Greater Seattle Area Philosophy Symposium
Keynote talk: UW Professor Michael Blake “Sartre, Right-Wing Populism, and Anti-Semitism.”
The symposium will include three sessions, followed by a potluck reception on the third floor of Savery.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Savery Hall (SAV). Campus room: Room TBD. Accessibility Contact: Liam Blakey. Event Types: Conferences.
Friday, February 6, 2026, 3:30 PM – 6:30 PM.
Departmental Faculty Meeting
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Savery Hall 408. Accessibility Contact: Liam Blakey. Event Types: Meetings.
Tuesday, February 10, 2026, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Katz Distinguished Lecture: Emily M. Bender, "Resisting Dehumanization in the Age of "AI": The View from the Humanities"
The production and promotion of so-called "AI" technology involves dehumanization on many fronts: the computational metaphor valorizes one kind of cognitive activity as “intelligence,” devaluing many other aspects of human experience while taking an isolating, individualistic view of agency, ignoring the importance of communities and webs of relationships. Meanwhile, the purpose of humans is framed as being labelers of data or interchangeable machine components. Data collected about people is understood as "ground truth" even while it lies about those people, especially marginalized people. In this talk, Bender will explore these processes of dehumanization and the vital role that the humanities have in resisting these trends by painting a deeper and richer picture of what it is to be human.
Emily M. Bender is the Thomas L. and Margo G. Wyckoff Endowed Professor in Linguistics and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Computer Science and the Information School at the University of Washington, where she has…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Kane Hall (KNE). Campus room: 210. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center, 206.543.3920, schadmin@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Tuesday, February 10, 2026, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM.
Presidents' Day
Holidays
No classes. Most University offices and buildings are closed. Check with specific offices to confirm.
Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics.
Monday, February 16, 2026.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. Colloquium: Robert Batterman
More details TBA.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Savery Hall (SAV). Campus room: 264. Accessibility Contact: Liam Blakey. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Friday, February 27, 2026, 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM.
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Lecture: Michael Pruett, "Why Classical Chinese Philosophy Still Matters"
What is the best way to live a flourishing life? How does one make ethical choices? And what should we concretely do to live in a fuller and more inspiring way? Questions such as these were at the heart of philosophical debates in China. The answers that classical Chinese thinkers developed in response to these questions are among the most powerful in human history. The goal of this talk is to ask what we can learn if we take some of these ideas seriously.
Michael Puett is the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology and the Victor and William Fung Director of the Asia Center at Harvard University. He is a 2025-2026 Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar.
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholars travel to more than 100 colleges and universities each year, spending two days on each campus and taking full part in the academic life of the institution. They meet informally with students and faculty members, participate in classroom discussions and seminars, and give a public lecture open to the academic c…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: CMU 120. Accessibility Contact: Caitlin Palo, cpalo@uw.edu, 206-685-5260. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Monday, March 2, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
Departmental Faculty Meeting
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Savery Hall 408. Accessibility Contact: Liam Blakey. Event Types: Meetings.
Tuesday, March 3, 2026, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Evo-Hub Lecture: Gregory Radick, "Nurturing Science: An Enhanced Role for the Humanities"
The traditional role of history and philosophy of science (HPS) in the science classroom is to stir “human interest” into the pedagogic mix. In this talk, Gregory Radick will review some of the reasons for esteeming HPS’s more radical potential to enliven science students’ creative critical thinking essential. Then, he will describe how his own HPS research opens up new options for teaching introductory genetics, in keeping with present-day emphases on the modifying roles of internal and external environments. He will end with a sketch of how this integration of HPS perspectives into science education might be extended more broadly.
Gregory Radick is Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Metascience, and a Trustee of the Science Museum. In 2025, he became the first humanities scholar to win the J. B. S. Haldane Lecture Award from the Genetics Society.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: CMU 120. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206-543-3920, schadmin@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, March 5, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
Washington State High School Ethics Bowl
Registration fee: $150 (one team); $250 (two teams); $30 (individual student)
If your school needs a fee waiver, please contact us at info@plato-philosophy.org. PLATO is committed to fees never being a barrier to participation in the High School Ethics Bowl.
Registration Deadline: February 15, 2026
For more information follow this link.
Begun in 2014, the Washington State High School Ethics Bowl is run each year by PLATO and the University of Washington Department of Philosophy. Teams of high school students analyze a series of wide-ranging ethical dilemmas involving topics such as cheating, plagiarism, peer pressure, relationships, and abuse of social media. The event is intended to promote collaboration and dialogue.
Unlike debate, teams are not forced to take adversarial positions or hold fast to an assigned perspective. They can agree with each other and are not required to refute each other’s points, but rather to offer commentary on one another’s arguments.
The Ethics Bowl is intended to be…
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: Liam Blakey. Event Types: Academics. Workshops.
Saturday, March 7, 2026.
Departmental Faculty Meeting
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Savery Hall 408. Accessibility Contact: Liam Blakey. Event Types: Meetings.
Tuesday, March 31, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Departmental Faculty Meeting
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Savery Hall 408. Accessibility Contact: Liam Blakey. Event Types: Meetings.
Tuesday, April 7, 2026, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Philosophy Graduate Student Conference
More details TBA.
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: Liam Blakey. Event Types: Conferences.
Thursday, April 16, 2026, 9:00 AM – Friday, April 17, 2026, 5:00 PM.
O'Hara Public Lecture in Philosophy of Physics
More info TBA.
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: Liam Blakey. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Wednesday, April 29, 2026, 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM.