2008)

  • Michael Titelbaum (Philosophy), Quitting Certainties: A Doxastic Modeling Framework (2008)

  • Jessica Gelber (Philosophy), Causes and Kinds in Aristotle’s Embryology (2010)

As Outside member:

  • Apollo Hogan (Mathematics), General Topology under the Axiom of Determinacy: the Beauty of Topology without Choice (2005)

  • Alice Medvedev (Mathematics), Minimal Sets in ACFA (2007)

  • Isidora Stojanovic (Stanford, Philosophy), What Is Said: An Inquiry Into Reference, Meaning, and Content (2007)

  • Lynn Cho Scow (Mathematics), Characterization Theorems by Generalized Indiscernibles (2010)

Honors Theses Supervised

Daniel Long, Supposition, Honors (2002)

Nicholas Riggle, Defective Concepts, Highest Honors (2006)

Rebecca Millsop, The Problem of Normativity in Kant’s Philosophy of Logic, Highest Honors (2010)

Languages

Reading knowledge of Ancient Greek, Latin, French, German