Colloquium: “Spinoza on the Unity of the Virtues”

Abstract: The topic of the unity of the virtues, so prominent in ancient philosophy, might seem rather scarce among texts of early modern philosophy. However, virtue ethics was alive and well in the seventeenth century, including in works of moral philosophy by such anti-Aristotelians as Descartes and Spinoza, as well as in the ethical writings of Leibniz (who was somewhat more friendly to Aristotelian Scholasticism than his peers).

New Directions in the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence

A two-day conference devoted to exploring philosophical questions about AI, featuring:

2025 Summer Philosophy Academy

The Summer Philosophy Academy at Washington University in St. Louis is a free one-week intensive philosophy course for high school students, taught by a team of faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students from WashU.  We introduce students to classic philosophical questions, learn how philosophers approach these questions and how they think about the world, and study critical strategies for analyzing and representing philosophical reasoning.  No prior familiarity with philosophy will be presupposed – the only prerequisite is curiosity about philosophy!

PET Pedagogy

Colloquium: "The Explanatory Nature of Constraints"

Abstract: This talk engages with current philosophical work on constraints and their role in scientific explanation.  In particular, Lange (2018) has suggested that “explanations by constraint are not causal explanations” as they “work not by describing the world’s causal relations” and they “do not reflect causal processes” (p.

Epistemology Group

The WashU Epistemology Group is a pre-read work-in-progress reading group devoted to advancing research in all areas of epistemology, including knowledge and justification, social and political epistemology, and the philosophy of epistemic normativity.  For more information, contact ahazlett@wustl.edu. 

Epistemology Group: "On Being Known"

The WashU Epistemology Group is a pre-read work-in-progress reading group devoted to advancing research in all areas of epistemology, including knowledge and justification, social and political epistemology, and the philosophy of epistemic normativity.  For more information, contact ahazlett@wustl.edu. 

"What Is (and Is Not) Racist in Our Healthcare System"

Ian Peebles (Philosophy, Arizona State University) will present a talk entitled "What Is (and Is Not) Racist in Our Healthcare System." 

2025 SPAN First Annual Meeting

MAP Diversity Reading Group

New addition to our department’s Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) programming: a diversity reading group run by graduate students, to discuss philosophical texts beyond the Anglophone tradition. The goal is to promote familiarity with philosophical works beyond the ‘canon’, as well as to promote consideration of such works for pedagogical purposes.

MAP Diversity Reading Group

New addition to our department’s Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) programming: a diversity reading group run by graduate students, to discuss philosophical texts beyond the Anglophone tradition. The goal is to promote familiarity with philosophical works beyond the ‘canon’, as well as to promote consideration of such works for pedagogical purposes.

Intellectualisms in Republic I-II

WIPS

Mind Group

Mind Group

MAP Diversity Reading Group

New addition to our department’s Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) programming: a diversity reading group run by graduate students, to discuss philosophical texts beyond the Anglophone tradition. The goal is to promote familiarity with philosophical works beyond the ‘canon’, as well as to promote consideration of such works for pedagogical purposes.

Ancient Philosophy Workshop with David Kaufman

1:30 - 3:30PM  Ridgely 107

4:00-6:00PM  Umrath Conference Room 224

At Princeton University, the Ancient World intramural team reigns as the dodgeball and 3-on-3 basketball champs. The team members put up a noble fight during indoor soccer season. And ultimate Frisbee? Well, perhaps that’s their Achilles’ heel.

As a graduate student, David Kaufman was a member of the team for six years. Was his commitment to those physical tests an opportunity to try on the ancient warrior code? A way to earn respect? Prove himself on the battlefield? Impose some meaning amid the savagery of life? Ensure his own fleeting existence has some timeless significance?

Nah. It was just fun.

But Kaufman thinks studying the ancient world and its literature gives students an opportunity to, in a sense, test their own moral code, their own beliefs, the philosophy or worldview they’ve adopted sometimes almost by default. After all, it might not be surprising that 2500 years ago people held some views very different from ours.

As Kaufman explains, “The goal isn’t that students will embrace those views. But it might lead them to think a little harder about why they embrace the views they do.”

And these studies inevitably raise the big questions, the questions we all think about although we may never formalize them.

What makes a good life? What sort of ambitions should I have? What sort of obligations do I have to other people?

These are the questions that philosophy investigates. “In a philosophy class, we take up those questions and explore them in a more complicated, nuanced way, a more open-minded way. Students are exposed to the questions all the time. It’s just a matter of how you go about approaching them—through other texts and through a long history of people contemplating them.”

Kaufman’s goal is to get students to engage while they’re in class, so they can benefit from hearing the views and interpretations of others.

“You want to have an environment where people feel comfortable asking questions, suggesting interpretations.

“What’s exciting about being a scholar is that you’re looking at texts that people have been trying to interpret for 2500 years. There’s still a lot that’s new to say about it. You actually have a contribution to make to the interpretation of these texts.”

So what is Kaufman’s advice to his students? Actively grapple with what you read. See how it applies to your life. See if it sparks any new insights you’re willing to share with your classmates. Listen carefully to their interpretations, especially if they introduce a viewpoint you hadn’t considered.

And during this process, this freeing of your mind, you may just find you’ve become a liberally educated citizen.

Epistemology Group

The WashU Epistemology Group is a pre-read work-in-progress reading group devoted to advancing research in all areas of epistemology, including knowledge and justification, social and political epistemology, and the philosophy of epistemic normativity.  For more information, contact ahazlett@wustl.edu. 

WIPS

Dinner & Dialogue: Talking about Touchy Topics

We increasingly struggle to discuss "hot button" social iss

Civil Society Brunch: The Politics of Futurity

The Civil Society Initiative is pleased to present a public talk featuring Deva Woodly on "The Politics

Epistemology Group

The WashU Epistemology Group is a pre-read work-in-progress reading group devoted to advancing research in all areas of epistemology, including knowledge and justification, social and political epistemology, and the philosophy of epistemic normativity.  For more information, contact ahazlett@wustl.edu. 

Epistemology Group

The WashU Epistemology Group is a pre-read work-in-progress reading group devoted to advancing research in all areas of epistemology, including knowledge and justification, social and political epistemology, and the philosophy of epistemic normativity.  For more information, contact ahazlett@wustl.edu. 

Civil Society Brunch: Democracy without Elections?

Civil Society Brunch: Sex, Gender, and Sports

AI Industry Jobs for Philosophers

Epistemology Group

Theories of Causation, Newton, and Locke's Argument for God's Existence

Abstract:  This paper argues that the causal principles undergirding Locke’s argument for God’s existence are more complex and more problematic than previously recognized.  It focuses specifically on Locke’s use of causal containment, the idea that features of cause must be somehow ‘contained’ in their effects.  I show that Locke deploys a nuanced version of this principle to avoid Spinozistic conclusions.  Unfortunately, Locke’s use of the principle threatens to undermine his argument that God is an immaterial substance. 

Brown bear, brown bear, what do you tree? Discordance in linguistic phylogenetics

• The standard answer is that they’re models of linguistic evolutionary history

• First, the ways language change can fail to be treelike.

Colloquium: Declan Smithies

It’s Good to Be Loved: Experientialism and the Problem of Chatbots

Abstract:

Experientialism is the view that there could be no change in your well-being without a change in your experience. Hedonists are proud experientialists, many non-hedonists reject experientialism out of hand, and the debate has receded from our attention. I think recent developments in AI give new urgency to this old debate. I argue that it’s not as easy to reject experientialism as we’ve assumed. I’ll also suggest a theoretically grounded way to do it.

A New Defense of Old-School Conceptual Analysis

Abstract:

Intimate Partner Violence and the State

I defend a security-based account of how the state should address intimate partner violence. Protection of basic security against violence must have a high priority in liberalism. Violence in intimate relationships is a widespread threat to security; indeed, intimate relationships create vulnerabilities to violence and hence involve security risks. While it is often assumed that the criminal justice system protects security, in the case of intimate partner violence, there are distinctive barriers to protecting security.

Colloquium: Umrao Sethi

Markus Werning of Bochum

The paper addresses a problem that arises from four independently justifiable but, as it appears, mutually inconsistent propositions: (H1) Episodic remembering and experiential imagining are principally alike in their representational content and their phenomenal character. (H2) Episodic remembering is apt to serve as a genuine (internalistic) epistemic justification for factual beliefs that

Dinner & Dialogue: Is Christianity Worth Believing In?

Workshop: Deference and Technology

9-10:20am: Allan Hazlett (WashU), "Deference and Understanding.” It has been suggested that there are situations in which you ought not defer to someone because your deferring to them would prevent you from understanding something.  The idea is that deference, in the relevant cases, results in the deferring subject ceasing to inquire about the topic at hand.  The case of deferring to AI chatbots seems like a case in point: the whole point of these technologies is to free up the user’s time to do tasks ot

WIPS: Belief Is a Hallmark of Knowledge

Abstract: Does knowledge entail belief? It's hard to say. We have judgments that seem to push us in opposite directions. In this paper, I argue that we can reconcile our judgments if we endorse the idea that belief is a hallmark of knowledge. On my view, other things being equal, if you know something, then you believe it. If you discover that someone knows something, it's appropriate to assume, in the absence of further evidence, that they believe it. But not all cases of knowledge are cases of belief.

Epistemology Group

The WashU Epistemology Group is a pre-read work-in-progress reading group devoted to advancing research in all areas of epistemology, including knowledge and justification, social and political epistemology, and the philosophy of epistemic normativity.  For more information, contact ahazlett@wustl.edu. 

WIPS

WIPS: Is the population doctrine consistent with transcriptomic circuit mapping?

Mind Group

9/12 -- Shea chapter 3

9/19 -- Shea chapter 4

9/26 -- Shea chapter 5

Mind Group

9/12 -- Shea chapter 3

9/19 -- Shea chapter 4

9/26 -- Shea chapter 5

Mind Group

9/12 -- Shea chapter 3

9/19 -- Shea chapter 4

9/26 -- Shea chapter 5

Mind Group

10/3 --

Mind Group

10/10 --

Mind Group

10/17 -- Laurence and Margolis: Building Blocks of Thought

10/24 -- Laurence and Margolis: Building Blocks of Thought

Mind Group

10/17 -- Laurence and Margolis: Building Blocks of Thought

10/24 -- Laurence and Margolis: Building Blocks of Thought

Mind Group

10/31 --

Mind Group

11/7 --

Mind Group

11/14 -- Laurence and Margolis: Building Blocks of Thought

11/21 -- Laurence and Margolis: Building Blocks of Thought

11/28 -- Laurence and Margolis: Building Blocks of Thought

Mind Group

11/21 -- Laurence and Margolis: Building Blocks of Thought

11/28 -- Laurence and Margolis: Building Blocks of Thought

Mind Group

11/28 -- Laurence and Margolis: Building Blocks of Thought

Mind Group

12/5 --

Feminist Reading Group

Feminist Reading Group

Feminist Reading Group

WIPS: Evan Sommers

Locke defines an idea as “whatsoever is the Object of the Understanding when a Man thinks” (EHU I.i.8). Kant defines an intuition as “that… at which all thought as a means is directed as an end” (1787, A19/B33). Both posits characterize a broad class of mental representational states defined (at least partly) in terms of availability to a domain-general subject-level mental capacity—in this case, thought. This talk characterizes a broad class of neural vehicles suited to be vehicles for such representational states. I call these neural vehicles of intuition.

Epistemology Group

Major-Minor Fair

Probing errors in explainable AI: Adversarial attacks and inferential defenses

Machine learning algorithms are increasingly deployed in high-stakes domains such as national defense and healthcare, even though many of the most widely used models operate as virtual black boxes. The emerging field of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) seeks to develop tools that illuminate the inner workings of these models, yet critics contend that existing methods are conceptually underdeveloped, potentially misleading, and open to manipulation. In this talk, I adopt an error-statistical perspective, arguing that much current practice in XAI is methodologically suspect.

"Machiavelli, Hamilton and Constant on Democratic Despotism" 

Civil Society Brunch: Conservative and Progressive, American Style

Epistemology Group

Memory Traces and Engrams

Philosophers posit memory traces as mental states required for remembering, while neuroscientists appeal to engrams as the neural mechanism for retaining information in the brain. Developments in the philosophy of memory and in neurobiology have led to increased attention to memory traces and engrams, respectively, in recent years—and a collective tendency, across both fields, to use memory trace and engram interchangeably. This suggests their relationship is settled. I argue that it is not.

Cultivating Disagreement Teaching Symposium

Are your students comfortable disagreeing with each other?

Do they express their moral and political views?

Are your classes a space that supports respectful disagreement?

Join other WashU teachers for a conversation about methods and strategies for cultivating disagreement in our classrooms and on our campus.  All WashU instructors (faculty, postdocs, grad students) are invited! 

We’ll have hot breakfast and short presentations from:

Dinner & Dialogue: Should Animal Testing Be Phased Out?

Dinner & Dialogue: Apologies and Reparations: Which Comes First?

Dinner & Dialogue: Should Universities Allow Disruptive Protests?

Civil Society Brunch: Somebody Should Do Something

Nozick, Self-Ownership, and the Problem of Self-Enslavement

Abstract: In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick explicitly endorses what I call asymmetry about enslavement: It is impermissible to enslave another person, but it is permissible to enslave oneself. Later in life, Nozick expressed uncertainty about this position, stating that he had never been convinced by it but that he could not see how to avoid it.

Epistemology Group

St. Louis Ancient Philosophy Workshop

MAP Diversity Reading Group

MAP Diversity Reading Group

MAP Diversity Reading Group

MAP Diversity Reading Group

MAP Diversity Reading Group

MAP Diversity Reading Group

WIPS

WIPS

WIPS

Summer Philosophy Academy

Disagreement with other people is a ubiquitous feature of our lives: we encounter disagreements in politics, in business, at school, and in our personal lives.  Our 2026 Summer Philosophy Academy, How to Disagree: Ethics and Political Philosophy, is a free course that introduces high school students to the methods and strategies that philosophers use to debate value questions in ethics and politics.  The course explores some classic and contemporary questions about morality, justice, and knowledge and teaches students the methods of argument reconstruction and charitable engagement

Nonacademic paths for PhDs in Philosophy

More information to come

Workshop in Philosophy and Social Change

2026 STL Undergraduate Philosophy Conference

Colloquium

WIPS

Newmark Endowed Sociology Lecture: Alexander Heffner

This year's speaker, Alexander Heffner, will present a talk titled "Civil Discourse in an Uncivil Age."

Alexander is host of The Open Mind on PBS, creator of Breaking Bread with Alexander on Bloomberg TV, and coauthor of bestselling A Documentary History of the United States by Penguin. He has covered culture, politics, and civic life since 2008. He is recipient of University of North Dakota’s Inaugural Journalist in Residence, Johns Hopkins University’s Agora Institute Fellowship, University of Denver’s Anvil of Freedom Award, Franklin Pierce University’s Fitzwater Medallion for Leadership in Public Communication, and Yale University’s Poynter Fellowship in Journalism. His work is chronicled in Harvard Magazine, Deadline Hollywood,  The Christian Science Monitor, The Hill, The Wrap, Mediaite, The Washington Post, The Des Moines Register, Variety, Medium, and on MSNBC, C-SPAN, NPR, CNN, ABC and the BBC. His writing appears in USA TODAY, WIRED, TIME, The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The Independent, NYT's Room for Debate, Boston Globe, and Philadelphia Inquirer, among other publications. He has lectured at the Santa Fe Public Library, Alabama Humanities Alliance, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum, FDR Presidential Library & Museum, The College of Charleston, Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability at The Ohio State University, The American University in Cairo, Initiative for Truth at University of Sydney, Center for Information and Bubble Studies at University of Copenhagen, Institute on Constitutional Democracy at University of Missouri, Civil Discourse Lab at the University of New Hampshire, Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State, Clarke Forum at Dickinson College, and Alpha Seminar at Carroll College, among other institutions of learning.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Sociology, the Civil Society Initiative, and the Weidenbaum Center. The lecture is open to the public. ​Please feel free to share with those who may be of interest, both on-campus and in the local communities.

Who's Afraid of Imprecise Sexes?

Sexes stand accused of many forms of indeterminacy: as used in science, ‘male’ and ‘female’ might have multiple meanings, perhaps in different contexts; they might under-specify other relevant details; their boundaries may be blurry, and so on. In light of this, one stream of philosophical work on sexes has been concerned to achieve, or restore, precision and clarity about their meaning(s) as a scientific concept(s), or to abandon them if this can’t be adequately salvaged.

Sympathy as Affective Self-Governance

Kant appears ambivalent about the moral value of sympathy: while often skeptical of it as a source of moral motivation, he nonetheless holds that there is a duty to cultivate it as a means of promoting rational benevolence. We aim to clarify the moral function of sympathy by developing a new account of its role in Kant’s moral theory. We argue that its moral function is affect regulation.

Colloquium

Mind Group

“A Place for the Memory Trace” from Space, Time, and Memory (2025) edited by Nadel & Aronowitz.

Preparing for the Academic Job Market

Herodotus and the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ in the Nineteenth Century

Recent discussions about the great battles of the Persian Wars presume that the idea that ‘despotic’ Eastern and ‘free’ Western civilization are destined to clash was born 2500 years ago, in Herodotus’ Histories.  This paper rejects any such claims to continuity in European thinking about these Wars, and shows that for centuries, readers of The Histories were quite unconcerned with this line of thought.  Even in the nineteenth century, when a ‘Whiggish’ reading of the Wars came to the fore, many continued to find other aspects of Herodotus’ work more interesting, and contested the Whiggish view.  The paper concludes with a discussion of the myriad audiences for ancient history in the nineteenth century, and the legacy of diverse orientations and fascinations they left behind. 

Suzanne L. Marchand is the Boyd Professor of History at Louisiana State University. Now writing a book about the history of Herodotus’ many readers, 1700 to the present, tentatively titled Herodotus and the Instabilities of Western Civilization, Suzanne Marchand continues to be interested in the history of the humanities, especially classical studies, art history, anthropology, history, and theology in modern Europe, as well as in the history of porcelain and related topics in the history of material culture and consumption in Central Europe. 

Sponsored by History, The Classics Department, and the Department of Philosophy

Philosophy Art Expo