Certain Doubts

From Steffen Holldobler (TU Dresden):

The European Master’s Program in Computational Logic

We are glad to offer you the possibility to join our European Master Program of Computational Logic. This program is offered jointly at the Free-University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy, the Technische Universitat Dresden in Germany, the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal, the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid in Spain and the Technische Universität Wien in Austria. Within this program you have the choice to study at two of the five European universities. You will graduate with a MSc in Computer Science from each of the two universities youhave selected. Information on the universities and the program including the application form are provided here:
http://european.computational-logic.org

Language of instruction is English. Tuition fees are 3.000 EUR per year.

We would like to draw your attention to the ERASMUS-MUNDUS scholarship program. The ERASMUS-MUNDUS consortium offers 2-year scholarships of 42.000 EUR for non-EU students in our European Master Program in Computational Logic. EU-students may apply for a three-month scholarship of 3100 EUR for doing their project at NICTA in Australia.
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I just learned the following wonderful news about Vincent:

Elite Research Prize to Professor Vincent F. Hendricks

On January 24, 2008, Vincent F. Hendricks, Professor of Formal Philosophy at Roskilde University, Denmark and Editor-in-Chief of Synthese, is awarded the Elite Research Prize by the Danish Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation and Her Majesty, the Crown Princess of Denmark. The prize, which is by far the biggest (1.000.000 Danish Kroner, approximately $200.000) and most prestigious prize of its kind in Denmark, is awarded by the Danish Government to the most outstanding national researcher who in an extraordinary way contributes to strengthening Danish research internationally.

The award ceremony takes place at The Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen on January 24, 2008, 2:30 – 6.30 pm.

For more information about the prize and the ceremony, please refer to www.eliteforsk.dk.

For more information on Professor Vincent F. Hendricks, refer to www.ruc.dk/~vincent.

This is fantastic news both for Vincent and for the discipline of philosophy as well as our own subdiscipline, and it confirms as well the importance of the burgeoning area of formal epistemology. Congratulations, Vincent!

I have a question about the epistemic internalism and externalism debate. After the first round of the debate in the 1980s, several philosophers began claiming to be internalists about justification but externalists about knowledge. Although this became a somewhat common view, it doesn’t seem that the articles which first expressed the view became that well-known for doing so. Can anyone tell me when such a view was first or most prominently expressed and by whom? Thanks.

Got a note from Branden with the following information about the Formal Epistemology Workshop for 2008:
The deadline for paper submissions is February 15, and submissions on all topics in the genre of Formal Epistemology are encouraged.

The conference will take place in Madison, Wisconsin, May 14-18, 2008. Invited speakers this year are Allan Gibbard, Roy Sorensen, and Wolfgang Spohn, with tutorials by Tania Lombrozo and Hilary Greaves.

For more information, check out the website:
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~fitelson/few/.

The Philosopher’s Annual (whose apparent demise I reported here) appears to be coming back, and is looking for nominations of philosophy papers first published in 2007. I’m on the nominating board, and am especially interested in looking for good papers in epistemology, because I’m best positioned to evaluate papers in that area. If you know of very good epistemology papers that came out in ‘07, suggest them in the comments (or e-mail me), and I’ll add them to my list of papers to look at before submitting my nominations.

A quick case for “No”: in philosophy we aim to think for ourselves, and as such we do not — and we should not — rely on the authority of another philosopher in coming to a conclusion.

I am very tempted by this quick case. But I have a certain uneasiness about it. People in other disciplines regularly defer to their within-disipline colleagues, on matters where they regard their within-discipline colleagues as having relevant expertise. In so doing they recognize the importance of shared knowledge (or at least well-justified belief) regarding the common world they and their colleagues inhabit. I worry that if we deny that there is expertise within philosophy — that is, if we deny the sort of thing that would justify one philosopher in reaching a philosophical conclusion on the basis of accepting what one of her philosopher-colleagues told her — this reflects an attitude that rejects the very idea that one philosopher could have (and be seen by others to have) more philosophical knowledge than another. Such an attitude might be based on the view that there is no knowledge to be had in our discipline in the first place (a depressing thought); or else on the view that within philosophy no one can lay claim to the sort of knowledge/justified belief required by expertise (but what is it about our discipline and its subject-matter that precludes this?).

And yet: the practice of accepting a philosophical claim merely because philosopher X (known to be sharp) said so strikes me as deeply unphilosophical. (Possible exception: results in logic and the more formal parts of philosophy.)

Anyway, this is a worry I’ve been having since giving a paper on a related topic at the first Midwest Epistemology Workshop.

We all have favorite examples of bad arguments, but after a good martini with my son last night, his latest example struck me as extremely funny and I love it so much I’m going to post it. He’s getting married soon, and was remarking on the possibility of future children. He said that he was certain they’d have some, because if you look at history, as far back as you care to go, every single one of his ancestors has had them…

He then pointed out the resemblance between the above argument and some he’s seen by epistemologists…!

Leslie Marsh of EPISTEME has asked me to let you know that Volume 4, issue 2 of the journal, a special volume edited by David Coady, is now available. It is on conspiracy theories, so it should be of interest to people like Jon K. (who seem to theorize some conspiracy every time the Yankees make an offseason move — which admittedly hasn’t been much this winter).

Contents and Abstracts of this volume are available at:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/episteme/toc/epi4.2.html

Journal website: http://www.episteme.us.com

Happy New Year to all,

Sandy Goldberg

I owe an apology to all Arkansas fans. My prediction was defective. I had predicted 38-21, and I deeply apologize to all my Arkansas buddies for my mistake.

I can’t resist noting, however, that there are two kinds of stupid. There is the ordinary stupid that all of us do at one time or another. Then there is calling a timeout just prior to a fake punt that successfully secures a first down, in large part because of the surprise element involved (of course, the result negated by the prior timeout call). Only to try a version of the same fake punt play after the timeout, and fail in the attempt, in large part because, oh, gee, I guess the surprise element wasn’t there any more. That’s the other kind.