Category: Uncategorized

We train professional philosophers. Sadly, there aren’t enough philosophy jobs to go around, and it’s hard to pursue a career in philosophy if you can’t move to wherever you find a job.  Fortunately, philosophers have transferable skills that are in high demand. Prospective employers just don’t associate these skills with “Ph.D. in philosophy”.  The challenge…

The ASL Committee in Logic Education organized a thought-provoking session this morning at the APA Central Division in New Orleans.  There were four presentations and a lively discussion.  What are your thoughts? Andy Arana started things off with observations about salient differences between what we do in intro logic classes vs. what, e.g., mathematics departments…

All six of last year’s lectures we had at Calgary’s Turing Year series are now available for you to watch on mathtube.org. Thanks again to PIMS for videotaping, editing, and hosting them!  The full list: John R. Ferris: Alan Turing and Enigma Central to Alan Turing’s posthumous reputation is his work with British codebreaking during the…

The first half of our Alan Turing Centenary lecture series is over, and we’ve got all three of our talks up on mathtube.org.  You can skip the first one, it’s pretty boring, but Mike Williams on early computers and John Ferris on Turing and WWII codebreaking are well worth your time!

It’s Alan Turing’s centenary, and we’ve been celebrating it at the University of Calgary with a series of lectures.  This term, we’ve had a talk on the decision problem, one (by Mike Williams) on Turing and early electronic comupters, and one coming up on March 27, by John Ferris, on Alan Turing and codebreaking in…

Been waiting a while for this to become official, which it now is: we’re hiring. In case you don’t know, the CRC program is Canada’s effort to attract outstanding foreigntalent to Canada. So there is no preference for Canadians, you get atop-up to your salary, and the teaching load is 1-1.  Tier I Canada Research…

Ruth Barcan Marcus died February 19. She was a towering figure in philosophical logic in the latter half of the 20th century.  She initiated the study of quantified modal logic in her 1946 JSL paper, “A functional calculus of first order based on strict implication”.  Facing strong opposition from Quine, who thought quantified modal logic…

We got a 1-year job for you! The Department of Philosophy at the University of Calgary invites applications for a one-year postdoctoral fellowship starting on September 1, 2012. The area of specialization is logic or the philosophy of science. The fellow will be expected to have a well-defined research project, teach up to one course…

The title essay of Quine’s The Ways of Paradox was originally published in the Scientific American 206 (April 1962). Retrodigitized back issues of the Scientific American are now available (for free, it seems) on the website of Nature.  You can now read Quine’s classic essay in its full original glory, complete with neat illustrations such…

Thanks to Daniel Weller