Jobs: LMU Munich

The  Chair of Philosophy of Science (Professor Stephan Hartmann) at the Faculty of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and Study of Religion and the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP) at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU) seek applications for the following positions:

1. Three Assistant Professorships

2. Six Postdoctoral Fellowships 

3. Six Doctoral Fellowships

Deadline: July 18, 2012

Starting date: October 1, 2012 (or later)

The Chair of Philosophy of Science focuses on general philosophy of science and the philosophy of the natural and social sciences. We are especially interested in conducting joint research projects with colleagues from other faculties at LMU and elsewhere. 

The MCMP is devoted to applications of logical, mathematical, and computational methods in philosophy. It was established in 2010 and is generously supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through two Alexander von Humboldt professorships. Directed by Professor Stephan Hartmann and  Professor Hannes Leitgeb, who founded the MCMP, the MCMP hosts a vibrant research community of university faculty, postdoctoral fellows, doctoral fellows, master students, and visiting fellows. The MCMP organizes at least two weekly colloquia and a weekly internal work in-progress seminar, as well as various other activities such as workshops, conferences, and reading groups. For more information, see

http://www.mcmp.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/index.html

The official language at the Chair and at the MCMP is English and fluency in German is not mandatory. 

We especially encourage female scholars to apply. The LMU in general, and the Chair of Philosophy of Science and the MCMP in particular, endeavor to raise the percentage of women among its academic personnel. Furthermore, given equal qualification, severely physically challenged individuals will be preferred.

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1. Three Assistant Professorships

Candidates are expected to have the following areas of specialization. Position 1: Philosophy of science with an emphasis in the philosophy of physics. Position 2: Philosophy of science with an emphasis in the philosophy of psychology and/or the social sciences and/or economics. Position 3: Modeling and simulation in philosophy. The areas of competence are open.

The positions are for three years with the possibility of extension. The appointment will be made within the German A13 salary scheme (under the assumption that the civil service requirements are met), which means that one has the rights and perks of a civil servant. The starting date is October 1, 2012, but a later starting date is also possible. (Please let us know if you wish to start at a later date.)

The appointee will be expected (i) to do philosophical research in the specified AOS and lead the respective group, (ii) to teach five hours a week in philosophy of science and/or a related field, and (iii) to take on management tasks. The successful candidate will have a PhD in philosophy and teaching experience in philosophy.

Applications (including a cover letter that addresses, amongst others, one's academic background and research interests, CV, certificates, list of publications, a sample of written work, and a 3-page description of planned research projects) should be sent to

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Fakultät für Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Religionswissenschaft
Geschäftsstelle - Hauspost Fach 41
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
80539 München
Germany
E-Mail: alexander.nawrath@lrz.uni-muenchen.de

by July 18, 2012. Please indicate for which of the three position you apply and let us know whether or not you are also considering a Postdoctoral Fellowship (see below). Applications by email are much preferred (ideally with everything requested in one PDF document). Additionally, two confidential letters of reference addressing the applicant's qualifications for academic research should be sent to the same address from the referees directly.

Contact for informal inquiries: Professor Stephan Hartmann (S.Hartmann@gmail.com)

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2. Six Postdoctoral Fellowships 

The successful candidates will partake in all of MCMP's academic activities and enjoy its administrative facilities and financial support. In this round of advertisements, we are especially interested in candidates who work in the following areas: general philosophy of science (formal and non-formal), philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of economics, formal epistemology, social epistemology (formal and non-formal), individual and collective decision theory, modeling and simulation in philosophy, and experimental philosophy, but we are also open to candidates who apply formal methods in metaphysics, moral and political philosophy or any other part of philosophy.

The fellowships are open for candidates with a PhD in philosophy as well as for candidates with a PhD in a natural or social science who have foundational and/or methodological research interests (please explain in the letter). The postdoctoral stipends are for three years, and they should be taken up by October 1, 2012, but a later starting date is also possible. (Please let us know if you wish to start at a later date.) Each stipend will amount to EUR 2400 of monthly salary (normally tax-free, but excluding insurance). Additionally, the MCMP helps its fellows with the costs that arise from attending conferences (fees, traveling, accommodation). There is the possibility, though no obligation, to do some teaching in either English or German.

Applications (including a cover letter that addresses, amongst others, one's academic background and research interests, CV, certificates, list of publications, a sample of written work, and a 3-page description of a planned research project) should be sent to

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Fakultät für Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Religionswissenschaft
Geschäftsstelle - Hauspost Fach 41
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
80539 München
Germany
E-Mail: alexander.nawrath@lrz.uni-muenchen.de

by July 18, 2012. Applications by email are much preferred (ideally with everything requested in one PDF document). Additionally, two confidential letters of reference addressing the applicant's qualifications for academic research should be sent to the same address from the referees directly.

Contact for informal inquiries: Professor Stephan Hartmann (S.Hartmann@gmail.com)

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3. Six Doctoral Fellowships 

The successful candidates will partake in all of MCMP's academic activities and enjoy its administrative facilities and financial support. In this round of advertisements, we are especially interested in candidates who work in the following areas: general philosophy of science (formal and non-formal), philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of economics, formal epistemology, social epistemology (formal and non-formal), individual and collective decision theory, modeling and simulation in philosophy, and experimental philosophy, but we are also open to candidates who apply formal methods in metaphysics, moral and political philosophy or any other part of philosophy.

The fellowships are open for candidates with a master degree in philosophy as well as for candidates with a master degree in a natural or social science who have foundational and/or methodological research interests (please explain in the letter).The doctoral stipends are for three years at the end of which the fellows are expected to have finished their PhD thesis. The fellowships should be taken up by October 1, 2012, but a later starting date is also possible. (Please let us know if you wish to start at a later date.) Each stipend will amount to EUR 1500 of monthly salary (normally tax-free, but excluding insurance). Additionally, the MCMP helps its fellows with the costs that arise from attending conferences (fees, traveling, accommodation). 

Applications (including a cover letter that addresses, amongst others, one's academic background and research interests, CV, certificates, list of publications, a sample of written work, and a 3-page description of a planned research project) should be sent to

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Fakultät für Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Religionswissenschaft
Geschäftsstelle - Hauspost Fach 41
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
80539 München
Germany
E-Mail: alexander.nawrath@lrz.uni-muenchen.de

by July 18, 2012. Applications by email are much preferred (ideally with everything requested in one PDF document). Additionally, two confidential letters of reference addressing the applicant's qualifications for doctoral research should be sent to the same address from the referees directly.

Contact for informal inquiries: Professor Stephan Hartmann (S.Hartmann@gmail.com)

CfP: Philosophy & Theory in Biology Young Investigators Symposium

Theorists have long probed, and often crossed, the boundaries between biology and philosophy through conceptual reflection, mathematical modeling, and the analysis of complex empirical patterns. 


From Aristotle to Darwin and beyond the growth of biological theory has gone hand-in-hand with philosophical inquiry into biological phenomena. The work done at these frontiers by theoretically-minded biologists and scientifically-informed philosophers is of mutual benefit to both disciplines. 


These frontiers are often most evident in the next generation of researchers who are open to new possibilities and aware of novel perspectives or innovative tools. We therefore invite the emerging next generation of theorists to catalyze this dialogue with a symposium in New York City, one of the nation’s thriving centers of research in both biology and philosophy of biology, to be held on April 12-14, 2013 at Lehman College, part of the City University of New York. 


Attendance is open to all, but we accept papers by young investigators in theoretical biology or philosophy of biology, defined as graduate students, postdocs, or non-tenured faculty. Information, registration and instructions to submit papers can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/philobiosymposium/

Postdocs: Philosophy of Cosmology (Rutgers)

The School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University is pleased to announce the availability pending funding (to be determined soon) of three postdoctoral fellowships in philosophy of cosmology. Fellows will be appointed in the Department of Philosophy in association with the multi-university  Project in Philosophy of Cosmology.  We hope to appoint one fellow in each of the following areas of concentration: 1) philosophy of physics, 2) cosmology, 3) philosophy of religion, metaphysics or philosophical theology.  For more information about the kinds of research that could be supported under these fellowships, please see the summaries of current project members’ research interests and aims here: http://philocosmology.rutgers.edu/who-we-are.  

Requirements for the fellowship include i) PhD in the last 5 years in a relevant area, ii) acquaintance with recent developments in cosmology and issues in philosophy of cosmology, iii) a research project related to the research of the Philosophy of Cosmology Project, iv) strong background in one of the three fields mentioned above.

The primary responsibility of a Fellow will be to conduct research on his/her project.  Fellows will also be responsible for teaching one course per year in their area of expertise. Fellows will be expected to participate in all of our conferences, seminars, and a summer school in the summer of 2013; they will work with faculty mentors in the organization, planning, editing and the other aspects of our project.

Fellows will be appointed for one year with the possibility of renewal for a second year. Appointments will be effective September 1, 2012 or January 1, 2013. Fellows will receive a stipend of $50,000 annually as well as an annual research allocation of $2,000; they will also receive Rutgers University health benefits. 

Requests for more informantion or applications, consisting of a CV, a research proposal, a writing sample, and the names of 3 references should be sent by email to Professor Barry Loewer at loewer@rci.rutgers.edu.  Review of applications will commence on July 8 and continue until the positions are filled.

Rutgers University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. The institution values diversity in its faculty, staff, and students and especially encourages applications from women and underrepresented minorities.

Between scientists and citizens, part II

by Massimo Pigliucci

[Second and last post concerning the proceedings of a conference organized by the Science Communication Project at Iowa State University, entitled Between Scientists and Citizens: Assessing Expertise in Policy Controversies. Part I is here.]

Second day, the first talk I attended was “Stephen Jay Gould and McClean v. Arkansas,” by Myma Perez (Harvard). There has been a long history of scientists engaging in public debates about public understanding of science, going back to the famous one between T.H. Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce. Gould’s contribution to the 1981 McLean v. Arkansas case centered on not one, but three different identities as an expert that he wore: as a biologist, as a science popularizer, and as a historian of science.

Gould always claimed that his professional and public works were part of the same sphere of activity, but it was often the case that he was under pressure in both cases, though from different quarters (some of his colleagues objected to his conceptual work in evolutionary biology; creationists objected to his public writings about Darwin and evolution).

Somewhat typically, Gould was so confident of a positive outcome for the trial that he submitted an op-ed piece about it to the New York Times before Judge Overton ruling was actually made public. (Turns out, he was correct.) Gould also explicitly and repeatedly compared the McLean trial to the famous 1925 Scopes trial, even though the former — at least initially — had none of the social and public impact of the latter. The author suggests that it was Gould’s forceful comparison between the two that helped raising public awareness and interest in the McLean case.

Gould increasingly saw his involvement as a call to harms for their colleagues, who had been sleeping at the helm, so to speak, and were not aware of the dangers posed to science by the creationist movement. The creationist debate eventually made it much less controversial for evolutionary biologists to be socially and politically involved — unlike the much more bruising fight over sociobiology of just a few years earlier, in which of course Gould had also played a dominant role.

The second talk of the morning was “Examples, illustrations, inductions, anecdotes... Are they essentially different?” by Dale Hample (University of Maryland). Examples can be understood as based on a simple premise leading to a straightforward conclusion: the premise is that a given instance of X has certain properties, therefore (conclusion) a second instance Y, relevantly similar to X, will have the same properties as X. So examples work as a type of induction from particular to particular. Illustrations, instead, merely strengthen adherence to an already established or accepted rule. As for induction, according to the author it “merely” multiplies examples.

The case of analogies is more complex: A is to B as C is to D means that we are using the first relationship as an example that indicates what the second relationship is. So, in examples it is the two things that resemble each other; in the case of analogies, it is the relationship between two things that is analogous to the relationship between two other things.

There is a variety of other cases, which however can be reduced to the previous categories: precedents are examples expressed legally; anecdotes are interesting or entertaining examples; narratives are long anecdotes; and personal testimony is an example featuring yourself.

A set of questions can then be asked when an argument deploys any of the above mentioned approaches. For instance: does the example cited support the generalization it is supposed to be an instance of? Or, Do special circumstances of the example impair its generalizability? And so on.

Finally for the morning we had “Public understanding of climate science and the ethics of expertise,” by Ben Almassi (College of Lake County). Surveys show that both believers and non believers in climate change seem to think that their own assessment of the evidence is their primary reason for believing / not believing — which seems somewhat presumptuous, given that most people are not experts in atmospheric physics.

The author suggests that progress depends on a better understanding of the relationship of trust between public and experts. Rational trust requires good grounds for confidence that another has good will toward us (he will not harm us). Trust is an affective attitude of optimism. Trust is not mere reliance on another (reliance does not involve an affective dimension), and of course is opposed to distrust (where there is a negative affective dimension).

The author presented a detailed analysis of a somewhat unethical defense by the Marshal Institute (an anti-climate change think tank), which represents a clear betrayal of trust of their readership. Almassi concluded with considerations about the ethics of expertise, particularly as it concerns evidentially grounded and morally healthy public trust on climate change.

Last session, first talk: “A pragmatic paradox inherent in expert reports addressed to lay citizens,” by Fred Kauffeld (Edgewood College). According to John Dewey a government by experts in which the masses do not have a chance to inform the experts leads to an oligarchy in the interest of the few. “The essential need, in other words, is the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion.” That was, for Dewey, the problem of the public.

The author suggests a pragmatic approach in which reports from experts can be designed to enable critical and responsible appropriation by autonomous citizens. (This is complementary to the standard approach from the perspective of lay citizens, attempting to equip them with critical questions which they can utilize in evaluating statements by experts.)

Reporting characteristically involves an authorization relating two or more parties. In its simplest structure, reporting involves some party which authorizes and ultimately receives the report; and some other party who are authorized to investigate some matter and provide the first party with a statement of the results. The structure involves a relationship of trust between the two parties.

A good example, according to the author, is the report commissioned by Miller Brewing Co. in 1983 on the attitudes of Americans toward sports. Another good example is a April 19, 2012 report by National Public Radio on “Should we kill the dollar bill?” The latter report in particular presents the issue clearly, provides arguments from both sides, and draws a conclusion based on both expert testimony and accumulated empirical evidence.

[Yes, but it is hard to imagine how this could be done with technical scientific issues like vaccines, or climate change.]

The next and last talk was “What is ‘responsible advocacy’ in science? Good advice,” by Jean Goodwin (Iowa State, one of the organizers of the conference). The author addressed the question of whether it is appropriate for scientists to engage in advocacy. Pro: science is inherently value laden anyway; scientists are citizens, so they have a right / duty to advocate; if scientists don’t do it, who will? Con: advocacy imperils scientists’ objectivity; it corrupts the scientific process; scientists are then perceived as being motivated by personal interests, which will undermine their credibility.

Scientists shouldn’t just engage in advocacy, but in responsible advocacy, which includes relying only on the best peer reviewed papers, as well as being willing to publicly change their mind if the data requires it. The author looked at norms for responsible advocacy within the law community, which after all is visibly in the business of advocacy. The American Bar Association says that attorneys should represent their clients “zealously, within the bounds of the law.” A zealous advocate makes the strongest possible case on behalf of their cause. This may lead to situations in which advocates do not personally endorse what they say as their own best judgment.

The problem is that scientists wouldn’t be advocating zealously if they started discussing caveats, counter-examples, etc. In other words, if they were presenting an honest case rather than one based on the principle of zealous (as distinct from responsible) advocacy. However, there are reasons to believe that responsible advocacy is not efficacious, and may in fact undermine the cause one is advocating. The author concludes that the best role for scientists is not that of advocates, but of advisors. This allows them to provide the best available data, reveal uncertainties and margins of errors, and acknowledge counter-considerations.

[Well, this sounds good indeed, though I do wander how practical such a sharp distinction between advocacy and advising is going to be.]

Between scientists and citizens, part I

I’m at a conference organized by the Science Communication Project at Iowa State University, entitled Between Scientists and Citizens: Assessing Expertise in Policy Controversies. I will be blogging from some of the sessions, to give you a flavor of what the conference is about (there are four parallel sessions, and unfortunately I haven’t developed the ability to be in multiple places simultaneously — working on it, though!). I will be giving one of two keynote talks at the conference (my title: Nonsense on stilts about science, field adventures of a scientist-philosopher — I will post it over at PlatoFootnote soon).

So let’s get started with Deserai Crow and Richard Stevens (University of Colorado-Boulder) on “Framing science: The influence of expertise and ambiguity in media coverage.” Recent studies suggest that Americans are increasingly interested in but also increasingly uninformed about science. They naturally get their science information largely from the media, and media organizations treat science coverage as a niche or beat subject. Interestingly, only about 3% of journalists covering science actually have a science or math background, while most major in communication fields.

Expertise is often thought of in terms of skills, but within the context of science communication it really refers to authority and credibility. Expertise is communicated at least in part through the use of jargon, with which of course most journalists are not familiar. Jargon provides an air of authority, but at the same time the concepts referred to become inaccessible to non-specialists. Interestingly, journalists prefer sources that limit the use of jargon, but they themselves deploy jargon to demonstrate scientific proficiency.

The authors suggest that there are two publics for science communication, one that is liberal, educated and with a number of resources at its disposals; the other with less predictable and less-formed opinions. The authors explored empirically (via a survey of 108 Colorado citizens) the responses of liberal and educated people to scientific jargon by exposing them to two “treatments”: jargon-laden vs lay terminology news articles. The results found that scientists were considered the most credible sources in the specific area of environmental science (94.3% agreed), followed by activists (61.1%). The least credible were industry representatives, clergy and celebrities. (Remember, this is among liberal educated people.) Interestingly, the use of jargon per se did not increase acceptance of the news source or of the content of the story. So the presence of scientific expertise is important, not so the presence of actual scientific details in the story.

It is highly unfortunate that Crow and Stevens didn’t present the same survey on the second type of public they identified in their preliminary results. Apparently that part of the study is being carried out now.

The next talk I attended was “Reason, values and evidence: Rational dissent from scientific expertise,” by Bruce Glymour and Scott Tanona (Kansas State University). Widespread public rejection of scientific consensus in the US is often declared to be “irrational” (for instance in books by Chris Mooney). But in fact sometimes rejection of scientific claims is not irrational. Science denial can be a rational response to information which, if accepted, would induce a conflict in core values. The idea is that values underwrite all notions of rationality, but there is no theory of rationality to decide fundamental values. Indeed, trust in logic, rational choice and science can themselves be understood as values.

Consider a decision of whether to carry an umbrella with you given a certain probability of rain. Different people will fill the corresponding decision matrix differently (depending, for instance, on how much they dislike carrying umbrellas around, or getting wet, and so on). It’s not at all the case that there is one rational way to construct the matrix.

Or take logic itself. It is well known that there are situations in which different types of logic do not fare very well (propositional logic, for instance, doesn’t deal well with Sorites paradoxes). And of course there are a variety of types of logic, and it makes no sense to ask which one is the best. It depends on what you wish to use it for.

Same goes for the scientific method. There is no complete account of the scientific method, and again one can choose certain methods rather than others, depending on what one is trying to accomplish (a choice that is itself informed by one’s values). And of course the Duhem-Quine thesis shows that there is no straightforward way to falsify scientific theories (contra Popper).

If there were supernatural causes that interact with (or override) the causes being studied by science, but are themselves undiscoverable, this would lead to false conclusions and bad predictions. Which means that the truth is discoverable empirically only if such supernatural causes are not active. Science cannot answer the question of whether such factors are present, which raises the question of whether we ought to proceed as if they were not (i.e., methodological naturalism).

Is methodological naturalism wishful thinking (since it is not empirically verifiable)? If one’s primary goal is to discover truths about the world that support reliable predictions, than methodological naturalism is rational. But it can be rational to believe without evidence, or even against the evidence, again depending on what your goals are.

The best theories of rationality are instrumental. No theory prescribes core values and goals, but theories can give prescriptions for reaching goals. Such theories include instrumental values. What happens often — both in the case of science and in that of moral dilemmas — is that one’s several values come into conflict. A typical response is to deny the facts, which satisfies yet another value, the desire not to prioritize between values.

Authors suggest that the best one can do is to engage in an exercise of reflective equilibrium, which however itself cannot tell you which values are more important than others.

The last talk of the first morning was about “Expertise, equivocation, and eugenics,” by John Jackson (University of Colorado-Boulder). The author began by pointing out that historians of science are frustrated by the kind of abstract and formalized models of science developed by philosophers; the latter, however, are frustrated by historians’ detailed contextualization of science that seems to miss the general picture. He asked whether rhetorical argumentation or informal logic can provide a way to bridge the two.

Consider the terms “fit” and “fitness” in evolutionary biology. T.H. Huxley famously gave a technical definition of fitness within the theory of natural selection, though the term was borrowed from previous informal usage in lay language, where it means to be in good physical or mental shape. For eugenicists, the problem was of the survival of the unfit, so to speak, which of course would be oxymoronic if one uses the term “fit” in the technical sense. According to eugenicist Arthur Balfour, “the feeble-minded” were getting better adapted to their (social) environment, and that had to be changed by government intervention.

The author suggests that from a philosophical standpoint the problem here is simply caused by a fallacy of equivocation, switching back and forth between the technical and the vernacular meanings of “fit.” Charles Reed, another eugenicist, was also equivocating, using the term “fit” in the scientific sense when explaining the problem (claiming the mantle of Darwin for the cause), but switching to the vernacular sense when proposing social policies (to generate certain political and social overtones).

But from a historian’s perspective, eugenics was a scientific research program, a social movement, and a legislative agenda, all rolled into one. For eugenicists the political order was a product of biological race, so that to speak of political institutions was to speak of heredity and vice versa. By the end of the talk, however, I felt like more development of the idea of reconciling the philosophical and historical accounts was needed.

And so we get to the afternoon session, beginning with “The ambiguous relationship between expertise and authority,” by Moira Kloster (University of the Fraser Valley). [Unfortunately, this talk was without slides, and since it was after lunch, I paid less attention to what the speaker was saying...] The author talked about a class she teaches where students enact different roles related to expertise and authority (e.g., a doctor who advises about a cataract operation, a friend who has actually gone through such operation, etc.). The point of the exercise was to explore the idea that expert advise is insufficient to reach a decision unless one has also had occasion to reflect on what one values about the problem concerning which the expert is giving advice.

The author asks whether, for instance, a nutritionist — qua expert — has the ability to enforce a better diet in a number of particular situations. The answer is no: in a hospital context, things would also depend  on, for instance, the costs associated with different recommendations; in a political context (e.g., about vending machines in schools) there will be issues of cost as well as public reaction and so forth. So the expert’s authority will need to be negotiated in a broader context than just his particular area of expertise.

The suggestion is to bring in a different kind of expert, similar to a business coach (who does not have expertise in business, but coaches CEOs about decision making and communication). This would be, then, an individual whose role would be to advice people on how to make decisions, including taking into consideration the advice of experts.

Final talk of the day (well, before my keynote): “The ethos of expertise: How social conservatives use scientific rhetoric,” by Jamie McAfee (Iowa State). The paper [no slides!] focused on James Dobson’s Focus on the Family organization. Dobson is apparently well known for the use of “therapeutic rhetoric” as a base from which to articulate a conservative worldview.

The author based his analysis of Dobson’s influence on cultural theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffle’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy as well as on Harry Collins and Robert Evans’ Re-Thinking Expertise, which attempts to describe legitimate expertise and categorizes different kinds of expertise. [I must admit that I am deeply skeptical of Collins’ work, which I find at times bordering on incoherence, like much radical sociology of science. I’m not too keen on post-modern cultural theorizing either, but I have not read Laclau and Mouffle.]

All in all, McAfee claims that Dobson has turned his “expertise” (as a therapist) into political capital, and has given himself permission to explicitly import his ideology (fundamentalist Christianity) into his role as an expert. [Yes, though we may begin by questioning in what sense Dobson is an expert on anything at all, but that would require us to step outside the postmodern / radical sociology framework.]

Well, that’s all for the first day, folks. Part II and conclusion coming soon...