Here are some quick summaries of the graduate seminars I audited during my first year at Oxford. Unfortunately, I donāt have digital notes from any of them (Iāve only started taking those in 2025). But I did get to know a lot of really cool professors and graduate students.
Formal Epistemology (Bernhard Salow, Winter 2024)
I grew up reading LessWrong, and was gifted Bovens & Hartmannās Bayesian Epistemology by a mentor years ago. But this class introduced me to modal logic and its epistemological applications. This class mostly taught me to be wary of reflection principles, and did convince me that having credence one is easy. Thereās no privileged set of, say, phenomenal beliefs that we get to be absolutely certain in. Instead, something has evidential probability one if your evidence makes it almost certain (note that your evidence is just whatever you know); and credences are internal analogues of evidential probabilities (just like belief is the internal analogue of knowledge, or producing small gametes is the internal analogue of being a father).
Decision Theory (Jean Baccelli, Spring 2024)
Introduced axiomatizations of EU theory under risk, uncertainty, and dynamic choice, with violations (Allais, Ellsberg, Sen, Machina) suggesting non-EU models or redescription. Nothing to do with the causal vs. evidential debate! Woke me from a naive acceptance of EU theory and the redescription strategy (which seems only to work for the Sen anti-transitivity and Machina anti-utilitarianism cases).
Formal Semantics (Paul Elbourne, Spring 2024)
Worked through Heim & Kratzer, with extra discussion on issues relevant to the philosophy of language. Paul pulls in the opposite direction from Tim in areas like semantic internalism or Fregeanism about proper names. This class was unfortunately scheduled such that in almost half the sessions, half of us would leave halfway through for Jowett Society meetings.
Topics in Epistemology (Tim Williamson, Spring 2024)
New paper each week, with Tim lecturing generally about the topic before taking questions (heās much less combative here than he is in conference Q&A sessions). There was a particular focus this year on epistemological issues of imagination. I did manage to make it into the acknowledgements of the āEpistemic Ambivalenceā book chapter by spotting a few mix-ups.