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Formal Approaches to Rationality and Meaning

Skinner building at the University of Maryland

Formal Approaches to Rationality and Meaning

Linguistics | Philosophy Friday, October 10, 2025 - All day H.J. Patterson Hall

October 10 and 11, the Philosophy Department is host to a new conference, Formal Approaches to Rationality and Meaning, organized by Paolo Santorio. FARM aims to bring together researchers working on meaning (including, but not limited to, semantics of natural language) and researchers working on reasoning and rational norms. There will be twelve talks over the course of two days, with commentaries, book-ended by invited talks from Professors Dilip Ninan (Tufts) and Matthew Mandelkern (NYU). The full schedule is below.

October 10

  • 09:20 – 09:30  Welcome remarks (10 min)
  • 09:30 – 10:30   Dilip Ninan (Tufts): TBA
  • 10:30 – 10:45   Break
  • 10:45 – 11:45   Gabrielle Kerbel (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor): Dilating and Contracting non-Arbitrarily [Commentator: Alejandro Pérez Carballo (UMass Amherst)]
  • 11:45 – 12:00    Break
  • 12:00 – 13:00    Kenneth Black (MIT): How to Think Something Neither True Nor False [Commentator:  Cian Dorr (NYU)]
  • 13:00 – 14:30    Lunch break
  • 14:30 – 15:30    James Gu (UCLA): No ‘thing’ of content / [Commentator: Aron Hirsch (Maryland)]
  • 15:30 – 15:45     Break
  • 15:45 – 16:45     Amir Ajalloeian (CU Boulder): Rethinking Propriety in Bayesian Epistemology [Commentator: Alex Meehan (Wisconsin)]
  • 16:45 – 17:00     Break
  • 17:00 – 18:00     Adam Bjorndahl (Carnegie Mellon): A Logic of Uncertain Interpretation [Commentator:  Eric Pacuit (Maryland)]

October 11

  • 09:30 – 10:30    Arc Kocurek (UCSD): On Defining [Commentator: Annina Loets (Wisconsin)]
  • 10:30 – 10:45    Break
  • 10:45 – 11:45    Adrian Liu (Rutgers): Finding Balance in Uncertain Times [Commentator: Dmitri Gallow (USC)]
  • 11:45 – 12:00    Break
  • 12:00 – 13:00    Josh Pearson (ANU): Counterfactuals, Possibility Preservation and Sequences [Commentator: Ben Holguín (Hopkins)]
  • 13:00 – 14:30    Lunch break
  • 14:30 – 15:30    Melissa Fusco (Columbia): Do the Chances Update by Conditionalization? [Commentator: Jens Jaeger (UT Austin)]
  • 15:30 – 15:45     Break
  • 15:45 – 16:45     Calum McNamara (Indiana University, Bloomington): Bringing About the Good, from Behind the Veil of Ignorance [Commentator: Jessica Collins (Columbia)]
  • 16:45 – 17:00     Break
  • 17:00 – 18:00    Matt Mandelkern (NYU) and Snow Zhang (UC Berkeley): TBA
     
Add to Calendar 10/10/25 00:00:00 10/11/25 23:59:00 America/New_York Formal Approaches to Rationality and Meaning

October 10 and 11, the Philosophy Department is host to a new conference, Formal Approaches to Rationality and Meaning, organized by Paolo Santorio. FARM aims to bring together researchers working on meaning (including, but not limited to, semantics of natural language) and researchers working on reasoning and rational norms. There will be twelve talks over the course of two days, with commentaries, book-ended by invited talks from Professors Dilip Ninan (Tufts) and Matthew Mandelkern (NYU). The full schedule is below.

October 10

  • 09:20 – 09:30  Welcome remarks (10 min)
  • 09:30 – 10:30   Dilip Ninan (Tufts): TBA
  • 10:30 – 10:45   Break
  • 10:45 – 11:45   Gabrielle Kerbel (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor): Dilating and Contracting non-Arbitrarily [Commentator: Alejandro Pérez Carballo (UMass Amherst)]
  • 11:45 – 12:00    Break
  • 12:00 – 13:00    Kenneth Black (MIT): How to Think Something Neither True Nor False [Commentator:  Cian Dorr (NYU)]
  • 13:00 – 14:30    Lunch break
  • 14:30 – 15:30    James Gu (UCLA): No ‘thing’ of content / [Commentator: Aron Hirsch (Maryland)]
  • 15:30 – 15:45     Break
  • 15:45 – 16:45     Amir Ajalloeian (CU Boulder): Rethinking Propriety in Bayesian Epistemology [Commentator: Alex Meehan (Wisconsin)]
  • 16:45 – 17:00     Break
  • 17:00 – 18:00     Adam Bjorndahl (Carnegie Mellon): A Logic of Uncertain Interpretation [Commentator:  Eric Pacuit (Maryland)]

October 11

  • 09:30 – 10:30    Arc Kocurek (UCSD): On Defining [Commentator: Annina Loets (Wisconsin)]
  • 10:30 – 10:45    Break
  • 10:45 – 11:45    Adrian Liu (Rutgers): Finding Balance in Uncertain Times [Commentator: Dmitri Gallow (USC)]
  • 11:45 – 12:00    Break
  • 12:00 – 13:00    Josh Pearson (ANU): Counterfactuals, Possibility Preservation and Sequences [Commentator: Ben Holguín (Hopkins)]
  • 13:00 – 14:30    Lunch break
  • 14:30 – 15:30    Melissa Fusco (Columbia): Do the Chances Update by Conditionalization? [Commentator: Jens Jaeger (UT Austin)]
  • 15:30 – 15:45     Break
  • 15:45 – 16:45     Calum McNamara (Indiana University, Bloomington): Bringing About the Good, from Behind the Veil of Ignorance [Commentator: Jessica Collins (Columbia)]
  • 16:45 – 17:00     Break
  • 17:00 – 18:00    Matt Mandelkern (NYU) and Snow Zhang (UC Berkeley): TBA
     
 H.J. Patterson Hall true

Organization

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Conference Website