Quantcast
Channel: Honest Toil
Browsing all 35 articles
Browse latest View live

Why I Will Not Boycott Synthese

Yesterday Brian Leiter posted a long entry on his blog discussing the dispute surrounding a special issue of Synthese on "Evolution and Its Rivals". Leiter mentions several concerns, and I encourage...

View Article



Periodical Cicadas Invade Missouri!

Those interested in mathematical explanations of physical phenomena should take note: May 15th is the predicted date for the emergence of swarms of the "Great Southern Brood" of cicadas, whose life...

View Article

Group Selection Explains "Why We Celebrate a Killing"?

In an otherwise thoughtful piece in the New York Times on the reactions to Bin Laden's killing, Jonathan Haidt throws in a weird flourishThere’s the lower level at which individuals compete...

View Article

Babies are Bayesians?

From the abstract of a recent paper in Science:When 12-month-old infants view complex displays of multiple moving objects, they form time-varying expectations about future events that are a systematic...

View Article

Revised SEP Entry: Mathematical Explanation

The Stanford Encyclopedia Entry on "Mathematical Explanation" has just been updated and revised. Thanks to Paolo Mancosu for this important resource!

View Article


The unplanned impact of mathematics (Nature)

Peter Rowlett has assembled, with some other historians of mathematics, seven accessible examples of how theoretical work in mathematics led to unexpected practical applications. His discussion seems...

View Article

Classic Mr. Show: 24 is the highest number

Some inspiration to start the semester:

View Article

Mathematics and Scientific Representation book cover

My book Mathematics and Scientific Representation will soon be released. Here is the recently unveiled book cover: More substantial discussions of the book's contents will be added here soon!

View Article


Mathematics and Scientific Representation now available for Google preview

Despite not actually being in print, my forthcoming book can now be previewed on Google books here.

View Article


Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy: Update

About a year ago I posted an announcement of the launch of a new, open-access, peer-reviewed journal devoted to the history of analytic philosophy. I am pleased to report that 2 articles and 1...

View Article

Babies are Newtonians?

Following an earlier post noting the apparent Bayesian tendencies of babies, we now have word for fellow University of Missouri professor Kristy vanMarle that babies have innate knowledge of Newtonian...

View Article

How Widely Known is Broad's Anticipation of Jackson's Knowledge Argument?

As part of my seminar on emergence and reduction we spent two weeks reviewing the classic discussions of Mill and Broad, along with McLaughlin's helpful paper "The Rise and Fall of British...

View Article

Ian Stewart on Black-Scholes

The influential mathematician and writer Ian Stewart has a short article in a recent Guardian that considers the idea that the Black-Scholes model of option pricing contributed to the financial...

View Article


Bursten Against "Mathturbation"

Over at Reaction Crate, Julia Bursten has a strong (and somewhat humorous) take on the role of what she calls "mathturbation" in the philosophy of physics. This seems to be the practice of deploying...

View Article

"In Stock"

After a bit of a delay, I am happy to announce that my book is now in stock on the Oxford University USA page. Hopefully sales will soon be possible on Amazon and other online retailers as well!

View Article


Vincent on Mander on British Idealism

Andrew Vincent provides a positive and helpful overview of Mander's recent book, British Idealism: A History. Based on Vincent's summary, it appears that Mander supports the claim that early analytic...

View Article

New Book: Mancosu, The Adventure of Reason

While it came out in 2010, some of the readers of this blog may still not be aware of this important collection of Mancosu's articles on the interactions between logic and philosophy in the 1900-1940...

View Article


Conference: Society for the Study of the History of Analytical Philosophy

From May 24-26 at McMaster University, the first annual conference of the Society for the Study of the History of Analytical Philosophy will be held. The keynote speakers are Michael Friedman, Paolo...

View Article

Preview of Special Issue from Models and Simulations 4

Most of the papers from the special issue of Synthese that I co-edited with Marion Vorms are now online. These papers represent a selection from the Models and Simulations 4 conference. Thanks to my...

View Article

New Book: Colyvan, Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics

Readers of this blog will be happy to see in print Mark Colyvan's An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics (Cambridge) (Amazon, Google). I have not had a chance to read it yet, but the table of...

View Article
Browsing all 35 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images