Professional

Lackey Honored by Brown University

Jennifer Lackey, professor of philosophy at Northwestern University, was awarded the 2023 Horace Mann Medal by Brown University’s Graduate School. ¶ The medal “is given annually to a Brown Graduate School alumnus or alumna who has made significant contributions in his or her field, inside or outside of academia.” Professor Lackey earned her Ph.D. from Brown in 2000. ¶ In a press release about the award, David Christensen, professor of philosophy at Brown University, says: Lackey is, by any measure, one of the top intellectual leaders in her field. But she is also one of those scholars who has taken extremely seriously her mission to apply her scholarly expertise outside the academy in a way that contributes to society at large. ¶ Professor Lackey is the author of the forthcoming Criminal Testimonial Injustice (Oxford, 2023), The Epistemology of Groups (Oxford, 2021), and Learning from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge (Oxford 2008), along with many articles and other writings. She is also editor-in-chief of Episteme and co-editor-in-chief of Philosophical Studies. ¶ In addition to her academic research, Professor Lackey has worked extensively with the Northwestern Prison Education Program (previously). From Brown University: Lackey’s work with the Northwestern Prison Education Program (NPEP) has been transformative, both for those incarcerated and for her own work in philosophy. NPEP has grown since its launch in 2018 to include 100 incarcerated students from across the state of Illinois and its first cohort of students will make history this fall when they graduate with bachelor’s degrees from Northwestern... -

A Brush with Fame

In my PY1012 Reasoning lecture this evening, I used a slide with a photo of Sally Haslanger and a short section from her book Resisting Reality to give an example of an argument to a universal generalisation. (I’ve been teaching reasoning using examples from throughout the philosophical canon.) After class a young student came up to me, all excited, asking: do you know Professor Haslanger!? (I had described her as a colleague.) I explained that yes, we’d met and I’d known her for some time. She reacted as if I had been in the presence of a rock star, and that she was now a little bit closer to true greatness as a result. When I said I loved Sally’s work, and then added that... -

APA Member Interview: Logan Daly

Logan Daly is a graduate student at West Chester University and is pursuing his M.A. in philosophy. His academic work focuses on synthesizing Christianity with philosophy in a way that benefits both parties. His master’s thesis is a comparative analysis of Hannah Arendt and Christian thought. What is your favorite... -

Instructor opening at Koc University

Koç University (College of Social Sciences and Humanities) ¶ Istanbul, Turkey ¶ Koç University’s Department of Philosophy invites applications for a part-time Philosophy instructor. ¶ Qualified candidates are expected to hold an MA or Ph.D. in Philosophy. ¶ The successful candidate will teach up to 3 courses per semester,... -

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Interview with the Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Australasia A few months ago, Anna Day, Eloise Hickey, Mark Rothery, and James Cafferky from the Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Australasia gave me an opportunity to ramble on about my early days as a mathematics and philosophy student in the 1980s and 1990s, my current research interests, and what I’m thinking about now. They asked thoughtful questions and managed to edit the interview into something coherent. Check it out, if only for the photos of me... Consequently.org -

A Brush with Fame In my PY1012 Reasoning lecture this evening, I used a slide with a photo of Sally Haslanger and a short section from her book Resisting Reality to give an example of an argument to a universal generalisation. (I’ve been teaching reasoning using examples from throughout the philosophical canon.) After class a young student came up to me, all excited, asking: do you know Professor Haslanger!? (I had described her as a colleague.) I explained that... Consequently.org -

Kicking off Semester 2 in St Salvator's Chapel I grew up in Australia: my university training and my initial academic positions took place in the explicitly secular institution of the Australian university. So, it’s an uncanny experience to arrive in St Andrews to become a part of a university in a town marked by martyrdom, in which the Chaplaincy plays a central and visible role. University functions, including graduations, are opened with prayers in Latin. There are regular services in Chapel, including graduation... Consequently.org -

Come and See! (John 1:29-42) I normally don’t speak from notes, but I do know that if I get up in front of a group to speak, my natural duration is the lecture, and at 45 to 50 minutes, that just won’t do for a sermon at chapel. To prevent an over-long talk, I took the time to write things down, and edit it to an appropriate length. Now that I have it, I may as well share the text... Consequently.org -

Wombat, Conditional, or Inference? As my colleague and PY1012 Reasoning co-lecturer, Franz Berto knows, it’s never too early to introduce your students to wombats, or to the difference between a conditional and an inference. A slide from my first week’s PY1012 lecture. Yes, next semester’s classes are just about to start, and I’m in the depths of preparation. Consequently.org -

Logical Methods Publication Day Today MIT Press releases our book, Logical Methods into the big wide world. It was an absolute delight to work on this long-term project with my co-author and friend, Shawn Standefer. A Stack of Copies of Logical Methods Consequently.org -

Time for a little grease and oil change 2022 has been another big year, not that you’d know it from looking around the news section of this website. Settling in to St Andrews has taken up a lot of my energy (in a good way), and I’ve been having too much fun writing things and giving talks to spend time updating this website. With the break between Christmas and New Year, I finally had time to clean up a bit of the mess... Consequently.org -

Collection Frames: What, How and Why? Abstract: In this talk, I give a breezy introduction to Collection Frames (joint work with Shawn Standefer), with an emphasis on how they are technically equivalent to, but conceptually simpler than Routley–Meyer ternary relational frames. The talk is an online presentation at the New Directions in Relevant Logic Online Workshop. The slides for the talk are available here. Consequently.org -

PY3100: Reading Philosophy 1—Texts in Language, Logic, Mind, Epistemology, Metaphysics and Science py3100: Reading Philosophy 1–Texts in Language, Logic, Mind, Epistemology, Metaphysics and Science is designed to develop the philosophical skills students have acquired over the first two years of their philosophy study, and acquaint them with key works in core areas of philosophy. The module involves close study of philosophical texts – historical and contemporary – that address a variety of topics within metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophies of logic and language, mind and science. Students will... Consequently.org -

The Many Uses of Proofs: logic and philosophy, language and more Abstract: This talk is a free-wheeling introduction to my research, starting from work in substructural logics and logical pluralism, and ending at the many uses of proofs, including giving an account of how our modal vocabulary has the meaning that it does, and the connections between proof norms and the semantics and pragmatics of dialogue. The talk is a face-to-face presentation at the University of St-Andrews Computer Science Department’s Research in School day. The slides... Consequently.org -

A little book on Proofs and Models Late last month, my little manuscript on Proofs and Models in Philosophical Logic was published by Cambridge University Press. This, like all entries in the new Cambridge Elements series, is a tiny little manscript, with an aim to give students, and researchers in allied fields, a quick, accessible introduction to a research topic and current methods. My mansucript is a breezy 84 pages, and it tries to introduce the role of proofs and models in... Consequently.org -

Leaving Melbourne As June 2021 turns to a close, this is my last official day at The University of Melbourne. I’ve taught my last classes, the marking for the semester is all done, I’ve wound up all my committee work, I’ve supervised my last undergraduate theses, and wrapped up all the end-of-semester administration. I’m now packing up my office (which I’ve rarely seen over the last 18 months) and tying up lots of loose ends. If I... Consequently.org -

Platonism, Nominalism, Realism, Anti-Realism, Reprentationalism, Inferentialism and all that My usual talk (a close-up view of the Old Quad and Arts West at the University of Melbourne). Abstract: In this talk, I will place contemporary research in philosophical logic in a wider historical and philosophical context, showing how recent work in logic connects to the rivalry between Platonism and Nominalism, or realism and anti-realism in metaphysics, and between representationalism and inferentialism in the the philosophy of language. Along the way, I will touch on... Consequently.org -

UNIB10002: Logic, Language and Information UNIB10002: Logic, Language and Information is a University of Melbourne undergraduate breadth subject, introducing logic and its applications to students from a wide range of disciplines in the Arts, Sciences and Engineering. I coordinate this subject with my colleague Dr. Jen Davoren, with help from Prof. Lesley Stirling (Linguistics), Dr. Peter Schachte (Computer Science) and Dr. Daniel Murfet (Mathematics). The subject is taught to University of Melbourne undergraduate students. Details for enrolment are here. Consequently.org -

Teaching During a Pandemic As I write this, the first week of the second semester of 2020 is nearing its end, and I’ve taught my first two seminars in Logical Methods, my main undergraduate teaching responsibility for this semester. Melbourne has just entered Stage 4 of its lockdown, as we attempt to deal with the ongoing community transmission of COVID-19. The streets are quiet, it has been over four months since I’ve been on campus, and all my teaching... Consequently.org -

Notes from a Pandemic I’ve been up to a few things during the pandemic. Quite a few things, it seems. Here are links to some of the traces you can find elsewhere on the internet. I wouldn’t say that I’ve become good at using Zoom, but I have been doing a heck of a lot of it. My three subjects for this semester moved online, and running seminars, workshops, classes over Zoom has become a part (only a part)... Consequently.org -

PHIL40013: Uncertainty, Vagueness and Disagreement PHIL40013: Uncertainty, Vagueness and Disagreement is a University of Melbourne honours seminar subject for fourth-year students. Our aim in the Honours program is to introduce students to current work in research in philosophy of logic and language. In 2020, we’re covering the connections between speech acts, epistemology and normative theory. Introduction and overview, background Speech acts: what are they? J. L. Austin, How to Do things with Words, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1962. [Read Lecture 9]... Consequently.org -

Teaching Logical Methods It’s been a big year. At the start of 2019, Shawn Standefer and I decided to throw all our cards in the air and upend the curriculum for the Level 2 logic unit in the philosophy program here at Melbourne. We wrote 200 pages of a draft textbook (while I really should have been finishing my other book). Shawn designed and implemented a whole raft of multiple choice practice questions, and we worked on a... Consequently.org -