Department News
Townsend Visit: Revised Schedule
September 21, 2009
The dates for this year’s Townsend Visit from Prof. Bas van Fraassen have recently been changed. The new schedule is as follows:
- Tuesday, September 29, 4:10 p.m. Lecture 1
- Thursday, October 1, 4:10 p.m. Lecture 2
- Wednesday, October 7, office hours (1–3 p.m.)
- Thursday, October 8, 4:10 p.m., Lecture 3
- Friday, October 9, 4:10 p.m., open discussion
Detailed information about the Townsend Visit events (including topics of the lectures and some suggested readings) can be found in the Events section of the Department’s website.
Memorial for Lauren Krikorian
September 16, 2009
On August 23rd Lauren Krikorian, an undergraduate who was majoring in philosophy and art, died in a car accident in Santa Barbara. Our heartfelt condolences go out to Lauren’s family and to everyone who knew her.
This Saturday, September 19th, there will be a memorial for Lauren from 6–8 PM in the Worth Ryder Gallery, which is in Kroeber Hall on the corner of Bancroft and College Ave. Anyone who knew Lauren or who cares to join is welcome to come.
Lauren’s family has put up this memorial website.
The Philosopher’s Annual
September 10, 2009
Each year The Philosopher’s Annual proposes a list of the ten best papers in philosophy from the preceding calendar year. The latest list, which has just been announced, includes two papers from 2008 by recent Berkeley graduates in philosophy. They are Fabrizio Cariani, now at Northwestern University, for a paper co-authored with Marc Pauly and Josh Snyder, “Decision Framing in Judgment Aggregation” (published in Synthese); and Michael Titelbaum, at the University of Wisconsin, for “The Relevance of Self-Locating Beliefs” (published in Philosophical Review). Both papers can be downloaded at the website of The Philosopher’s Annual.
Congratulations to both Fabrizio and Mike on this impressive honor!
Welcome Back
August 26, 2009
The start of a new academic year is always an exciting time in the Philosophy Department at Berkeley. For us as for everyone on campus, there will be many challenges to cope with in the wake of events in Sacramento over the summer. But there is also much to celebrate and to look forward to.
We are delighted to welcome to the Department this Fall two impressive new colleagues who add important strengths to our faculty in core areas of contemporary philosophical research:
Geoffrey Lee did his graduate work at NYU, where he completed a dissertation on “Consciousness and the Passing of Time”. His main areas of research interest are philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and the foundations of cognitive science and neuroscience. He is teaching Philosophy 3 this semester, and will offer an upper-division course on Metaphysics and a graduate seminar in the spring.
Seth Yalcin received his Ph.D. from MIT in 2008; he joins us from NYU, where he spent one year as Assistant Professor of Philosophy. He works mostly in the philosophy of language, but his research interests also extend to issues in the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, formal epistemology, and linguistics. He is teaching Philosophy 100 and Philosophy 125 this Fall, and will co-teach a graduate seminar with John MacFarlane in the spring.
In addition, we are very pleased to welcome back to the Department Mike Martin and Véronique Munoz-Dardé from University College, London. This is their third visit to Berkeley, and they have agreed to return as Adjunct Professors each Fall for the next three years. Prof. Martin will be teaching Philosophy 136 and a graduate seminar on content and consciousness; Prof. Munoz-Dardé is offering Philosophy 115 and a graduate seminar on contractualism in political philosophy. We are excited to have them back in residence, and look forward to working closely with them in the years to come.
Warm congratulations are in order for Niko Kolodny, who was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure as of July 1, 2009. Prof. Kolodny did his graduate work in our Department, and he began his academic career as an Assistant Professor at Harvard University; we succeeded in luring him back to Berkeley in 2005. He works primarily in moral and political philosophy, and has published on a wide range of topics in these areas, including love, partiality, promising, rationality, and reasons. In the short time since completing his graduate work he has established an impressive reputation as a first-rate scholar and a dedicated and extremely effective teacher of philosophy. We are very fortunate to have him as a permanent member of our faculty.
Many congratulations as well to Hans Sluga on his appointment to the William and Trudy Ausfahl Professorship in Philosophy, effective July 1, 2009. This new professorship—one of the endowed chairs established in response to the campus’s Hewlett Challenge—was made possible through the extraordinary generosity of Bill Ausfahl (B.A. ’61). Income from the endowed chair will advance research in Prof. Sluga’s areas of interest, as well as providing other forms of valuable support for students and faculty in philosophy at Berkeley.
It is always a pleasure at this time of year to welcome to our community a new group of students. This year six students will be starting their graduate work in our Department: Austin Andrews (UC Santa Barbara); Matthew Hoberg (Princeton); Jim Hutchinson (Toronto); Richard Lawrence (Pennsylvania); Kathryn Mantoan (Princeton/Harvard); and Kirsten Pickering (Arizona State). In addition, three new students will be starting in the Logic and Methodology Program: Dylan Byron (Princeton); Julia Erhard (Oxford); and Lawrence Valby (Reed). We wish them every success in their graduate studies and beyond.
We also want to welcome the many undergraduate students who will be participating in our courses and activities during the coming academic year. Interest in our subject on campus remains very robust—the number of students who have chosen to major in Philosophy is higher than ever—and those of us who teach here are thrilled to have such a challenging and engaged group of students in our courses.
The Berkeley Philosophy Department regularly attracts a large group of visiting scholars from around the world, who join us for shorter or longer periods, and contribute substantially to making ours a more cosmopolitan and stimulating community. Please check the Visiting Scholars section of our website for a list of new and continuing visitors to our Department.
In other news, Paolo Mancosu returns this Fall from a year of leave, supported in part by a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. His activities during the year involved extensive stays in (among other places) Brazil, Copenhagen, Princeton, Pisa, and Paris. Niko Kolodny also returns from a year of leave. Sherri Roush is on leave in the Fall semester of the current academic year, and Hans Sluga will be on leave for both semesters.
We have, as always, a very lively program of philosophical events scheduled for the coming year, including a Townsend Visit by Bas van Fraassen, a George Myro Memorial Lecture by Mark Wilson, and many talks and colloquia by distinguished philosophers from the US and abroad. Detailed information and updates are available on the events section of our website.
R. Jay Wallace, Department Chair
Hans Sluga named Ausfahl Professor
August 03, 2009
Many congratulations to Hans Sluga on his appointment to the William and Trudy Ausfahl Professorship in Philosophy, effective July 1, 2009. This new professorship—one of the endowed chairs established in response to the campus’s Hewlett Challenge—was made possible through the extraordinary generosity of Bill Ausfahl (B.A. ’61). Income from the endowed chair will advance research in Prof. Sluga’s areas of interest, as well as providing other forms of valuable support for students and faculty in philosophy at Berkeley.
John Searle: 50 Years at UC Berkeley
June 22, 2009
On February 23, the Philosophy Department hosted a two hour public event with six speakers celebrating Professor John Searle’s 50 years of distinguished service at UC Berkeley. A video of the event and links to media reports are available here.
Undergraduate Student Learning Goals
June 09, 2009
Current and prospect philosophy majors are encouraged to consult the statement of Undergraduate Student Learning Goals that the Department of Philosophy has recently developed.
Benson Mates
May 15, 2009
The Department announces with great sadness the death, on May 14, 2009, of Prof. Emeritus Benson Mates. Born in 1919, Prof. Mates studied at the University of Oregon, completing the B.A. degree there in 1940 (in Philosophy and Mathematics). He began work at the graduate level in Philosophy at Cornell, but his studies were interrupted by a stint during the war in the US Navy. He entered the graduate program in philosophy at UC Berkeley in 1945, completing his Ph.D. degree in 1948 after working with (among others) Harold Cherniss and Alfred Tarski. His dissertation was a study of “The Logic of the Old Stoa”. Prof. Mates took up a position in the Philosophy Department at Berkeley in 1948, working as Assistant and then Associate Professor here from 1948–1958; he was promoted to full Professor in 1958, and held that title until his retirement in 1989.
Prof. Mates’s interests ranged widely over problems in logic, epistemology, and the history of philosophy. His influential books include Stoic Logic (1953); Elementary Logic (1965); The Philosophy of Leibniz (1986); and The Skeptic Way (1996). His own philosophical tendencies were sympathetic to strands in ancient skepticism, a theme that emerges clearly in his book Skeptical Essays (1981).
Prof. Mates is survived by five children John Mates (of Portland, Oregon), Maureen Mates (of Berkeley, California), Margaret Mates (of Seattle, Washington), Susan Mates (of Providence, Rhode Island) and Ellen Mates (of Berkeley, California); and by seven grandchildren.
A brief appreciation of Prof. Mates’s contributions to the study of Stoic logic, prepared by Tony Long, is available here.
John Campbell wins Guggenheim Fellowship
April 26, 2009
Many congratulations to John Campbell, who has been awarded a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation to support his work on causation in psychology.
Ernest W. Adams
April 01, 2009
The Philosophy Department was deeply saddened to learn that Emeritus Professor Ernest W. Adams died on March 29th, 2009, shortly after being diagnosed with an advanced case of liver cancer. Professor Adams joined the Department in 1956, following graduate studies in philosophy at Stanford University (where his dissertation was supervised by Prof. Patrick Suppes); he continued teaching at Berkeley until his retirement in 1991. Prof. Adams worked in philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, and was best known for his research on conditionals; his influential book The Logic of Conditionals appeared in 1975. Professor Adams also made important contributions in a number of other areas, including the foundations of geometry and physics, as well as utility theory, game theory, and general measurement theory. A volume of essays in honor of his work, Probability and Conditionals, was published in 1994. At Berkeley Prof. Adams was a founding member of the Group in Logic and Methodology of Science.
Geoffrey Lee to join faculty
March 11, 2009
The Department of Philosophy is delighted to announce that Geoffrey Lee has accepted an offer of appointment as Assistant Professor, effective July 1, 2009. Geoff is currently a graduate student at New York University; his dissertation is on “Consciousness and the Passing of Time.” His main areas of research interest are philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and the foundations of cognitive science and neuroscience.
Seth Yalcin to join faculty
February 13, 2009
The Philosophy Department is very pleased to announce that Seth Yalcin will be joining us as Assistant Professor in the summer of 2009. Prof. Yalcin received his Ph.D. from MIT in 2008; he is currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy at NYU. He works mostly in the philosophy of language, but his research interests also extend to issues in the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, formal epistemology, and linguistics.
Newsletter 2008
September 12, 2008
The Philosophy Department announces the 2008 edition of its Newsletter for friends and alumni, Philosophy at Berkeley; please download it for information about important recent events and developments in the Department.
Welcome Back
August 27, 2008
The Philosophy Department is very pleased to welcome to Berkeley our new colleague, Lara Buchak. Lara did her graduate work at Princeton on issues in the theory of rationality. She is teaching Philosophy 100 and a graduate seminar in her first semester on our campus. We are delighted to have her here, and look forward to working together with her in the months and years to come.
It is always a pleasure at this time of year to welcome to our community a new group of students. This year six students will be starting their graduate work in our Department, including Peter Epstein (Harvard University); Maxwell Gee (Brown University); Kelly Glover (University of Toronto); Alison Niedbalski (Indiana University-South Bend); Umrao Sethi (Columbia University). In addition, Arthur Tilley (University of Colorado) will be starting in the philosophy track of the Logic and Methodology Program. We wish them every success in their graduate studies and beyond.
The Berkeley Philosophy Department regularly attracts a large group of visiting scholars from around the world, who join us for shorter or longer periods, and contribute substantially to making ours a more cosmopolitan and stimulating community. Please check the Visiting Scholar section of our website for a list of new and continuing visitors to our Department.
In other news, Alva Noë returns this fall from a sabbatical year in Berlin, where he was in residence at the Wissenschaftskolleg. We also welcome back John Campbell and Sherri Roush, both of whom were on leave last spring.
We are very pleased to report that two of our faculty members have recently received prestigious national awards: Paolo Mancosu was selected as a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation for 2008; and Sherri Roush was awarded a major grant from the National Science Foundation to study “Fallibility and Revision in Science and Society”. Congratulations to both colleagues on these signal achievements!
Paolo will be on leave for the academic year 2008–2009, dividing his time between Berkeley and Princeton (where he will be a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in the spring). Niko Kolodny is also on leave for the academic year, and John MacFarlane is on leave for the fall semester.
We have, as always, a very lively program of philosophical events scheduled for the coming year, including a Townsend Visit by Ned Block, a Howison Lecture by John Perry, a George Myro Memorial Lecture by Robert Stalnaker, and many talks and colloquia by distinguished philosophers from the US and abroad. Detailed information and updates are available on the events section of our website.
R. Jay Wallace, Department Chair
2007 Newsletter
January 11, 2008
The Philosophy Department announces the 2007 edition of its Newsletter for friends and alumni, Philosophy at Berkeley; please download it for information about important recent events and developments in the Department.
Hot off the (electronic) press!
August 27, 2007
The Philosophy Department announces the 2007 edition of its Newsletter for friends and alumni, Philosophy at Berkeley; please download it for information about important recent events and developments in the Department.
Welcome Back
August 25, 2007
It is always a pleasure at this time of year to welcome to our community a new group of students, faculty, and visitors.
There are seven students who will be beginning their graduate work in our Department this Fall: Jeremy Carey (Florida State); Eugene Chislenko (Harvard); Erich Matthes (Yale); Luke Misenheimer (University of North Carolina); Janum Sethi (Yale); David Sidi (University of Arizona); and Stephen Thurman (Brown). We wish them every success in their graduate studies and beyond.
Several distinguished teachers and scholars are returning to Berkeley for visits this Fall:
Mike Martin and Véronique Munoz-Dardé from University College, London, are once again in residence as Mills Visiting Professors for the Fall semester. Prof. Martin will be teaching Philosophy 132 and a graduate seminar on Appearance and Expression; Prof. Munoz-Dardé is offering an upper-division seminar in political philosophy and a graduate seminar on Rawls’s Theory of Justice.
Dorothea Frede returns this year as Mills Visiting Professor; she is teaching a graduate seminar on Plato’s Sophist in the Fall, and Philosophy 161 in the Spring.
Michael Ayers from the University of Oxford joins us this Fall as well; he will be teaching Philosophy 174, “Locke”, and a graduate seminar.
David Ebrey, who made frequent visits to Berkeley while a graduate student at UCLA, holds a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Department starting this semester. He will be in residence for two years, teaching one course each semester; this Fall he is offering Philosophy 160, “Plato”.
We are looking forward to additional visits in the Spring semester from Rolf-Peter Horstmann (Berlin) and Marleen Rozemond (Toronto).
The Berkeley Philosophy Department regularly attracts a large group of visiting scholars from around the world, who join us for shorter or longer periods, and contribute substantially to making ours a more cosmopolitan and stimulating community. This Fall’s new visitors include Gordian Haas (Germany), Paul Studtmann (USA), Matt Wolf (USA), Frederick Eberhardt (Germany), Joshua Glasgow (New Zealand), Alan Fenster (USA), Kristin Irwin (USA), Brice Halimi (France), Kevin Scharp (USA), Naozumi Mitani (Japan), Mattia Gallotti (Italy), Joel Anderson (The Netherlands), and Lisa Bortolotti (Italy).
We are very happy to report that our colleague Branden Fitelson has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure in our Department. He is a scholar and teacher of tremendous energy and commitment, and we congratulate him on his impressive record of teaching, publication, and professional activity.
In other faculty news, Alva Noë will be on leave for the whole academic year at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. We are also proud to announce that his book Action in Perception was recently awarded honorable mention in the biennial Book Prize competition of the American Philosophical Association.
John Searle and Barry Stroud are on leave during the Fall semester, and John Campbell and Sherri Roush will be on leave in the Spring. Sam Scheffler returns from a sabbatical year in New York; I am sad to have to add that this will be his last year in our Department.
We have, as always, a very lively program of philosophical events scheduled for the coming year, including a Townsend Visit by Hilary Putnam, a Howison Lecture by Fred Dretske, a George Myro Memorial Lecture by Stewart Shapiro, and many talks and colloquia by distinguished philosophers from the US and abroad. Detailed information and updates are available on the events section of our website.
R. Jay Wallace, Department Chair
Welcome Back!
August 20, 2006
The new academic year begins with a number of significant transitions and developments in the Department of Philosophy:
We welcome to Berkeley our new colleague Sherrilyn Roush, who joins us from Rice University. Her wide-ranging philosophical interests include general philosophy of science, epistemology, and logic and probability; she will be teaching a seminar together with Branden Fitelson this Fall.
Janet Broughton, who was on leave in 2005–2006, is the new Dean of Arts and Humanities in Berkeley’s College of Letters and Science, effective July 1, 2006. We will miss her regular presence in Moses Hall and her contributions in the classroom, but are very pleased that our supremely competent colleague will be serving as our dean for the next five years. We wish Janet every success in this important and challenging assignment.
Dorothea Frede is joining us this year as Mills Visiting Professor from the University of Hamburg. She will be teaching an upper-division class on Plato and a graduate seminar on Aristotle’s Ethics this Fall, and also giving a talk in the department’s fall colloquium series. She will stay through the end of the current academic year, and will be returning for at least one semester in each of the next two academic years.
Congratulations to three members of the department who have been promoted to the rank of full professor, effective July 1, 2006: Hannah Ginsborg, Paolo Mancosu, and Alva Noë.
Several colleagues are returning from a year of academic leave this Fall; we welcome back Alan Code, Branden Fitelson, and Niko Kolodny. Samuel Scheffler will be on leave for both semesters of the coming academic year, visiting at NYU in New York.
We are very pleased to have seven new students beginning their work in our graduate program this fall; they are Erin Beeghly (Berkeley and Oxford), Lindsay Crawford (Mount Holyoke), Melissa Fusco (Stanford), Markus Kohl (Oxford and Stanford), Ethan Nowak (Reed and Oxford), Adam Pringle (Colorado College and Northern Illinois), and Stephen Schmall (Wisconsin).
This year, as always, there is a plethora of philosophical events scheduled to take place at UC Berkeley; highlights include a Foerster Lecture by Martha Nussbaum, a Townsend Visit by Timothy Williamson, a Howison Lecture by T. M. Scanlon, Tanner Lectures by Joshua Cohen, and many talks and colloquia by distinguished philosophers from the US and abroad.
Please bookmark this website — whose crisp new design and many useful features are due to the efforts of John MacFarlane — and check back often for detailed information and updates about philosophy at Berkeley.
Jay Wallace, Professor and Department Chair