After a term in sunny SoCal, it's now back to Arctic temperatures and teaching. Today is day 1 of my philosophy of mathematics course, charmingly referred to by one student as "Death by Frege." And I'm not even making them read Grundgesetze! The reading list might be a little optimistic, but hey, who doesn't like … Continue reading Death by Frege

In his JfP Analysis 2004-05, Brian Weatherson notes an apparent dearth of logic job openings this season. I mentioned in the comments there, and previously here, that this season is actually pretty good for straight "AOS: Logic" jobs at top departments. Ken Taylor suggested that a dearth of logic jobs, combined with an apparent decline … Continue reading Logic and Philosophy IV

The full program of the ASL spring meeting is now up; in addition to the special sessions I advertized earlier, there'll be a very nice lineup of contributed talks.

Reminder: if you want a reason to go to the APA Pacific Division Meeting in San Francisco in March, and have something logical to present: The deadline for submission of contributed papers to the ASL Spring Meeting is a week away.2. There will be a special session on logic and philosophy, especially, logic in philosophy … Continue reading Logic and Philosophy at the Pacific APA, again

Unfortunately (and, to me, inexeplicably), the Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science got dropped from the specialty rankings for mathematical logic in the 204-06 edition of the Philosophical Gourmet Report. But if you are thinking of going to grad school for logic, take it from me: Berekely still belongs in Group 1, where … Continue reading Graduate Studies at Berkeley’s Logic Group

table.lines td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px dashed gray; empty-cells: show; padding: 2pxWith the kind permission of Brian Leiter, I'm posting here the results of the Philosophical Gourmet Report 2004-06 for Canada. For each of the 11 ranked programs, I list the specialties for which that program is ranked. The rank ordering of all but … Continue reading Canadian Philosophy Programs in the PGR

The new Philosophical Gourmet Report is out. Since everyone is looking at it right now, you might have trouble getting to the page, though. I'm glad to see that Calgary is back in the ranking. The ranking of Canadia departments now includes 10 programs (which is more appropriate than the 5 previously ranked, by relative … Continue reading PGR Is Out!

Google now offers Google Scholar, a search engine for online papers. The CS community has had something like this for a while in the form of CiteSeer. Google Scholar, unlike CiteSeer, does not archive the papers, but it seems to get its data from a much wider selection of sources : not just personal webpages, … Continue reading Google Scholar Unveiled

The ASL Spring Meeting will be held jointly with the APA Pacific in San Francisco, March 23-27, 2005. There will be two special sessions, both of which will be interesting for non-logicians: Revising Beliefs about Game Theory: Strategies for Rational Choice Anthony S. Gillies, University of Michigan (Chair) Robert Stalnaker, MIT Rohit Parikh, Brooklyn College … Continue reading ASL Spring Meeting at APA Pacific

Most jobs are advertised in JfP, but you might find some also at the CPA website and in University Affairs. Some ups: tenure is faster and easier to get, research funding (from SSHRC) is less competitive, more liberal sabbatical regulations than many places in the US (e.g., you can actually live on your sabbatical salary), … Continue reading Thinking of Moving to Canada?

Brian Weatherson points to a great new service: Richard Heck has built a searchable database of philosophy papers available online. Go register at phonline.org!

Sad news: John Peel, legendary British radio DJ, died Monday.

The University of Erlangen is advertising a position at the rank of Associate Full Professor (W3) with AOS in Logic or Philosophy of Science.

Jobs for Philosophers has ads for three logic jobs: Notre Dame, Wisconsin, and Auckland. Open jobs with "teaching needs in logic" and the like at Wayne State University, and Victoria University, Wellington. There were no logic-only jobs in the October JfP last year, and neither Toronto nor LSE, which had jobs where logic was part … Continue reading Logic jobs in October JfP

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada has posted a list of new Standard Research Grants for 2004. These are the Canadian equivalent of the NEH's Faculty Fellowships that Brian Leiter mentioned back in February. The SSHRC grants, unfortunately, almost never provide for teaching release--only the most senior people seem to win research … Continue reading New philosophy research grants from SSHRC

Brian Leiter and Joseph Shieber note that Elfriede Jelinek won this year's Nobel Prize in literature. Jelinek is a major figure in German-speaking literature. Outside the German speaking world, she is mostly known for her novel The Piano Teacher (Die Klavierspielerin, 1983). But she is just as well known in the German-speaking world as a … Continue reading Elfriede Jelinek wins Nobel Prize in literature

Alfred Tarski: Life and Logic, by Anita Burdman Feferman and Sol Feferman, is now out. Get it at your local bookstore or on Amazon. Only 24$!

Continuing my earlier posts about logic and philosophy, here's a little survey of the top 36 US philosophy departments, what logic courses they offer, and what the logic requirements for PhD and BA are there. The next time I feel like procrastinating, I'll do this for the rest of the US programs, and UK, Australasian, … Continue reading Formal Logic and Philosophy III

One nice thing about spending a sabbatical at LPS in Irvine is that I get to sit in on some really cool classes. One, I'm attending Jeff Barrett's course on Quantum Mechanics. I never actually had a chance to study QM, and I've always been interested. Maybe it'll help me understand what quantum logic is … Continue reading Ah, to be a grad student again…

Yesterday, I arrived in Irvine, Calif., where I'll be spending the Fall quarter at the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California. I'm very excited: it's a very good department, there are lots of people here to talk to, and I get to take some seminars! The downside: it's in … Continue reading The OC