LoPSE

Probably you all know about the new research group at Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat in Munich ( Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy ). More info about the group can be found in the most recent volume of The Reasoner  (vol 5 no 4, April 2011).  What you might not know yet is that the group started a new blog, M-Phi . (The administrators kindly invited me to contribute - since I might have hard time matching the high level of contributions it might take a while before I actually post anything there).

Some time ago I mentioned a conference on ontological proofs. Now, their website is up and running. (submission deadline: April 30).

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Calgary invites applications for a one-year postdoctoral fellowship starting on September 1, 2011. The area of specialization is logic or the philosophy of science. The fellow will be expected to have a well-defined research project, teach one course in the area of specialization, and participate in the research activities of the Department. All requirements for the PhD must have been completed by the starting date and no earlier than September 2007. The stipend is $50,000 Canadian per year. Applications will be accepted until April 15, 2011 or until the position is filled. Details .

I have posted a draft of the TE paper online now (the title is the same as the title of this post). Here . Abstract.  Brown (1991a,b, 2004, 2008) and Bishop (1999) argue that thought experiments (TE) in science  cannot be arguments and cannot  even be represented by arguments. They rest their case on examples of TEs which either proceed through a contradiction to each a positive resolution (Brown calls such  TEs "platonic") or are used by different people with opposite results. This, supposedly, makes it impossible to represent them as arguments for logical reasons: there is no logic that can adequately model such phenomena. (Brown further argues that this being the case, "platonic" TEs provide us with irreducible insight into the abstract realm of laws of nature). I argue against  this approach by describing how "platonic" TEs can be modeled within the logical framework of adaptive proofs for prioritized consequence operations. To show how this mundane a