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Upcoming Lecture by: Sean M. Carroll

February 10th, 2026, 5:00 PM

Abstract:

Finding Yourself in a Large Universe
Sean Carroll, Johns Hopkins and Santa Fe Institute

Modern physics frequently envisions scenarios in which the universe is very large indeed: large enough that any allowed local situation or observer is likely to exist more than once, perhaps an infinite number of times. Multiple copies of you might exist elsewhere in space, in time, or on other branches of the wave function. I will argue for a unified strategy for dealing with self-locating uncertainty that recovers the Born Rule of quantum mechanics in ordinary situations, and suggests a cosmological measure in a multiverse. The approach is fundamentally Bayesian, treating probability talk as arising from credences in conditions of uncertainty. Such an approach doesn't work in cosmologies dominated by random fluctuations (Boltzmann Brains), so I will argue in favor of excluding such models on the basis of cognitive instability.

Sean Michael Carroll is an American theoretical physicist specializing in quantum mechanics, cosmology, and the philosophy of science. He is the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University and previously served as a research professor at the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology. Carroll is also an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He has published extensively in leading scientific journals and major publications, including Nature, The New York Times, Sky & Telescope, and New Scientist. Widely regarded as a gifted public speaker and science communicator, he was named an NSF Distinguished Lecturer by the National Science Foundation in 2007.

Completed Lecture by Christia Mercer

February 7th, 2025, 5:00 PM

Christia Mercer is the Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, editor of Oxford Philosophical Concepts, and co-editor of Oxford New Histories of Philosophy, a book series devoted to making philosophy more inclusive. In 2019-20, she served as president of the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division. She has published op-eds in the Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, and other prominent news sources on the importance of prison justice reform, access to higher education, and the need to diversify philosophy. Her work was highlighted in a CBS News report on prison education. She has published widely in the history of philosophy and has been honored with Columbia's two most prestigious teaching awards. She studied art history in New York and Rome before earning her Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University.

2024 Book Prize Award

Prof. Wendy Salkin- Stanford University -HUP: Speaking for Others: The Ethics of Informal Political Representation

Completed Lecture by C. Thi Nguyen, April 14, 2023, 5:00PM

C. Thi Nguyen as of July 2020 is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah. His research focuses on how social structures and technology can shape our rationality and our agency. He has published on trust, expertise, group agency, community art, cultural appropriation, aesthetic value, echo chambers, moral outrage porn, and games. He received his PhD from UCLA. Once, he was a food writer for the Los Angeles Times. He tweets at @add_hawk.

Completed Lecture by Kwame Anthony Appiah, October 1st 2021, 5:00PM

K. Anthony Appiah was educated at schools in Ghana and in England, and studied at Clare College, Cambridge University, in England, where he took both BA and PhD degrees in philosophy. His Cambridge dissertation brought together issues in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind, which led to two books Assertion and Conditionals (1985, Cambridge University Press) and For Truth in Semantics(1986, Basil Blackwell). In January 2014, he joined NYU School of Law, where he teaches in New York, Abu Dhabi, and other NYU global centers

Completed Lecture by Peter Singer, October 11th 2019, 5:00PM

Peter Albert David Singer, AC is an Australian moral philosopher. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne.

Completed Lecture by David Chalmers,  March 22nd 2018, 5:00PM

David Chalmers is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University. He is also a University Professor, Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science, and a Director of the Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness at NYU. In 2013, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Completed Lecture by Alexander Nehamas , April 12th 2017, 6:30PM

Alexander Nehamas is the Edmund N. Carpenter II Class of 1943 Professor in the Humanities. Professor of Comparative Literature. Ph.D., Princeton,1971. Joined the faculty in 1990. He is also Professor of the Humanities and of Comparative Literature. His interests include Greek philosophy, philosophy of art, European philosophy and literary theory.

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