Certain Doubts

The Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking invites submissions for their 2009 A Essay Prize. Value: $300 U.S. The prize-winning paper will be published in Informal Logic, contingent upon meeting the conditions specified in the prize’s notice, available at http://ailact.mcmaster.ca/. Papers related to the teaching or theory of informal logic or critical thinking, and papers on argumentation theory, will be considered for the prize. Authors need not be members of AILACT. Previously unpublished papers, and papers published in the past three years (2006-2008), are eligible. Maximum length: 6,000 words. To submit a paper, attach a PDF file to an email with AILACT ESSAY ENTRY on the “subject” line and send it to Prof. Derek Allen (derekallen@trinity.utoronto.ca) with a covering note giving your name and a mailing address. Please send the paper ready for blind-reviewing. The deadline for receipt of submissions now is October 31, 2009.

Here.

As always, information about the MEW can be found here.

And keep in mind that the MEW is on facebook too.

Next year’s MEW will be hosted by Purdue University.  The keynote speaker will be Jason Stanley, Rutgers University. Matthais Steup is in charge of local arrangements.

Suppose we want to know what Nawal’s reasons are for believing that the Democrats aren’t moving quickly enough on health care reform. Her friend Josh tells us:

(RA1) Nawal’s reason for believing that the Dems aren’t moving quickly enough is that they’re worried about a Republican filibuster … although Nawal has absolutely no idea what a filibuster is.

And by ‘absolutely no idea what a filibuster is’, Josh means ’she has no concept of a filibuster’, not that she has all sorts of false beliefs about filibustering.

I’m curious to learn people’s reaction to RA1. In particular, I’m wondering if it strikes you as odd or inconsistent.

The Third Annual meeting of the Midwest Epistemology Workshop will take place next Friday and Saturday, September 25 and 26, on the campus of St. Louis University. The local organizer is John Greco.

Further information, including the program and links to various papers, can be found here.  Information about local arrangements can be found here.  And, as always, information about the MEW itself can be found here.

I look forward to seeing many of you next weekend.

NCAA president Brand loses cancer battle at 67 – ROOT News – FOX Sports on MSN.

A sad day for philosophy.  Myles was a major figure in action theory, and, though I didn’t know him well, I thought him a fantastic person and those I know who knew him well say the same.  He will be missed.

Sad news from the Society of Christian Philosophers mail list: “Bill Alston, 87, died earlier today, September 13, 2009, at his home in Jamesville, NY.  He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just the week before last.”

Daniel Howard-Snyder has on-line both a biography of Prof. Alston and a bibliography of his writings.

Update: For those who haven’t seen them, there are some nice posts about Alston, by Tent Dougherty (9/13), Jeremy Pierce (9/14), and Tom Senor (9/17), and information about the memorial service that will be held for him on Nov. 2 in Syracuse from Linda Zagzebski (9/18) over at Prosblogion.

Last time I asked about this situation. You’re at the final stage of a job search — call it stage C. You’re looking for evidence that you should prefer to hire one of the two otherwise (up till now) indistinguishable finalists, D and U. (D and U are each a year out of grad school, have three publications in equally prestigious venues, have equally impressive writing samples, gave equally compelling job talks, have equally promising research agendas, have equally impressive teaching credentials, are the same gender and ethnicity, etc, etc.) At this final stage, what’s the evidential value of the following fact?

• D earned the PhD from a distinguished university with a distinguished philosophy department, whereas U earned the PhD from an undistinguished university with an undistinguished philosophy department.

These answers emerged in the thread:

1. The pedigree-differential favors hiring D, because doing so would enhance your department’s connections.
2. The pedigree-differential favors hiring U, because it indicates that U has more natural talent or determination or some other characteristic that promotes philosophical excellence. After all, abundant evidence indicates that U ended up as D’s philosophical equal, despite having access to fewer resources.
3. The pedigree-differential favors hiring D because you should suspect that D received more valuable philosophical training in virtue of being around more excellent philosophers, even though it hasn’t yet manifested in any discernible way.

So now I want to move the question back, stage by stage. Does the pedigree-differential give you a reason to prefer either candidate at either of the following stages? Imagine that at each stage there is one spot left, and D and U are the finalists for filling that last spot.

B. Deciding whom to fly-out.

A. Deciding whom to add to the short-list for interviewing.

(Of course, we must cancel out the “gave equally impressive job talks” part when we consider these stages.) Do any of 1 – 3 apply at these earlier stages? Is the pedigree-differential relevant for different reasons at the earlier stages?

You’re on a search committee in the final stage of a hiring decision. It’s down to two candidates, D and U. D and U are indistinguishable in almost every respect: each earned the PhD last year, and has spent a year as a visiting assistant professor at a small liberal arts college; each has a glowing letter from an advisor who is very well respected in the field; each has a very strong letter from one very well respected scholar in the field, who is not affiliated with either the PhD-granting institution, or the candidate’s current appointment; each has impressive teaching credentials; each has three solid publications in excellent journals; each gave a great job talk, and got along well with the department and administrators on their visit; each has a promising research agenda. In all those respects, you are hard-pressed to discern any meaningful difference between U and D. Each is also of the same gender and ethnicity.

But they do obviously differ in this respect: D earned the PhD from a distinguished university with a world renowned philosophy department, whereas U earned the PhD from an undistinguished university with a serviceable but unrenowned philosophy department.

Question: at this final stage of the process, does this last bit of information provide you with good evidence for thinking that you should prefer either U over D, or D over U? If so, why?

Feel free to import standards peculiar to your university or department — or if you’d prefer, to some generic university or department of type X — if that’s needed to yield a definite answer.

Lyrics from “Victim of Love”, chorus only (verses below the fold for the curious), relevant parts in bold:

Victim of love, you’re just a victim of love
I could be wrong , but I’m not (echo: but I’m not)
Victim of love, now you’re a victim of love
What kind of love have you got?
What kind of love have you got?
What kind of love have you got?

So: what to make of this, for those who think “p, but I could be wrong” is somehow incoherent in the Moorean way. One thought is that the second part (the “p” part) rejects the first part (”I could be wrong”). Maybe, but seems wrong. It is a repeated chorus, so seems naturally understood to repeat a frame of mind, not a position abandoned along the way. So, though not an obvious misinterpretation, a bit strained. And nothing jarring here about the juxtaposition: I’ve heard this song since teen years, long before infected with philosophical vocabulary and never was flummoxed. Bet you weren’t either. Yes?
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Fabrizio Cariani, Marc Pauly & Josh Snyder, “Decision Framing in Judgment Aggregation” from Synthese
Thomas Forster, “The Iterative Conception of Set” from the Review of Symbolic Logic
Tamar Szabó Gendler, “Alief and Belief” from the Journal of Philosophy
Daniel Jacobson, “Utilitarianism without Consequentialism: The Case of John Stuart Mill” from the Philosophical Review
Penelope Maddy, “How Applied Mathematics Became Pure” from the Review of Symbolic Logic
Cheryl Misak, “Experience, Narrative and Ethical Deliberation” from Ethics
Agustin Rayo, “Vague Representation” from Mind
Mark Schroeder, “How Expressivists Can and Should Solve their Problems with Negation” from Noûs
Michael G. Titelbaum, “The Relevance of Self-Locating Beliefs” from the Philosophical Review
Kai von Fintel & Anthony S. Gillies, “CIA Leaks” from the Philosophical Review

Editors: Patrick Grim, Nate Charlow, Ian C. Flora, Lina Jansson

Nominating Editors: Jason McKenzie Alexander, JC Beall, Ned Block, Tyler Burge, David Chalmers, Vere Chappell, David Christensen, Gregory Currie, David Danks, Keith DeRose, Michael Dickson, Adam Elga, Brandon Fitelson, Owen Flanagan, Marilyn Friedman, Alan Hajek, Ned Hall, Allen Hazen, Benj Hellie, Christopher Hitchcock, Tom Kelly, Joshua Knobe, Dan Korman, Jonathan L. Kvanvig, Brian Leiter, Martin Lin, Peter Ludlow, Ishani Maitra, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Sean Nichols, Daniel Nolan, Derek Pereboom, Jim Pryor, Greg Restall, Geoff Sayre-McCord, Richard Scheines, Mark Schroeder, Laura Schroeter, Michael Slote, J. Howard Sobel, Roy Sorensen, Peter Spirtes, Jason Stanley, Johan van Benthem, Mark van Roojen, Achille Varzi, Peter B. M. Vranas, Caroline West, Sam Wheeler, Jessica Wilson, Jim Woodward