For some reason I missed the memo that said that Kenny Easwaran's blog moved from antimeta.org to his Berkeley webspace.

This morning has two talks on modal logic: first up was Marcus Kracht with a survey on the development of modal logic; now Steve Awodey is reporting on joint work with Kishida on topological semantics of first-order modal logic. Marcus talked about some interesting results in the mathematics of modal logic, especially general semantics for … Continue reading Modality Morning

Ok. Brit posted about it. Apparently some people claim that the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index (FSP) shows something about the rankings produced by the Philosophical Gourmet Report (PGR) (e.g., that they're off). But it doesn't. That is not because the PGR is actually the best possible way to measure program or even faculty quality. It … Continue reading Why the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index doesn’t mean anything in philosophy

I just had occasion to have to typeset Lewis's strict conditional symbol <img src="http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2004/symbols/fishhook.gif" alt="- in LaTeX. It turns out it isn't in the standard AMS fonts. Peter Smith's LaTeX for Logicians to the rescue! There I found: that the strict conditional symbol is in the fonts that are part of the txfonts and pxfonts … Continue reading Strict Conditional in LaTeX

Juliette Kennedy's entry on Kurt Gödel has just been published in in the Stanford Encyclopedia.(It took a long time to get this done because of all the formulas that needed to be converted into HTML. If you find a mistake, please let Juliette or me know.)

I just noticed that Josh Dever's Philosophy Family Tree now comes with a little Java applet that gives you a list of your philosophical ancestors (easier to use than the PDF list).Josh, any plans to make the tree capable of dealing with more than one advisor?

Source

Theoretical Computer Science 160 (1996) 241-270
(with Matthias Baaz and Alexander Leitsch)

Abstract

The first-order temporal logics with □ and ○ of time structures isomorphic to omega (discrete linear time) and trees of omega-segments (linear time with branching gaps) and some of its fragments are compared: The first is not recursively axiomatizable. For the second, a cut-free complete sequent calculus is given, and from this, a resolution system is derived by the method of Maslov.

I'm giving a talk on Friday for a general audience, and I thought it would be cute to claim in the little blurb about me that I am "probably the only person in the world who holds both undergraduate and doctoral degrees in logic." Several people have asked me if that's really true, and now … Continue reading Logic Degree Programs?

Studia Logica is a very good journal, and it should be indexed in ISI. Help us by recommending it! Go hereComplete the form using the following data:Journal title: Studia LogicaJournal URL: www.StudiaLogica.orgPublisher name: SpringerJournal Scope: LogicUnique features distinguishing this journal: please write here your opinion in this matter or write just "Applying Formal Methods to … Continue reading Help Studia Logica get into ISI

Over dinner yesterday, Jason and I got to talking about Erdős numbers of various people. He didn't know his, so I looked it up--the Mathematical Reviews database MathSciNet has a "compute collaboration distance" function in the author search. It produces output like this: Jason Stanley coauthored with Richard G. Heck, Jr. MR1234144 (94k:03006) Richard G. … Continue reading Stanley’s Erdős Number is 5

Agustín Rayo wins over Adam Elga, uses "googol" and a variant of Berry's paradox in knock-out punch: see here. Dr. Evil clutched his heart as though it had been pierced by an arrow. Trembling, he fell to his knees on the floor of the crowded stuffy room, all eyes watching him. The Mexican Multiplier threw … Continue reading The Mexican Multiplier Trounces Dr. Evil in Large Number Duel

Varol Akman kindly sent a link to this picture of the poster advertising the Gödel exhibition in Vienna, with the nice quote: "Today philosophy has arrived, at best, at the point mathematics was at in Babylonian times."

Unfortunately, only for a talk: this Friday at 4, "Knowledge and Action," in SS 1253. He hasn't told us what specifically he will be speaking about, but I'm sure it's going to be excellent.

My colleague Elizabeth Brake pointed out to me a wonderful passage in the "1706 Preface" to Mary Astell's Reflections upon Marriage, in which she's criticizing William Nicholls' claim (in The Duty of Inferiors towards their Superiors, in Five Practical Discourses (London 1701), Discourse IV: The Duty of Wives to their Husbands), that women are naturally … Continue reading Quantifiers and Claims about the Inferiority of Women

Open Court sent a couple of volumes from their Popular Culture and Philosophy series a few weeks back, but I've only now had time to read the intro to Bullshit and Philosophy. It's about bullshit, in particular, about Frankfurt's On Bullshit, and it's edited by Gary Hardcastle and George Reisch. Like I said, I've only … Continue reading Bullshit and Philosophy

Ok, this has nothing to do with logic, but it's so awesome that I have to post about it. Thanks to Lillian Lovich for sending the link!Helvetica, the best font of all time, is turning 50 this year. There's a movie about the font coming out, which I'm really excited about.

In the summer of 2007, 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; andforge lasting … Continue reading Carnegie Mellon Summer School in Logic and Formal Epistemology

I just had the following interesting exchange with my colleague Jack MacIntosh, in which every question was asked sincerely, and I have every reason to believe that Jack's statements were true: RZ: Zeno and Plato were contemporaries, right?JM: Yes, for a while.RZ: Did Plato retire before Aristotle began his studies?JM: About Aristotle, I don't know.RZ: … Continue reading Of Names

I totally missed it, but the first entry on history of logic in the Stanford Encyclopedia to be published since Paolo Mancosu and I signed on as subject editors has been published over two months ago: Mario Gómez-Torrente on Tarski.

Special Issue of Studia Logica on Applied Logic in the Philosophy of Science Guest editors: Igor Douven and Leon HorstenStudia Logica is extending its scope. In future the journal will not only cover pure logic but also applications of formal-logical methods in philosophy and cognitive science. To mark this change, the journal will have several … Continue reading Special Issue of Studia Logica on Applied Logic in the Philosophy of Science