The Speculative Society provides an informal forum for graduate students both to practice presenting papers to each other in the conference/colloquium format (i.e. fielding questions and objections), as well as to run new ideas past one another and receive suggestions for their further development. The group usually meets every two weeks during the semester, at a time chosen to accommodate as many graduate students' schedules as possible.

The 2007-2008 Presentations

• Julia Staffel : "Relativism vs. Contextualism "

February 29th, 2008

• Brian Bowman: "Varieties of Semantic Competence"

February 22nd, 2008

• Lewis Powell: "The Paradox of Non-Compliance"

February 8th, 2008

• Geoff Georgi: "Contexts, Demonstratives, and Validity" - [Paper Available]

October 26th, 2007

• Brian Talbot: "Psychology and Philosophical Intuitions: Part I"

October 5th, 2007

The 2006 Presentations

• Geoff Georgi: "Where Grice and Socrates Agree"
• Nathan Gadd: "The Justificatory Structure of Moore's Argument"
• Brandon Johns: "Locke on Freedom, Refraining, and Free Refraining"
• Lewis Powell, "Obligation, Ability, and Excuse"
• Shlomo Sher, "How Moral Disagreement Motivates 'Core' Moral Objectivism"
• Robert Shanklin, "Depicting Logical Impossibility"
• Brian Glenney, "Gareth Evans on How Infants Perceive the World"
• Brian Talbot, "Causation by Omission and Availability" and "The Unreliability of Philosophers' Intuitions about Causation"
• Jonathan Weil, "Parallels between Quantum and Cognitive Indeterminacy"
• Shlomo Sher: "Impartial Morality and Supererogation"