Category Archives: Uncategorized

I recently published a fun little pedagogical essay on using Monty Python’s “Argument Clinic” sketch to introduce students to arguments, in the philosophical sense. I first learned of this sketch in graduate school from Ben Rin. Ever since, I have deployed it in teaching introductory logic, but it would also be wonderful for any introductory philosophy course that has a unit on arguments and argumentation. If you teach philosophy, aspire to, or wonder what it would be like, watch the clip first and imagine how you would use it.

When & Where?

• September 20–21, 2019
• 215 Humphrey (Wilkins Room), University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
• Registration is free.
• Workshop dinner at 7 PM, Sept. 20, at Republic. Cost is $30 for graduate students and $40 for non-student workshop attendees. Registrants who indicate an interest in attending the dinner will receive information via email regarding payment methods.

What & How?

Who? (Speakers)

More on When (Program)

Friday, 20 September 2019

Saturday, 21 September 2019

Continue reading →

Ever wonder where you can read or here about what I’ve been recently pondering? No? Well, now you can here!

Summer Talks!

• Little Shallows in the Depths: Indeterminacy in Quantum Theory (with David E. Taylor) @ Quantum Indeterminacy Workshop (Dartmouth), July 12–13
• The Topology of Intertheoretic Reduction @ BSPS 2019 (Durham), July 17–19
• The Topology of Intertheoretic Reduction @ CLMPST 2019 (Prague), August 5–10
• The Role of Replication in Psychological Science @ EPSA 2019 (Geneva), September 11–14

Teaching!

You can now download new syllabuses here for Space and Time (F18), Computability and Logic (S19), and my graduate seminar (S19): Physical Perspectives on Computation, Computational Perspectives on Physics.

Research & Writing!

I’ve updated my research and publications pages, the latter with the following. If you can’t access something linked there, let me know: I’ll be happy to send it to you, especially these new ones:

“Extending List’s Levels.” In Marek Kus and Bartłomiej Skowron, eds. Category Theory in Physics, Mathematics, and Philosophy. Springer. (With Neil Dewar and Laurenz Hudetz.)

“Approximate Local Poincaré Spacetime Symmetry in General Relativity,” in Claus Beisbart, Tilman Sauer, and Christian Wüthrich, eds. Thinking about Space and Time. Einstein Studies, vol. 15. Birkhäuser.

“Similarity Structure on Scientific Theories.” In Bartłomiej Skowron, ed. Topological Philosophy. de Gruyter.

“Which Worldlines Represent Possible Particle Histories?” Foundations of Physics. (Check out the published version or a read-only version thereof.)

“On the Reduction of General Relativity to Newtonian Gravitation.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics. (Check out the published version.)

“Counterfactual Reasoning within Physical Theories.” Synthese.  (Check out the published version or a read-only version thereof.)

“On Representational Capacities, with an Application to General Relativity.” Foundations of Physics. (Check out the published version or a read-only version thereof.)

“Evidence Amalgamation in the Sciences: An Introduction. Synthese. (With Jürgen Landes and Roland Poellinger. Check out the published version or a read-only version thereof.)

“Infinite Idealizations in Science: An Introduction.” Synthese 196(5): 1657–1669.  (With Patricia Palacios, Laura Ruetsche, and Elay Shech. Check out the published version or a read-only version thereof.)

“Stopping Rules as Experimental Design.” European Journal for Philosophy of Science 9: 29. (Check out the published version.)

“Global Spacetime Similarity.” Journal of Mathematical Physics 59(11): 112501. (Check out the published version.)

“Computers in Abstraction/Representation Theory.” Minds & Machines: 8(3): 445–463. (Check out the published version, or a read-only version thereof.)

If you had asked me in a survey about my preferences for organizing my sock drawers and updating my website, it would not have revealed the preferences that my actions over the past year have! Instead of a languorous narrative, here are some high points for the concretely minded.

Teaching!

Updated syllabuses available here.

Results!

Check out the updated research and papers publications pages, especially these:

“Minimal Approximations and Norton’s Dome.” 2018. Synthese: forthcoming. (Check out the published version, a read-only version thereof, or a preprint.)

“Would Two Dimensions be World Enough for Spacetime?” 2018. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics: forthcoming. (With J. B. Manchak, Mike D. Schneider, and James Owen Weatherall. Check out the published version or a preprint.)

“Indeterminism, Gravitation, and Spacetime Theory.” 2017. In Gábor Hofer-Szabó and Leszek Wroński, eds. Making It Formally Explicit: Probability, Causality and Indeterminism. Springer, pp. 179–191. (Check out the published version or an pre-copyedited preprint.)

Book!

It’s finally coming out! I’ll be teaching a graduate seminar in Spring, 2019 on my book edited with Mike Cuffaro,  Physical Perspectives on Computation, Computational Perspectives on Physics, due out in May, 2018 with Cambridge University Press. In addition to our introduction, there are twelve commissioned chapters evenly divided among four thematic parts:

1. The Computability of Physical Systems and Physical Systems as Computers
2. The Implementation of Computation in Physical Systems
3. Physical Perspectives on Computer Science
4. Computational Perspectives on Physical Theory

The Past: Fall Semester, 2016

Besides teaching again Scientific Thought, our department’s philosophy of science survey course, I taught as well for the first time a seminar on Space and Time. One notable aspect of the course was the final project format: working in pairs, students had to devise and present their own novel space-time model. Many of my colleagues expressed skepticism that this would be a feasible capstone project, but it was in fact a resounding success! Each of the groups, with my guidance, constructed something genuinely novel and presented on it well. I’ll certainly keep the project when I teach Space and Time again.

In my efforts to be more of a homebody, I only spoke at one conference this semester, the 32nd Boulder Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science, whose topic this year—Gravity: Its History and Philosophy—I couldn’t pass up. It was great to meet up with many friends and colleagues there.

In terms of research work, this semester was a bit more fecund that some past ones (in part for reasons I explore in the next section). I added one more editorial project, another special issue of Synthese on “Infinite Idealizations in Science,” which I am co-editing with Patricia Palacios, Laura Ruetsche, and Elay Shech, with likely publication in 2018. (It’s based in part on the very successful workshop that Patricia and I ran in Munich last summer.) The paper that Ben Feintzeig and I wrote on non-contextual hidden variable theories for quantum mechanics, building on some of Ben’s earlier work, was accepted at Foundations of Physics just before the spring semester started. Lastly, a substantial essay review of Tim Maudlin’s New Foundations for Physical Geometry (2014, OUP) on which I had long been working is now forthcoming at Philosophy of Science. It’s curated from a much longer essay that I will post as soon as its parts begin to find their official homes.

The Present: Spring Semester, 2017

Last semester, the University of Minnesota become an institutional member in the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, an independent professional development program focused on “supporting academics in making successful transitions throughout their careers.” Now, as a perpetually transitioning scholar striving to balance his professional and personal commitments, this support seemed like it could be useful, so in November, I participated in their two-week Writing Challenge. I got a lot done! So, this semester, I’ve signed up for their Faculty Success Program, which is like a faculty boot camp for “increasing your research productivity, getting control of your time, and living a full and healthy life beyond your campus.” I’m only two weeks in (out of twelve) at this point, but I’m already starting to see some changes in my work habits and feelings of balance.

The Future: Summer, 2017, and beyond

At the end of the semester, after the 21st Seven Pines Symposium on “Black Holes in the Spotlight,” I’ll be traveling to Geneva for a week, May 22–29, to visit the Space and Time after Quantum Gravity project run there by Chris Wüthrich. I’ll be giving a talk on a possible new approach to causal set theory’s Hauptvermutung through some theoretical work originally undertaken in the ’90s in computer science concerning digital images. Then I’ll be heading to Munich, where I’ll be based at the MCMP until December 15 thanks to the remainder of my Marie Curie Fellowship and the support of a College of Liberal Arts Faculty Development Leave from the University of Minnesota.

While in Munich, along with Lavinia Picollo, Marianna Antonutti Marfori, and Gil Sagi, I’ll be running the Fourth Summer School on Mathematical Philosophy for Female Students July 30–August 5, whose main lecture streams in philosophy of logic, mathematics, and language will be as follows:

• Semantic Paradoxes and Self-Reference (Roy Cook, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities)
• The Model Theory of Logical and Mathematical Concepts (Juliette Kennedy, University of Helsinki)
• Conditional Sentences and Causal Reasoning (Katrin Schulz, University of Amsterdam)

If you know of any female students interested in these topics, please encourage them to apply! Based on our experiences with the past summer schools, we believe this can really be a formative event.