Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

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

Ernst Specker died on December 10, in Zurich.  He is most well-known for his work on Quine’s New Foundations and the Kochen-Specker Theorem in quantum mechanics. He made significant contributions to many other areas of logic, as well as algebra, topology, and combinatorics. Specker’s MacTutor biography.

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Two interesting new entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia: Philosophy of Linguistics, by Barbara C. Scholz, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, and Geoffrey K. Pullum Montague Semantics, by Theo M. V. Janssen

The first annual conference of the Society for the Study of the History of Analytical Philosophy will be held at McMaster University, Hamilton (Canada) 24-26 May 2012. Invited Speakers Michael Friedman (Stanford University)Paolo Mancosu (University of California, Berkeley)Thomas Uebel (University of Manchester) Canadian Student Presenters Travel Bursaries SSHAP will be offering up to 10 travel…