{"id":845,"date":"2023-08-10T13:21:22","date_gmt":"2023-08-10T20:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/phil\/?page_id=845"},"modified":"2026-09-21T11:46:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T18:46:27","slug":"speculative-society","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/phil\/speculative-society\/","title":{"rendered":"The Graduate Speculative Society"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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USC’s 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. It’s an excellent opportunity philosophy graduate students to get to know each other, and learn more about the diverse interests represented at USC. The series is currently organized by Wyatt Radzin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recent Series<\/h2>\n

Fall 2026<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  • Yudi Huang<\/strong>, \u201cPossibilities and the Indeterminacy of Counterfacts\u201d<\/li>\n
  • Artur Vllahiu<\/strong>, “Can deductive justification be fallibilistic?”<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Past Series<\/h2>\n

    Spring 2026<\/h3>\n

     <\/p>\n

      \n
    • Shishir Budha<\/strong>, \u201cSinking in Love\u201d<\/li>\n
    • Antonio Maria Cleani<\/strong>, \u201cThe Algebra of Necessities\u201d<\/li>\n
    • Rodrigo Garro Rivero<\/strong>, \u201cThe Role of Translation from an Architectural Perspective of Cognition\u201d<\/li>\n
    • Zhanming Gu<\/strong>, \u201cPerfectionist Populations and Reckless Prospects\u201d<\/li>\n
    • Nurit Matuk<\/strong>, “Perfectionism without Autonomy\u201d<\/li>\n
    • Yasha Sapir<\/strong>, \u201cInquiry and Deception\u201d<\/li>\n
    • Svenja Schimmelpfennig<\/strong>, \u201cNo Bigot is an Island\u201d<\/li>\n
    • Phoenix Wang<\/strong>, \u201cWhat\u2019s Wrong with the Perception-Cognition Border: Stimulus-Dependent Yet Not Perceptual\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Fall 2025<\/h3>\n

       <\/p>\n

        \n
      • Grace Atkins<\/strong>, “Constituting Holes”<\/li>\n
      • Ariel Gordy<\/strong>, “Re-assessing Deepfake Pornography: Depiction and Consent”<\/li>\n
      • Yoorim In<\/strong>, “Fake It Till You Make It \u2014 In Defense of Intellectual Vanity”<\/li>\n
      • June Lee<\/strong>, “Person-Stages, Personites, and Persons: A Four-Dimensionalist Ethics”<\/li>\n
      • Nurit Matuk<\/strong>, \u201cTypes and Fundamentality\u201d<\/li>\n
      • Jordan Myers<\/strong>, “A Unified Response to Skepticism About Epistemic Blame”<\/li>\n
      • Yannis Polychronopoulos<\/strong>, “A Similarity Theory of Chance”<\/li>\n
      • Yangming Qin<\/strong>, “A Puzzle of Expert Deference and Jeffrey Conditionalization”<\/li>\n
      • Yasha Sapir<\/strong>, “How to Build a Pyramid with Vague Propositions”<\/li>\n
      • Aaron Suduiko<\/strong>, “Freedom and Friendship”<\/li>\n
      • Shu Wang<\/strong>, “Does it Make Sense to Date an AI Companion?”<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        <\/h3>\n

         <\/p>\n

        Spring 2025<\/h3>\n

         <\/p>\n

          \n
        • Grace Atkins<\/strong>, \u201cConstitution: The Hole Story\u201d<\/li>\n
        • Irene Bosco<\/strong>, \u201cThe Innocence Triangle\u201d<\/li>\n
        • Anja Chivukula<\/strong>, \u201cA Strong Principle for Limited Aggregation\u201d<\/li>\n
        • Antonio Maria Cleani<\/strong>, \u201cQuantificationalism and the Intelligibility of Free Higher-Order Quantification\u201d<\/li>\n
        • Rodrigo Garro Rivero<\/strong>, \u201cThe Problem of Translation\u201d<\/li>\n
        • Yuanye Hu<\/strong>, \u201cValue of Information for the Modest\u201d<\/li>\n
        • Yudi Huang<\/strong>, \u201cTwo New Axioms for Lewisian Logics of Counterfactuals\u201d<\/li>\n
        • Nurit Matuk<\/strong>, \u201cThe Values We Must Impose\u201d<\/li>\n
        • Yasha Sapir<\/strong>, \u201cIgnorant Complicity\u201d<\/li>\n
        • Matthew Wiseman<\/strong>, \u201cReciprocal Just Savings\u201d<\/li>\n
        • Arthur Wu<\/strong>, \u201cThe Languages of Quantifier Variance\u201d<\/li>\n
        • Jin Zeng<\/strong>, \u201cEpistemicism without Ignorance\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

           <\/p>\n

          Fall 2024<\/h3>\n

           <\/p>\n

            \n
          • Shishir Budha<\/strong>, “Unconscious Imagination”<\/li>\n
          • Rodrigo Garro Rivero<\/strong>, “The Format of Spatial Representation”<\/li>\n
          • Brian Haas<\/strong>, “A Theory of Manipulation”<\/li>\n
          • Yudi Huang<\/strong>, “Counterpossibles without Impossible Worlds”<\/li>\n
          • June Lee<\/strong>, “Reasons for Deceived Rational Subjects?”<\/li>\n
          • Svenja Schimmelpfennig<\/strong>, “A Skeptical Challenge for Epistemic Safety from Quantum and Statistical Mechanics”<\/li>\n
          • Aaron Suduiko<\/strong>, “Games: Crisp Aesthetics of Agency through Complex Normativity\u201d<\/li>\n
          • Aaron Suduiko<\/strong>, “The Normative Landscape of Video-Game Stories”<\/li>\n
          • Levy Wang<\/strong>, “A Distressing Consequence of Clinically Significant Distress”<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

             <\/p>\n

            Spring 2023<\/h3>\n

             <\/p>\n

              \n
            • Antonio Maria Cleani<\/strong>, “Dependence and Impredicativity”<\/li>\n
            • Megha Devraj<\/strong>, “Civil Disobedience as an Imaginative Challenge”<\/li>\n
            • Paul Garofalo<\/strong>, “The Wrong of Colonization and the Claims of Future Generations”<\/li>\n
            • Brian Haas<\/strong>, “What is Deception?”<\/li>\n
            • Rachel Keith<\/strong>, “A Broader Account of Doxastic Wronging”<\/li>\n
            • Weng Kin San<\/strong>, “Aggregating Value across Time and People”<\/li>\n
            • Yasha Sapir<\/strong>, “Vague Communication”<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

               <\/p>\n

              Fall 2022<\/h3>\n

               <\/p>\n

                \n
              • Mitchell Barrington<\/strong>, “Superiority and Separability”<\/li>\n
              • Anja Chivukula<\/strong>, “Demystifying Conversational Relevance”<\/li>\n
              • Zeb Dempsey<\/strong>, “The Puzzle of Victim Anger”<\/li>\n
              • Noah Gordon<\/strong>, “Humean Moral Laws”<\/li>\n
              • Brian Haas<\/strong>, “Lying and Apologizing”<\/li>\n
              • Anthony Nguyen<\/strong>, “Grounding the Wrong of Colonialism in Self-Respect”<\/li>\n
              • Stephanie Van Fossen<\/strong>, “Comparing Claims to Benefit”<\/li>\n
              • Levy Wang<\/strong>, “A defense of non-factive motivating reasons”<\/li>\n
              • Jin Zeng<\/strong>, “Classical Normativity”<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

                 <\/p>\n

                Spring 2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

                 <\/p>\n

                  \n
                • Lisa<\/strong> Bastian<\/strong>, “Conceptual Injustice”<\/li>\n
                • Jaime Castillo Gamboa<\/strong>, “Towards a Reductionist Account of Linguistic Expressions”<\/li>\n
                • David<\/strong> Clark<\/strong>, “The ‘So What?’ Objection to Normative Realism”<\/li>\n
                • Michael Fiorica<\/strong>, “How to be Gay with Words: Coming Out as an Illocutionary Act”<\/li>\n
                • Zach<\/strong> Goodsell<\/strong>, “Instrumental Modals”<\/li>\n
                • Brian<\/strong> Haas<\/strong>, “Debugging Lewis’ Convention Based Semantics”<\/li>\n
                • Nicola Kemp<\/strong>, “The Ethics of Failing to Make Happy People: Why Deontologists Don\u2019t Escape the Problem of the Procreation Asymmetry”<\/li>\n
                • Eleonore Neufeld<\/strong>, “Meaning Externalism and Causal Model Theory”<\/li>\n
                • Laura Nicoara<\/strong>, “Pornography, Speech Acts and Fiction”<\/li>\n
                • Andrew Stewart<\/strong>, “Responsibility, Rationality, and Determinism”<\/li>\n
                • Vilma Venesmaa<\/strong>,\u00a0“The Conceptual Truth of Normative Supervenience as an Explanation Problem for Analytic Reductionism”<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

                   <\/p>\n

                  Fall 2018<\/strong><\/h3>\n

                   <\/p>\n

                    \n
                  • Jaime Castillo Gamboa<\/strong>, “Epistemicism and Robust Moral Realism”<\/li>\n
                  • Paul Garofalo<\/strong>, “Liberty and Obligation in Hobbes: Against a Causal Theory”<\/li>\n
                  • Brian Haas<\/strong>, “Grice & Herod: Cases of Showing are Cases of Speaker’s Meaning”<\/li>\n
                  • Philip Li<\/strong>,\u00a0“Individual Responsibility in Global Warming as a Kantian Imperfect Duty”<\/li>\n
                  • Isaiah Lin<\/strong>, “From Ontological Pluralism to Mereological Pluralism”<\/li>\n
                  • Anthony Nguyen<\/strong>, “The Radical Account of Bare Plural Generics”<\/li>\n
                  • Weng Kin San<\/strong>, “Disappearing Diamonds: Results in Bi-modal Logic and Their Implications”<\/li>\n
                  • Takasaki Shohei<\/strong>,\u00a0“An Argument Against the Methodology of the Manipulation Argument”<\/li>\n
                  • Andrew Stewart<\/strong>,\u00a0“Anger, Revenge, and Tort Law”<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":325,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-845","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Graduate Speculative Society - School of Philosophy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Speculative Society is an informal forum for graduate students to practice presenting papers to each other in the conference format.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/phil\/speculative-society\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Graduate Speculative Society - 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