Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Realism, Reference, and Rationality

Call for Papers

The graduate students of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University invite submissions to

The 13th Annual Pitt-CMU Graduate Student Philosophy Conference

This year we encourage papers focused especially on the topics of

Realism, Reference, and Rationality

This is a reminder that our submission deadline for the 13th Annual Pitt/CMU Graduate Philosophy Conference has been extended to January 1, 2011. The conference will take place March 18-19, 2011, with Arthur Fine (University of Washington) as our keynote speaker.

Submissions from all areas of philosophy are welcome. Papers should be no more than 4500 words and should be prepared for blind review. The paper must contain no identifying information and must include at the top an abstract of no more than 250 words. Papers should be submitted on EasyChair.

Further information may be found at

www.pitt.edu/~philgrad

Inquiries may be sent to PittCMUConference@gmail.com.


We look forward to your submissions.

The Organizing Committee

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

EPISTEME@CMU Call for papers

The 2011 EPISTEME conference will focus on the intersection of formal and social epistemology. The use of formal models in social epistemology is not a new development. Many philosophers have modeled concepts and ideas in social epistemology by using formal tools of various types (e.g., game theory, Bayesian decision theory, the theory of judgment aggregation, the recently developed theory of networks, multi-agent epistemic logic, social choice theory, etc.). This conference intends to explore the many fertile relations between various branches of formal epistemology and many sub-areas of contemporary social epistemology.

The 2011 EPISTEME conference will be hosted by the Center for Formal Epistemology in the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. The topic of the conference is:

"Social Epistemology meets Formal Epistemology: Recent developments and new trends"

A selection of the conference papers, including, potentially, papers from the open sessions, will be published in a special issue of the journal Episteme. For more information about the journal, look here.

Date: 24-26 June 2011

Possible topics: The following is a non-exhaustive list of possible questions that open session papers might address.

  • Epistemic foundations of game theory.
  • Peer disagreement.
  • Aumann’s `Agreeing to disagree’.
  • The modeling of testimony in Bayesian epistemology.
  • Discrete pooling, judgment aggregation and social choice.
  • Consensus of probabilities: limit theorems and applications.
  • Dynamic logic meets game theory.
  • Evolutionary game theory, morality and the social contract.
  • The program of social software.
  • Sociology of science.
  • Diversity and pluralism.
  • Social network structure.
  • Learning in networks.
  • Economic models of theory choice.
There will be a number of open sessions as part of this conference, and the organizers would like to invite submissions. Papers addressing any aspect of the conference theme, broadly conceived, are welcome. Submissions from graduate students are also welcome.

Length and format: Submissions should take the form of a detailed abstract of 500-1000 words. All submissions must be made electronically. The papers should be suitable for a presentation of around 30 minutes with a 15 minute question-and-answer session.

Submission procedure and important dates: All submissions should be sent directly to Horacio Arló-Costa (hcosta@andrew.cmu.edu). The deadline for submissions is February 15th 2011 with authors notified of the results of this process by April 20th 2011. All enquiries about the call for papers should be addressed to the main organizers: Horacio Arló-Costa (hcosta@andrew.cmu.edu ) and Christian List (C.List@lse.ac.uk).

Journal special issue: Please note that there will be a special issue of the journal Episteme arising out of this conference, and this issue may include some of the papers from the open sessions. It is thus essential that the papers for the open sessions are not already published, or due to be published. To be eligible for consideration for inclusion in the special issue, complete written versions of the papers will have to be ready by the time of the conference.

Main organizers:

Horacio Arló-Costa (CMU)
Christian List (LSE)

Program committee:

Alexandru Baltag (Oxford)
David Danks (CMU)
Igor Douven (Groningen)
Philip Kitcher (Columbia)
Klaus Nehring (UC Davis)
Eric Pacuit (Maryland and Tilburg)
Rohit Parikh (CUNY)
Gerhard Schurz (Dusseldorf)
Teddy Seidenfeld (CMU)
Brian Skyrms (CI)
Kai Spiekermann (LSE)
Johan van Benthem (Stanford, Amsterdam)
Kevin Zollman (CMU)



Local organizers:

Horacio Arló-Costa
Kevin Kelly



Sunday, November 7, 2010

Workshop@CMU: Experience, heuristics, and choice: Prospects for bounded rationality

On December 1st there will be a workshop at CMU focusing on bounded rationality especially as applied to choice, featuring various central issues like the role of heuristics in choice and inference. The program, and other details can be found here. No registration is needed and attendance is welcomed. For details about organization you can contact me at my CMU email address. The workshop celebrates the work of Herb Simon in this area and features Ralph Hertwig as one of the main invitees. Ralph has made decisive contributions to bounded rationality in a series of recent papers. He is a student and a frequent collaborator of Gerd Gigerenzer.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Postdoctoral position in linguistics and formal epistemology @ CMU

Carnegie Mellon University, with the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is pleased to accept applications for two A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Humanities for the 2011-2013 academic years. These fellowships are designed to foster the academic careers of scholars who have recently received their Ph.D. degrees by permitting them to pursue their research while gaining mentored experience as teachers and members of one of Carnegie Mellon’s four humanities departments (English, History, Modern Languages, and Philosophy) in which they will be housed.

The Department of Philosophy seeks candidates whose research focuses on semantics or pragmatics of natural languages from the perspective of linguistics, philosophy, logic or computer science. Candidates whose work is of relevance to the research directions of the department’s Center for Formal Epistemology are particularly encouraged to apply. Information about the Center can be found at: http://www.formalepistemology.org

Terms of appointment
Fellows will teach two courses in their home department(s) in each year of their residency. They will have the opportunity to teach in their existing areas of expertise to prepare themselves for a competitive academic job market. Fellows will be encouraged to take part in the many cross-departmental colloquia, conferences, or seminars though the university’s Humanities Center, the Center for the Arts in Society, and the undergraduate Humanities Scholars Program.

A 2011–2013 Fellow will receive an annual stipend of $50,000 plus benefits, an annual research allowance of $2,500, and, for the first year of the appointment, three summer months salary.

Application and selection process
Applicants for the 2011–2013 fellowships must have completed a Ph.D. no earlier than January 1, 2009. Candidates who do not yet hold a Ph.D. but expect to by June 30, 2011 should supply a letter from their home institution corroborating such a schedule.

Applications for the 2011–2013 fellowships must be received in the Administrator's office by November 19, 2010. Incomplete dossiers will not be reviewed. Candidates should submit a cover letter, CV, personal statement (of no longer than 2000 words) outlining their complete research (including dissertation), work in progress, professional goals and plans for publication, proposed major field(s) of teaching, and the Carnegie Mellon department in which you would want to be based, and three letters of reference. (Note: reference letters may be sent with the candidate’s application materials in sealed signed envelopes or directly by the referees.)

Fellowship applications and departmental requests to house a fellow will be evaluated by Carnegie Mellon’s Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship Advisory Committee, in consultation with the Dean and Associate Dean of the College of Humanities & Social Sciences. Strong fellowship applications will be circulated to relevant departments.

Should you have questions, please direct them to hssdean@andrew.cmu.edu.

All application materials and other correspondence should be addressed to:
Administrator, A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowships
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Office of the Dean
Carnegie Mellon University
Baker Hall 154
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Monday, June 21, 2010

Charlie Rose: The Brain Series

I just noticed this series. It seems that the episode scheduled for September 28 will focus on decision making.

Monday, May 17, 2010

LORI has a nice report on the Synthese Conference ...

here.

HT to Greg Wheeler for the link to Giacomo's report at LORI.

Thanks to everyone who helped make the conference a success. We hope to see you in 2012!

Saturday, March 27, 2010

The Transatlantic: FIRST ISSUE OUT NOW AND CALL FOR ARTICLES

The Transatlantic - Journal of Economics and Philosophy - has published its first issue on the topic "Economics & Science". Visit www.thetransatlantic.org and click on "Current Issue" to skim through the online edition, which includes articles by undergraduates and graduates from universities such as Cambridge University, NYU and LSE. The first issue also features two guest articles - a piece by Tony Lawson, Professor of Economics at Cambridge University, and one by Lord Robert Skidelsky, Professor Emeritus at Warwick and biographer of John Maynard Keynes. Moreover, there is an interview with Emanuel Derman, Professor of Financial Engineering at Columbia University and former Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, who discussed the relation between models in physics and finance with The Transatlantic.

The Transatlantic is an academic journal adopting an interdisciplinary approach to span the gulf between Economics and Philosophy. It is open to anyone and hopes to serve as a global forum for those with an interest in the field. It is in this spirit that students from London, New York, Shanghai, Toronto and many other places are currently working together to establish a new platform for debate. This endeavor is officially supported by the LSE Philosophy Society and the Columbia University Economics Society.

The Transatlantic is now calling for articles for its second issue on the topic "Growth", which will be published in autumn 2010. Scholars and students from all over the world are invited to approach this topic in various ways. Articles may be written both on economic and financial growth, as well as on demographic growth or the growth of knowledge - as long as they link the disciplines Philosophy and Economics. Interested? Please send us an abstract of your article by May 31, 2010 to submit@thetransatlantic.org. We hope to hear from you.

If you would like to get involved, please e-mail us at info@thetransatlantic.org
The Transatlantic Team
www.thetransatlantic.org

Monday, March 22, 2010

NASSLLI 2010 is Open for Registration

NASSLLI 2010 is Open for Registration!

Fourth North American Summer School in Logic, Language, and Information NASSLLI 2010

June 20-26, 2010

http://www.indiana.edu/~nasslli/

The North American Summer School in Logic, Language, and Information (NASSLLI) is a summer school with classes in the interface between computer science, linguistics, and logic.

After previous editions at Stanford University, Indiana University, and UCLA, NASSLLI will return to Bloomington, Indiana, June 20–26, 2010. The summer school, loosely modeled on the long-running ESSLLI series in Europe, will consist of a number of courses and workshops, selected on the basis of the proposals. Courses and workshops meet for 90 or 120 minutes on each of five days, June 21–25, and there will be tutorials on June 20 and a day-long workshop on June 26. The instructors are prominent researchers who volunteer their time and energy to present basic work in their disciplines. Many are coming from Europe just to teach at NASSLLI.

NASSLLI courses are aimed at graduate students and advanced undergraduates in wide variety of fields. The instructors know that people will be attending from a wide range of disciplines, and they all are pleased to be associated with an interdisciplinary school. The courses will also appeal to post-docs and researchers in all of the relevant fields.

We hope to have 100-150 participants. In addition to classes in the daytime, the evenings will have social events and plenary lectures. Bloomington is a wonderful place to visit, known for arts, music, and ethnic restaurants. All of this is within 15 minutes walking from campus. We aim to make NASSLLI fun and exciting.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Center for Formal Epistemology@CMU

CENTER FOR FORMAL EPISTEMOLOGY
OPENING CELEBRATION CONFERENCE
June 26-27, 2010
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University

Everyone interested is welcome to attend!

Confirmed speakers include:

Johan van Benthem, Amsterdam and Stanford
Paul Egre, Jean-Nicod Institute
Branden Fitelson, Rutgers
Stephan Hartmann, Tilburg
James Joyce, Michigan
Hans Kamp, Stuttgart
Hannes Leitgeb, Bristol
Rohit Parikh, CUNY
Wilfried Sieg, Carnegie Mellon
Brian Skyrms, UC Irvine
Wolfgang Spohn, Konstanz
James Woodward, Cal Tech

For details regarding the Center for formal epistemology, the opening
celebration conference, and local arrangements, please follow the
relevant links here.

We look forward to seeing you.

Kevin T. Kelly, Director
kk3n@andrew.cmu.edu
Horacio Arlo-Costa, Associate Director
hcosta@andrew.cmu.edu
Center for Formal Epistemology
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Friday, February 12, 2010

Reminder -- SIPTA Workshop on Uncertainty -- call for abstracts

The Society for Imprecise Probabilities: Theories and Applications will hold a Workshop on Uncertainty at Columbia University on April 17th of 2010, following the Synthese Conference on epistemology and economics that will take place at Columbia University on April 15th and 16th. We expect the workshop to feature a mixture of invited and contributed talks on the use of imprecise probabilities in models of inference and decision making under uncertainty.

Those who are interested in contributing a talk to the workshop should send a short abstract (no more than 300 words) to

synthese.conference.2010@gmail.com

with “SIPTA Workshop Contribution” in the subject of the message. Submitted abstracts must contain enough information for the committee to determine their suitability for a 20 minute talk followed by a 10 minute discussion period. Submitted abstracts must be received by February 20, 2010. Notifications of acceptance will be made by March 1, 2010. Due to the limited amount of space in Philosophy Hall, we ask those who would like to attend the meeting without giving a talk to send a copy of their CV to the same address as above but with “SIPTA Workshop Attendance” in the subject of the message.

Important Dates

Submissions: by February 20, 2010

Notifications: by March 1, 2010

Meeting: April 17, 2010

Organizing Committee

Horacio Arlo Costa

Jeff Helzner

Isaac Levi

Paul Pedersen

Erik Quaeghebeur (SIPTA Secretary)

Teddy Seidenfeld (SIPTA President)

Gregory Wheeler

Monday, January 18, 2010

Carnegie Mellon Summer School in Logic and Formal Epistemology

*Carnegie Mellon Summer School in Logic and Formal Epistemology*

In the summer of 2010, the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University will hold a three-week summer school in logic and formal epistemology for promising undergraduates in philosophy, mathematics, computer science, linguistics, and other sciences.

The goals are to

  • introduce students to cross-disciplinary fields of research at an early stage in their career; and
  • forge lasting links between the various disciplines.

The summer school will be held from Monday, June 7 to Friday, June 25, 2010. There will be morning and afternoon lectures and daily problem sessions, as well as outings and social events.

The summer school is free. That is, we will provide

  • full tuition, and
  • dormitory accommodations on the Carnegie Mellon campus.

So students need only pay round trip travel to Pittsburgh and living expenses while
there. There are no grades, and the courses do not provide formal course credit.

Instructions for applying can be found on the summer school web page,

http://www.phil.cmu.edu/summerschool

Materials must be received by the Philosophy Department by March 15, 2010.

This year's topics are:

Logic and Scientific Inquiry
Monday, June 7 to Friday, June 11
Instructor: Clark Glymour

Computability and Foundations
Monday, June 14 to Friday, June 18
Instructor: Wilfried Sieg

Philosophical Logic and Formal Epistemology
Monday, June 21 to Friday, June 25
Instructor: Horacio Arlo-Costa

The summer school is open to undergraduates, as well as to students who will have just completed their first year of graduate school.

Applicants need not be US citizens. There is a $20 nonrefundable application fee.

Inquiries may be directed to Jeremy Avigad (avigad@cmu.edu).

Friday, January 1, 2010

SIPTA Workshop on Uncertainty

The Society for Imprecise Probabilities: Theories and Applications will hold a Workshop on Uncertainty at Columbia University on April 17th of 2010, following the Synthese Conference on epistemology and economics that will take place at Columbia University on April 15th and 16th. We expect the workshop to feature a mixture of invited and contributed talks on the use of imprecise probabilities in models of inference and decision making under uncertainty.

Those who are interested in contributing a talk to the workshop should send a short abstract (no more than 300 words) to

synthese.conference.2010@gmail.com

with “SIPTA Workshop Contribution” in the subject of the message. Submitted abstracts must contain enough information for the committee to determine their suitability for a 20 minute talk followed by a 10 minute discussion period. Submitted abstracts must be received by February 20, 2010. Notifications of acceptance will be made by March 1, 2010. Due to the limited amount of space in Philosophy Hall, we ask those who would like to attend the meeting without giving a talk to send a copy of their CV to the same address as above but with “SIPTA Workshop Attendance” in the subject of the message.

Important Dates

Submissions: by February 20, 2010

Notifications: by March 1, 2010

Meeting: April 17, 2010

Organizing Committee

Horacio Arlo Costa

Jeff Helzner

Isaac Levi

Paul Pedersen

Erik Quaeghebeur (SIPTA Secretary)

Teddy Seidenfeld (SIPTA President)

Gregory Wheeler