Recent News

The UW Department of Philosophy offers our sympathy regarding the death of Professor Emerita Lynn Hankinson Nelson in summer 2024. Lynn specialized in feminist philosophy, philosophy of biology, and Quine. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Temple University in 1987. Before joining the University of Washington, she worked at the University of Missouri, and over her career, she held visiting appointments at Swarthmore College, the University of Pennsylvania, Arizona State University (… Read more

"The Supreme Court’s decision that grants presidents immunity from criminal prosecution for their 'official acts' has been met by alarm by many legal scholars," writes Michael Blake, professor of philosophy and of public policy and governance at the UW.Featured on The Conversation 

We held our departmental awards ceremony on May 30, 2024. Congratulations to all our honorees! Outstanding Undergraduate Scholar Award: Andre Ye Outstanding Graduating Senior Awards: Jesscia Li, Rhea Shinde Graduate Student Choice Award: Rhea Shinde Kenneth Clatterbaugh Scholarship: Fevet Ibrahim Kenneth R. Parker Award for Excellence in Community Service: Jason Cappelloni Thomas Hankins Prize in History & Philosophy of Science: Jesscia Li Service Award: Madeline Lewis Potter… Read more

The Department of Philosophy, in conjunction with the School of Public Health, holds a symposium every two years on “Race, Health, and Justice.” Historical and contemporary racism drives the health inequities between Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) on the one hand, and white people, on the other. The event, part of the Benjamin Rabinowitz Symposia in Medical Ethics, aims to identify the ways in which racism impacts health and to assess measures that should be taken to push back… Read more

Our faculty members are – across the board -- incredibly engaged and productive. Below, we highlight just a few notable products from each faculty member’s activities over the past academic year. Professor Michael Blake published eight new articles, including “Voluntary and Involuntary Migrants: On Migration, Safe Third Countries, and the Collective Unfreedom of the Proletariat,” 37(4) Ethics and International Affairs (2024) 427-451, and he has four new public facing pieces in The… Read more

Last year the department saw four graduate students complete their PhDs and move on to prestigious postdoctoral positions! Cody Dout “Understanding White Superagency” (chair: Michael Blake); now postdoc at Rutgers University Kayla Mehl “Fat – Therefore, Unhealthy? Oppressing Fat People in the Name of Health” (chair: Sara Goering); now postdoc at Johns Hopkins University Arthur Obst “Wilderness for Wildness: Saving the Wild in a Post-Natural World” (chair: Stephen Gardiner); now postdoc at… Read more

What a year it’s been. The campus was filled with political activity, including encampments protesting the war in Gaza and a graduate student ASE strike. The Department of Philosophy held its first Town Hall meeting on issues of climate and communication, and undertook an extensive graduate program review. This newsletter contains information on many events from the year, but let me highlight just a few of them: New faculty This year, the UW Department of Philosophy welcomed two new faculty… Read more

At graduation this year, our alumni speaker was Noah Fay, 2005 UW Philosophy grad and currently Senior Director of Housing Programs at the Downtown Emergency Services Center in Seattle, and our graduating senior speaker was Rhea Shinde, editor-in-chief of The Garden of Ideas.    

Sosseh Assaturian: Happiness and Hardship by Seneca (Translations by Elaine Fantham, Harry M. Hine, James Ker, and Gareth D. Williams)  This is an accessible, scholarly edition of a collection of Seneca's essays that impart Stoic wisdom for living a happy, meaningful life while navigating a difficult world. The first half of the collection comprises Seneca's famous consolation letters, which deal with… Read more

"Why is persuasion so hard, even when you have facts on your side? As a philosopher, I’m especially interested in persuasion – not just how to convince someone, but how to do it ethically, without manipulation," writes Colin Marshall, associate professor of philosophy at the UW.Featured on The… Read more