The project Intuitions in Science and Philosophy hires
- 2 postdocs and
- 1 PhD student.
Application deadline: 01/11/2015.
The Sapere Aude project Intuitions in Science and Philosophy, funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research and led by Samuel Schindler, will investigate the role and nature of intuitive judgements in science and philosophy. Whereas intuitive judgements in philosophy have been much debated in recent years, little attention has been paid to intuitive judgments in science. This is where the project will step in. In particular, it will investigate intuitive judgements in thought experiments in physics and in the form of acceptability judgements in linguistics. The results of these investigations will be related to debates about the evidential function of intuitive judgements in philosophy.
The project will cooperate with several renowned scholars in the field and organize two major conferences and a workshop. Each of the project members will be able to visit the project’s cooperation partners abroad. The starting date is negotiable. The project duration is four years. The tasks of the team members will be roughly as follows:
Postdoc position 1 (2 years): “Justifying intuitive judgments”. Together with the PI of the project, the postdoc will, amongst other things, conduct qualitative and quantitative surveys. Knowledge of statistics, experimental design and/or experimental philosophy would be an advantage, but is not required.
Postdoc position 2 (2 years): “Histories of thought experiments”. In a set of extended historical case studies the postdoc will investigate the role intuitive judgments in thought experiments have played in theory choice. The applicant can be a philosopher, but should have strong interests and competences in the history of science (and ideally, physics).
PhD student (3 years): “Justifying intuitive judgements in linguistics”. The PhD student will inquire into the justification of the use of acceptability judgements in linguistics. For that purpose, the student (trained in philosophy or linguistics) will, amongst other things, conduct qualitative and quantitative surveys. Knowledge of statistics, experimental design and/or linguistics would be an advantage, but is not required.
The project will be located at the Centre for Science Studies at the Department of Mathematics and associated with the Department of Philosophy at Aarhus University. The project members are expected to move to Aarhus. The project language is English. Also teaching in English is possible.
For further information and questions contact Samuel Schindler (sks@css.au.dk) or visit http://projects.au.dk/
