This is the homepage of the Logic, Language, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Mind, and Mathematics (LLEMMMa) Working Group in the Department of Philosophy at UC Davis. We meet regularly during the academic year to discuss and present philosophical research related to these subjects.
For most inquiries, email Rohan, but for site-related things, email Brandon.
News from Our Members
A LLEMMMa reunion in Taipei, October 2025. Left to right: Rohan French, I-Sen Chen, Blane Worley, Jared Ifland, and Chanwoo Lee.
Talks at Two Logic Meetings in Taipei
In October 2025, five of our members came together in Taipei for a pair of logic meetings. Three spoke at the 6th Taiwan Philosophical Logic Colloquium (TPLC-VI), held at National Taiwan University: I-Sen Chen on “Machine learning and a priori knowledge,” Jared Ifland on “Classicality in context,” and Chanwoo Lee on “Inferentialism from the scientific languages.” The other two spoke at the Taipei One-day Workshop on Logic: Rohan French on “Intensional monotonic logics and partial connectives” and Blane Worley on “Weak relevance and non-uniform topic assignments.”
Publications by Blane Worley
Blane Worley published an article exploring depth substitution invariance in justification logics extending weak relevant logics: “Proof Invariance: Embedding Hyperformalism in Justifications,” Australasian Journal of Logic 22(5):753–772 (2025), https://doi.org/10.26686/ajl.v22i5.8348. Blane also published (with Shay Logan) an article extending known results about hyperformal logics: “Hyperformalism for Bunched Natural Deduction Systems,” Journal of Philosophical Logic 54(4):767–792 (2025), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-025-09802-w.
Jerome Romagosa published an article arguing against Wilhelm’s centered Everett interpretation of quantum probabilities: “Centered Chance in the Everett Interpretation,” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (forthcoming), https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/732603.
Publication by Francisco N. Martínez-Aviña
Francisco N. Martínez-Aviña published his recent work on the logic-dependence of computability: “Changing the Logic without Changing the Subject: The Case of Computability,” Journal of Logic and Computation 35(2):exae015 (2025), https://doi.org/10.1093/logcom/exae015.
Congratulations to Our Recent Graduates!
Natasha Haddal defended her dissertation titled “Bridging the Towers of Babel: Pluralistic Approaches to Understanding Biological Sex” in the Fall of 2025, and is now a Lecturer at UC Merced.
Ryan Light defended his dissertation titled “Some Things and Themself: Reflections on Many-One Identity and Composition” in the Winter of 2025.
S. Kaan Tabakci defended his dissertation titled “A Model-Theoretic Logical Inferentialist Account of Three-Valued Strong Kleene Logics” in the Spring of 2024, and is now Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Koç University, Turkey.
Chanwoo Lee defended his dissertation titled “Category-theoretic Structuralism as a Foundation of Mathematics” in the Spring of 2024, and is now Assistant Professor at Dasan University College, Ajou University, South Korea.
Jordan Bell defended his dissertation titled “Singular Thought: Theory, Content, and Method” in the Fall of 2023, and is now a Lecturer in the Philosophy Department at Southern Methodist University.
Patrick Skeels defended his dissertation titled “The Dynamics of Disagreement and Contradiction” in the Summer of 2023, and is now a Lecturer in the Philosophy Department at the University of Kentucky.
I-Sen Chen defended his dissertation titled “Converse Intentionalism and Experiential Content” in the Spring of 2021, and is now Project Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Soochow University, Taiwan.
Da Fan defended his dissertation titled “What a Clause Does: Raising Its Question and Answering It Too” in 2021, and is now an Assistant Professor in the School of Philosophy and Social Development at Shandong University, China.
G. Aldo Antonelli | Jordan Bell | Rachel Boddy | Nickolas J. Boylan | Silvia Chavarin | I-Sen Chen | Stephen Andrew Cunningham-Bryant | Ibrahim Dagher | Danilo Dantas | T. Scott Dixon | Da Fan | Tyrus Fisher | Joel I. Friedman | Natasha Haddal | Chris Healow | Michael Hunter | Erik Johnson | Mandy Kamangar | Josef Kay | Chanwoo Lee | Ryan Light | Ceth Lightfield | Kory Matteoli | Robert May | Bernard Molyneux | Jason Mosebach | Dan Norton | Liz Rard | Ted Shear | Patrick Skeels | S. Kaan Tabakci | Paul Teller | Khang Ton | Jacob Velasquez
Archive of Past Meetings
This list is updated quarterly; time progresses upward. For questions about ongoings, contact Rohan.
Spring 2026
Shawn Standefer (visiting from North Carolina State University): Presentation: “Avoiding collapse in non-classical epistemic doxastic logic”
Brandon Hopkins: Presentation: “Monotony and Canonicity in Neighborhood Semantics”
Jordan Bell (visiting from Southern Methodist University): Presentation: “Don’t you value valuing?” (on valuing as an attitude, though not a propositional one)
Jacob Coleman: Presentation: Truthmaker Logics
Hanti Lin: Presentation: “When the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics Meets Logic, Semantics, Pragmatics, Metaphysics, and Philosophy of Scientific Modeling”
Blane Worley: Presentation: “Algebras for non-uniform topic assignments”
Jerome Romagosa: Presentation: “The Problem With Unlucky Branches: Low-Weight Branches and Humeanism About Laws”
Winter 2026
Rohan French: Discussion: “Dissecting two problems of vagueness” by Kooiman and van Rooij
Casey Felton and Masoud Jasbi (Linguistics): Presentation: “The Many Sources of Exclusivity in Natural Language Disjunction”
Tania Aiyar: Discussion: “Mind Matters” by Lepore and Loewer
Fall 2025
Harkins Loh: Presentation: “Two-phase Account for the Efficacy of Simplicity: Heuristics to Material Facts”
Francisco N. Martínez-Aviña: Presentation: “Grothendieck’s Perspectival Mathematics”
Hayden Macklin: Presentation: Conjoined-Twin Brain Transplants, Fission, and Madden-Style Animalism
Blane Worley: Presentation: “Weak relevance and non-uniform topic assignments”
Spring 2025
Nickolas J. Boylan: Discussion: Figuring Out Davidson’s View on Truth
Cameron Dante Kincaid: Presentation: “Could Space be a Conditional Concept?”
Hayden Macklin: Presentation: “Essentialism and Potentialism: Allies or Competitors?”
Jared Ifland: Presentation: “Classicality in Context: From Practice to Proof and Back”
Tania Aiyar: Presentation: Dispositions and Counterfactuals
Winter 2025
Dylan Goldman: Presentation: “Expanding the Explanatory Approach: Why Metaphysics is More Fundamental than Physics”
Blane Worley: Presentation: “Hyperformalism and the Intensionality Detector”
Torsten Odland (visiting from CSU Long Beach): Presentation: “Counting Many As One”
Ethan Higginbotham: Presentation: “Art Can Say Things”
Jerome Romagosa: Presentation: “In Defense of Overlap: Four-Dimensionalist Persistence in Everettian Quantum Mechanics”
Fall 2024
Hanti Lin: Presentation: “Topology without Philosophers’ Tears”
Jacob Coleman: Discussion: “Truthmakers, Entailment and Necessity” by Greg Restall
Jared Ifland: Presentation: “Metaontology in Light of the Frege-Hilbert Controversy”
Francisco N. Martínez-Aviña: Presentation: “Viewpoint Realism in Mathematics”
Ryan Light: Presentation: “Explanation in Relativist Approaches to Composition-as-Identity”
Dylan Goldman: Presentation: “Towards a New Approach to Progress in Metaphysics”
Fall 2022
Patrick Skeels: Presentation: “Dynamic Contradiction and Tautology”
Robert May: Presentation: “Definition and Frege’s Proof of Referentiality”
S. Kaan Tabakci: Presentation: “Categoricity Problem for K3 and LP”
Chanwoo Lee: Presentation: “Category Theory as an Explanatory Foundation”
Francisco N. Martínez-Aviña: Presentation: “Changing the Logic without Changing the Subject: The Case of Computability”
Rohan French: Presentation: “Can the Classical Ladder Be Kicked Away?”
Spring 2022
Dylan Goldman: Discussion: “Thinking Outside the (Tool)Box: Towards a More Productive Engagement between Metaphysics and Philosophy of Physics” by Steven French and Kerry McKenzie
Kory Matteoli: Discussion: “Five New Arguments for the Dynamic Theory of Time” by Ned Markosian
S. Kaan Tabakci: Presentation: “Change of Logic, Persistence of Subject”
David Glick: Discussion: “Configuration Space Realism and Fundamentality” by Nina Emery and Gabrielle Kerbel
Winter 2022
Ibrahim Dagher: Discussion: “What Is the Source of Our Knowledge of Modal Truths” (2012) by E.J. Lowe
Jerome Romagosa: Discussion: “A Subjectivist’s Guide to Objective Chance” (1980) by David Lewis
S. Kaan Tabakci: Discussion: “Compositionality Solves Carnap’s Problem” (2016) by Dennis Bonnay and Dag Westerståhl
Jordan Bell: Discussion: “Reference and Contingency” (1979) by Gareth Evans
Jordan Bell: Discussion: “Semantic Structure and Logical Form” (1976) by Gareth Evans
Ibrahim Dagher: Presentation: “There Is Not Enough Time in the World”
Fall 2021
Chanwoo Lee: Presentation: “Reformulating the Metaphysical Underdetermination Argument for Ontic Structural Realism”
Dylan Goldman: Presentation: “Approximation in Metaphysics: How Naturalist Metaphysics Makes Progress”
S. Kaan Tabakci: Presentation: “Local Models”
Brandon Hopkins: Presentation: “If-Thenism and Truthmakers for Pure Mathematics”
Jerome Romagosa: Presentation: “Unlucky Branches in Everett’s Many Worlds”
Caleb Layton: Presentation: “Should We Look for a Unified Theory of Reference for Names and Incompletes”
Kory Matteoli: Presentation: “Time and the Principle of Prior Possibility”
Patrick Skeels: Presentation: “Dynamic ‘Might’ and Correct Belief”
Jordan Bell: Presentation: “Singularity and Object Dependence”
Rohan French: Discussion: “Surprise Surprise: KK Is Innocent” (2020) by Julien Murzi, Leonie Eichhorn, and Philipp Mayr
Spring 2021
Ryan Light: Presentation: “Hyperplurals”
S. Kaan Tabakci: Presentation: “Strong Kleene Logics for Inferentialists”
Natasha Haddal: Discussion: “Language Loss and Illocutionary Silencing” (2020) by Ethan Nowak
Patrick Skeels: Discussion: “Defaults in Update Semantics” (1996) by Frank Veltman
Charles Albright: Presentation: “A Definition of Slur”
I-Sen Chen: Discussion: “Theorizing about the Epistemic” (2016) by Stewart Cohen
S. Kaan Tabakci: Discussion: “Why Conclusions Should Remain Single” (2011) by Florian Steinberger
Brandon Hopkins: Discussion: “Facts and Tautological Entailment” (1969) by Bas C. van Fraassen
I-Sen Chen: Discussion: “Ambitious, Yet Modest, Metaphysics” by Thomas Hofweber
Patrick Skeels: Presentation: “Prospects for Cloudy Contextualism”
Fall 2020
Jordan Bell: Presentation: “Identifying Particulars and Anchoring”
Stephen Andrew Cunningham-Bryant: Presentation: “On Sincere Misleading Assertions”
I-Sen Chen: Workshop
Chanwoo Lee: Presentation: “Top-Down Metasemantics for Logic”
Natasha Haddal: Workshop
Da Fan: Presentation: “From Contrastivism (Back to) Contextualism”
Chanwoo Lee: Discussion: “The Computational Philosophy: Simulation as a Core Philosophical Method” by Conor Mayo-Wilson and Kevin Zollman
Patrick Skeels: Presentation: “Dynamics of Disagreement and Contradiction”
Summer 2020
Ryan Light: Discussion: “Donald Baxter’s Composition as Identity” (2012) by Jason Turner
Chanwoo Lee: Presentation: “Against the Magnetic Solution to the Substantivity Problem in Metaontology”
Patrick Skeels: Discussion: “On Disagreement” (2017) by Torfinn Thomesen Huvenes
Patrick Skeels: Discussion: “The Disagreement Challenge to Contextualism” (2017) by Justin Khoo
Patrick Skeels: Discussion: “Relativism and Disagreement” (2006) by John MacFarlane
Ryan Light: Discussion: “Is Mereology Ontologically Innocent?” (1999) by Byeong-Uk Yi
S. Kaan Tabakci: Discussion: “Assertion, Denial, and the Liar Paradox” (1984) by Terence Parsons
Spring 2020 (Theme: Classics in Philosophy of Language, Logic, Mathematics)
Da Fan: Discussion: “Scorekeeping in a Language Game” (1979) by David Lewis
Ryan Light: Discussion: “Three Grades of Modal Involvement” (1953) by W.V.O. Quine
S. Kaan Tabakci: Presentation: “Subminimal Negation on the Australian Plan”
Jordan Bell: Discussion: “On Referring” (1950) by P.F. Strawson
Jordan Bell and Patrick Skeels: Discussion: “On Quantifier Domain Restriction” (2000) by Jason Stanley and Zoltán Gendler Szabó
Chanwoo Lee: Discussion: “Truth by Convention” (1935) by W.V.O. Quine
Natasha Haddal: Discussion: “Meaning,” Pursuit of Truth (1990) by W.V.O. Quine
Patrick Skeels: Discussion: “Utterer’s Meaning and Intentions” by H.P. Grice
Patrick Skeels: Discussion: “Logic and Conversation” (1975) by H.P. Grice
Da Fan: Discussion: “Sense and Reference” by Gottlob Frege
Winter 2020 (Theme: Berto and Jago’s Impossible Worlds (2019))
Patrick Skeels: Discussion: Chapters 4–5 of A Philosophical Guide to Conditionals (2003) by Jonathan Bennett
Ryan Light: Discussion: “On Saying That” (1968) by Donald Davidson
S. Kaan Tabakci: Discussion: Chapter 8 of Part III of Impossible Worlds (2019) by Francesco Berto and Mark Jago
Da Fan and S. Kaan Tabakci: Discussion: Part II of Impossible Worlds (2019) by Francesco Berto and Mark Jago
Paul Teller: Presentation: “Williamson’s Epistemicism and the Properties Account of Predicates”
Reid Dale: Presentation: “Bayesian Jurors and Our Jurisprudential Norms”
Adam Sennet: Discussion: “Meaning, Modulation, and Context: A Multidimensional Semantics for Truth-Conditional Pragmatics” (2018) by Guillermo Del Pinal
Da Fan and S. Kaan Tabakci: Discussion: Part I of Impossible Worlds (2019) by Francesco Berto and Mark Jago
Before Winter 2020
We do not currently have records of our meetings from before Winter 2020. If you were part of the group in those earlier years and kept any notes on what was presented or discussed, please contact Brandon, who would be glad to add them here.
Resources
Dissertation template — a LaTeX skeleton for UC Davis philosophy dissertations, free to copy and adapt.
Mathematical Logic and Its Foundations Created by Joel I. Friedman (Prof. Emeritus)
