New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

Report on workshop - Empirically-informed philosophy of logic

Last week I organized a workshop with the lengthy title 'From cognitive science and psychology to an empirically-informed philosophy of logic' (more like an abstract, really). I have written on the general approach before here at New APPS, and it then generated quite some interest. Since I had to write a report for the sponsors anyway, I thought I might as well post the report here too, in case anyone is interested. So here it is!

On December 7^th-9^th 2010, the workshop ‘From cognitive science and psychology to an empirically-informed philosophy of logic’ took place in Amsterdam. The goal was to bring together logicians, philosophers, psychologists and cognitive scientists to discuss the interface between cognitive science and psychology, on the one hand, and the philosophy of logic on the other hand. More specifically, the goal was to investigate the extent to which (if at all), and in what ways, experimental results from these fields may contribute to the formulation of an empirically-informed philosophy of logic, one that takes into account how human agents, logicians and non-logicians alike, in fact reason.

Leigh Van Valen, evolutionary theorist (1935-2010)

Leigh Van Valen, who was one of the great, imposing presences at the Conceptual Foundations of Science meetings at The University of Chicago, pased away. He would be a disheveled presence with a tennisband holding his overflowing hair barely in place. At colloquia he would often (unintentionally, I think) bewilder famous invited speakers by asking profound questions from left field (often dropping a few minor premises along the way). My favorite lines in a recent obituary is this: "Considered unconventional even by eccentrics, Van Valen had a wide range of interests, spanning the history of all life forms. “I don’t work linearly,” he explained in a note to his department chair."

Anyway, I quote a few paragraphs from the obituary that give one pause about the nature of higher education.

De Waal on "Morals without God?"

Frans De Waal has a post on The Stone blog of the NYT on primate behavior and human morality entitled "Morals without God?"

We read De Waal's Primates and Philosophers (which includes comments by Robert Wright, Christine Korsgaard, Philip Kitcher, and Peter Singer), in the course on Evolution and Biology of Morality I've offered the last few years. Here are notes and study questions on Primates and Philosophers, as well as notes on MIchael Tomasello's Why We Cooperate, which has some brief, technical criticism of De Waal's work.