John MacFarlane

Academic Positions

University of California, Berkeley

• Professor of Philosophy, July 01, 2010–
• Member, Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science, October 01, 2001–
• Assistant Professor of Philosophy, July 01, 2000–June 30, 2004
• Associate Professor of Philosophy, July 01, 2004–June 30, 2010
• Chair, Department of Philosophy, July 01, 2013–June 30, 2016

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: R. Brandom (Chair), N. D. Belnap., Jr., J. Camp, Jr., K. Manders, G. 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

France-Berkeley Fund Grant for “Meaning and Probability,” with Paul Egré ($12,000), 2021, 2021

Fellow, Institute d’Études Avancées de Paris, 2016–17

Humanities Research Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley, 2016, 2008, 2003

Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2015–

Whitney J. Oates Fellow, Council of the Humanities, Princeton University, 2012

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

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

Books

1. John MacFarlane, Philosophical Logic: A Contemporary Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2021). 258 pp.

2. John MacFarlane, Assessment Sensitivity: Relative Truth and Its Applications (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 368 pp.

Papers

1. John MacFarlane, “Why Future Contingents Are Not All False”, Analytic Philosophy (2024).

2. John MacFarlane, “Belief: What is it Good for?”, Erkenntnis (2023).

3. John MacFarlane, “Equal Validity and Disagreement: Comments on Baghramian and Coliva’s Relativism”, Analysis 82 (2022), 499–506.

4. John MacFarlane, “Lecture I: Vagueness and Communication”, Journal of Philosophy 117 (2020), 593–616.

5. John MacFarlane, “Lecture II: Seeing Through the Clouds”, Journal of Philosophy 117 (2020), 617–642.

6. John MacFarlane, “Lecture III: Indeterminacy as Indecision”, Journal of Philosophy 117 (2020), 643–667.

7. John MacFarlane, “On Probabilistic Knowledge”, Res Philosophica 97 (2020), 97–108.

8. John MacFarlane, “В каком смысле, если он вообще есть, логика нормативна по отношению к мышлению? [In What Sense (If Any) Is Logic Normative for Thought?]”, in Современная логика: Основания, предмет и перспективы развития [Modern Logic: Its Subject Matter, Foundations and Prospects], ed. Д.В. Зайцева [D. Zaitsev] (Москва [Moscow]: ИД Форум [Forum], 2018).

9. John MacFarlane, “Vagueness as Indecision”, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 90 (2016), 255-283.

10. John MacFarlane, “Précis, Assessment Sensitivity: Relative Truth and Its Applications”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 92 (2016), 168–170.

11. John MacFarlane, “Replies to Raffman, Stanley, and Wright”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 92 (2016), 197–202.

12. John MacFarlane, “Abelard’s Argument for Formality”, in Formal Approaches and Natural Language in Medieval Logic, ed. Laurent Cesalli and Alain de Libera and Frédéric Goubier (Barcelona, Roma: Brepols, 2015), 41–57.

13. John MacFarlane, “Relativism”, in The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Language, ed. Delia Graff Fara and Gillian Russell (New York: Routledge, 2012), 132-142.

14. John MacFarlane, “Richard on Truth and Commitment”, Philosophical Studies 106 (2012), 445-453.

15. John MacFarlane, “Simplicity Made Difficult”, Philosophical Studies 156 (2011), 441–448.

16. John MacFarlane, “What Is Assertion?”, in Assertion, ed. Jessica Brown and Herman Cappelen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 79-96.

17. John MacFarlane, “Relativism and Knowledge Attributions”, in Routledge Companion to Epistemology, ed. Sven Bernecker and Duncan Pritchard (London: Routledge, 2011), 536-544.

18. John MacFarlane, “Epistemic Modals Are Assessment-Sensitive”, in Epistemic Modality, ed. Brian Weatherson and Andy Egan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 144-178.

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

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

21. John MacFarlane, “Fuzzy Epistemicism”, in Cuts and Clouds: Vagueness, Its Nature, and Its Logic, ed. Richard Dietz and Sebastiano Moruzzi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 438-463.

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

23. John MacFarlane, “Nonindexical Contextualism”, Synthese 166 (2009), 231-250.
    Reprinted in What is Said and What is Not, ed. Carlo Penco and Filippo Domaneschi (Stanford: CSLI, 2013), 243-263.

24. John MacFarlane, “Brandom’s Demarcation of Logic”, Philosophical Topics 36 (2008), 55-62.

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

26. 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.

27. 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.

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

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

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

31. John MacFarlane, “Logical Constants”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005, substantive revision 2009, substantive revision 2015).

32. 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).

33. 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).
    Reprinted as “Dare un senso alla verità relativa”, Tropos 3 (2010).

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

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

36. John MacFarlane, “Future Contingents and Relative Truth”, The Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2003), 321-36.
    Reprinted in Freedom, Fatalism, and Foreknowledge, ed. J. M. Fischer and Patrick Todd (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

37. John MacFarlane, “Frege, Kant, and the Logic in Logicism”, The Philosophical Review 111 (2002), 25-65.
    Reprinted in Gottlob Frege: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers, vol. 1, ed. Michael Beany and Erich Reck (New York: Routledge, 2005).

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

Reviews

1. John MacFarlane, “Review of Andrew Bacon, Vagueness and Thought”, Philosophical Review 129 (2020), 153–158.

2. John MacFarlane, “Review of Huw Price, Expressivism, Pragmatism, and Representationalism”, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2014.02.09 (2014).

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

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

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

6. 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

Change in View: A Changed View

• October 01, 2023, Harmania: A Conference in Honor of Gilbert Harman, Princeton University.

Belief: What is it Good For?

• April 03, 2023, Work in Progress Talk, UC Berkeley Philosophy Department.

• September 15, 2022, GAP 11 (German Society for Analytic Philosophy), Humboldt University, Berlin, Keynote address.

Pandoc Support for Ipynb

• February 28, 2023, Jupyter Notebook File Format Workshop, Massy, France (remote).

Panel Discussion (remote)

• July 14, 2022, Conference on Cross-Linguistic Disagreement, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Do Vague Utterances Communicate Probabilistic Information?

• June 28, 2022 - June 29, 2022, Paris-Berkeley Workshop on Probability and Meaning.

Book Symposium on Patrick Todd, The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are all False

• April 16, 2022, Pacific Division APA, Vancouver.

Author Meets Critics, Maria Baghramian and Annalisa Coliva, Relativism

• July 22, 2021, Truth 2021 Conference, Virtual International Consortium for Truth Research (VICTR).

Indeterminacy as Indecision

• September 24, 2020, Woodbridge Lectures, Columbia University.

Seeing Through the Clouds

• September 23, 2020, Woodbridge Lectures, Columbia University.

• October 25, 2019, UCSD Philosophy Colloquium.

• April 26, 2019, Philosophy Colloquium, Princeton University.

Vagueness and Communication

• September 22, 2020, Woodbridge Lectures, Columbia University.

Pandoc for TeXnicians

• July 26, 2020, TUG 2020 (TeX Users Group, 41st Annual Conference), Keynote address.

Pinning Down Plato’s Protagoras

• June 19, 2019 - June 21, 2019, Conference on Truth and Relativism in Ancient Philosophy, University of Groningen.

Author Meets Critics Symposium on Sarah Moss’s book Probabilistic Knowledge

• February 20, 2019 - February 23, 2019, Central Division APA, Denver.

How to Resist Epistemicism

• April 13, 2018, Hume Society Colloquium Talk, Stanford University.

• November 10, 2017, Philosophy Colloquium, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Comments on Jack Spencer, “Relative Truth, Absolute Correctness”

• April 07, 2018, Philosophy of Language Workshop, Stanford.

Is Logic a Normative Discipline?

• January 26, 2018, Logic Colloquium, UC Berkeley.

• June 14, 2017 - June 16, 2017, Conference on the Normativity of Logic, University of Bergen, Norway.

Constraint Semantics

• September 29, 2017, William Alston Lecture, Syracuse University.

• June 08, 2017, Philosophy Colloquium, University of Konstanz.

• June 05, 2017 - June 07, 2017, Keynote, Philosophy Meets Linguistics Conference, Zürich.

• April 18, 2017, Workshop on Contextual Indeterminacy and Semantic Theory, Institut d’Études Avancées, Paris.

What You Ought to Believe

• May 30, 2017, EHESS, Seminar on les attitudes épistémiques, Paris .

• June 05, 2010, Conference on Truth (and Relativism), Bologna, Italy.

• May 28, 2010, G[af], University of Buenos Aires.

Vagueness as Indecision

• November 11, 2016, Conference on “Kinds of Indeterminacy,” University of Geneva.

• October 14, 2016, Colloquium, Institut Jean Nicod, Paris.

• September 10, 2016, Conference on What Is Said and What Is Meant, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

• July 10, 2016, Symposium, The Joint Session, Cardiff University.

• March 12, 2016, Meaning Sciences Workshop, Berkeley.

• November 23, 2015, Work in Progress Seminar, Philosophy Department, UC Berkeley.

• November 06, 2015, Philosophy Colloquium, University of California, Davis.

• October 02, 2015, University of Chicago, Wittgenstein Workshop.

An Expressivist Account of Vagueness

• October 11, 2016, Internal Seminar, IEA Paris.

Commentator in Group Session on Experimental Work in Formal Semantics

• March 30, 2016, Pacific Division APA Meeting.

Berkeley Book Chat on Assessment Sensitivity: Relative Truth and Its Applications

• March 16, 2016, Townsend Center for the Humanities.

Author Meets Critics, Assessment Sensitivity: Relative Truth and Its Applications

• March 05, 2016, Central Division APA Meeting.

Workshop on Assessment Sensitivity

• October 01, 2015, University of Chicago, Working Group on the Nature of Subjectivity.

• June 01, 2015 - June 05, 2015, Universität Bonn.

Pandoc Fu

• March 25, 2015, Group for Experimental Methods in the Humanities, Columbia University.

Assessment Sensitivity

• March 24, 2015, NYU Mind and Language Seminar.

Pandoc for Haskell Hackers

• May 17, 2014, BayHac 2014.

The Rationality of Relativism

• March 27, 2014, Reed College.

• July 08, 2013, Northern Institute of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, Master Class Seminar.

• April 11, 2013, Philosophy Colloquium, Illinois Wesleyan University.

• April 06, 2013, Keynote speaker, Berkeley-Stanford-Davis graduate philosophy conference, Berkeley.

• March 27, 2012, Princeton University, Whitney J. Oates Fellow in the Humanities Council and the Philosophy department.

Objective and Subjective Oughts

• July 11, 2013, Northern Institute of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, Relativism & Rational Tolerance Workshop III.

• April 12, 2013, Philosophy and Linguistics Colloquium, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

• March 22, 2013, Philosophy Colloquium, McGill University.

• November 09, 2012, Philosophy Colloquium, Ohio State.

• September 28, 2012, Philosophy Colloquium, University of Notre Dame.

• September 14, 2012, Philosophy Colloquium, MIT.

• June 02, 2012, First CSLI Workshop on Logic, Rationality, and Intelligent Interaction, Stanford.

• March 30, 2012, Princeton University, Whitney J. Oates Fellow in the Humanities Council and the Philosophy department.

Relativism vs. Expressivism: the Case of Epistemic Modals

• July 08, 2013, Northern Institute of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, Master Class Seminar.

• March 28, 2012, Princeton University, Whitney J. Oates Fellow in the Humanities Council and the Philosophy department.

• February 18, 2012, Keynote speaker, USC/UCLA Graduate Student Philosophy Conference.

• July 02, 2011, EPR₃ (Expressivism, Pragmatism, and Representationalism), Sydney, Australia.

Comments on Caleb Perl, “How to Outfox Sly Pete: Semantics for Indicatives”

• March 27, 2013, Symposium on Indicatives, Pacific APA, San Francisco.

On the Medieval Distinction Between Formal and Material Consequence

• February 01, 2013, Logic Colloquium, Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science, Berkeley.

Abelard’s Argument for Formality

• June 14, 2012, 19th European Symposium on Medieval Logic and Semantics, Geneva.

The Sorites Paradox

• May 18, 2012, Philosophy Club, Berkeley High School.

Why Assessment Sensitivity?

• April 08, 2011, Philosophy Colloquium, Cornell University.

A Puzzle about Modal Uncertainty

• January 13, 2011, Santa Cruz Linguistics and Philosophy group, Distinguished Visitor Series.

• November 19, 2010, Philosophy Colloquium, Brown University.

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

Comments on Code and Simons

• December 27, 2010 - December 30, 2010, Eastern Division APA, Boston, Symposium on hylomorphic metaphysics.

Assessment Sensitivity

• September 19, 2010 - October 09, 2010, Context and Content Lectures, Institut Jean Nicod, Paris.

Five Seminars on Assessment Sensitivity

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

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

• April 16, 2010, Chambers Philosophy Conference on Epistemic Modals, University of Nebraska.

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

• March 28, 2008, Philosophy Colloquium, University of Minnesota.

• March 01, 2008, New York Institute of Philosophy Disagreement Workshop.

• January 09, 2008 - January 13, 2008, Arizona Ontology Conference, outside Tucson.

• December 14, 2007, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Philosophy Colloquium.

• November 11, 2007, Workshop on Context-dependence, Perspective and Relativity in Language and Thought, Institut Jean Nicod, Paris.

In Defense of Degrees

• June 22, 2007, LOGICA 2007, Hejnice, Czech Republic.

• June 08, 2007, Arché Vagueness Conference, St. Andrews, Scotland.

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”

• April 28, 2007, Reprise of Locke Lectures, Prague, Czech Republic.

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.

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

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’

• December 05, 2003, University of California, Irvine, Logic and Philosophy of Science Colloquium.

• November 08, 2003, “Themes in Philosophy of Language” Conference, Yale University.

• October 17, 2003, Stanford University, Philosophy Colloquium.

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.

Future Contingents and Relative Truth

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

A Valuational (but not Supervaluational) 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

Co-organizer, “Paris-Berkeley Workshop on Probability and Meaning,” École Normale Superieur, Paris, June 28–29, 2022, and UC Berkeley, December 6–7, 2022.

Co-organizer, “Workshop on Contextual Indeterminism in Semantic Theory,” Institut d’Études Avancées de Paris, April 18–20, 2017.

Advisory Board, Review of Symbolic Logic.

Editorial Board, Journal of Semantics, 2009–2015.

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

Editorial Board (Philosophy of Language and Logic), Blackwell’s Philosophy Compass (2006–2012).

Editorial Board, Semantics and Pragmatics.

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).

Referee for American Philosophical Quarterly, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Blackwell Philosophy Compass, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Cognition, Ergo, Erkenntnis, Ethics, History and Philosophy of Logic, Journal of Philosophical Logic, Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Semantics, Journal of Symbolic Logic, Leverhulme Trust, Linguistics and Philosophy, Logique et Analyse, MIT Press, Mind, North American Summer School of Logic, Language and Information (NASSLLI)’s Student Session, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, Nous, Oxford University Press, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Philosopher’s Imprint, Philosophia Mathematica, Philosophical Papers, Philosophical Review, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Review of Symbolic Logic, Semantics and Pragmatics, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Synthese, Thought, volume edited by Paul Egré.

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 Co-Chair:

• Michael Caie (Philosophy), Paradox and Belief (2011)

• Stanley Chen (Philosophy), Matters of Taste are not “Mere Matters of Taste” (2011)

• Joseph Barnes (Philosophy), A Platonic Theory of Epistemic Value (2012)

• Michael Rieppel (Philosophy), Being Something: Prospects for a Property-Based Approach to Predicative Quantification (2013)

• Justin Bledin (Logic), Logic Informed (2013)

• Arpy Khatchirian (Philosophy), Substantive Truth and Knowledge of Meaning (2014)

• Melissa Fusco (Philosophy), Deontic Modals and the Semantics of Choice (2015)

• Ethan Nowak (Philosophy), Two Dogmas about Demonstratives (2016)

• Richard Lawrence (Philosophy), Nominalization, Specification, and Investigation (2017)

• James Hutchinson (Philosophy), A Haunting Conviction: Frege on Truth and Logic (2018)

• Ethan Jerzak (Philosophy), Paradox in Thought and Natural Language (2019)

• Rachel Rudolph (Philosophy), Talking about Appearances: Experience, Evaluation, and Evidence in Discourse (2019)

• Sophie Dandelet (Philosophy), Making Up Our Minds: Ethical Norms in Epistemic Inquiry (2021)

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)

• Justin Vlasits (Philosophy), Platonic Division and the Origins of Aristotelian Logic (2017)

• Erica Klempner (Philosophy), Beauty, Art and Testimony: Subjectivity and Objectivity in Aesthetics (2018)

• Alexander (Arc) Kocurek (Logic), What Can You Say? Mesauring the Expressive Power of Languages (2018)

• Russell Ahmed-Buehler (Logic), A Logical Theory of Confirmation (2019)

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)

• Dominic McCarty (Mathematics), Strong Well-foundedness and the Genericity of Countable Sets (2014)

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)

• Laura Davis, Genius as Cognitive Normativity, Honors (2011)

• Benjamin Logan, Cumulative Interpretations of Epistemic Modals, High Honors (2018)

• Yuanshan Li (Tom), Dispensing with Indispensability, High Honors (2021)

• Sam Menefee, Vagueness and Vague Objects, Honors (2023)

Languages

Reading knowledge of Ancient Greek, Latin, French, German. Intermediate spoken French.