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About

I'm Greg Restall, and this is my website. I work in Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. [Email: greg at consequently.org; Skype: greg_restall; Post: Department of Philosophy, University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, Australia.]

Writing

These are the three last modified entries on my writing page.

“Truthmakers, Entailment and Necessity 2008,” an addendum to “Truthmakers, Entailment and Necessity,” to appear in Truth and Truth-making, edited by E. J. Lowe and A. Rami, Acumen, 2008. →
[with Rebecca Kukla and Mark Lance] Appendix to Rebecca Kukla and Mark Lance ‘Yo!’ and ‘Lo!’: the pragmatic topography of the space of reasons, Harvard University Press, to appear. →
“Curry’s Revenge: the costs of non-classical solutions to the paradoxes of self-reference,” in The Revenge of the Liar, ed. JC Beall, Oxford University Press, pages 262–271, 2008. →
“Anti-Realist Classical Logic and Realist Mathematics,” under revision. →
“Proof Theory and Meaning: on second order logic,” to appear in the Logica 2007 Yearbook, Filosofia. →

Classes

In Semester 2, which starts on July 31, I’ll be teaching an honours seminar 161-438 Logic and Philosophy, in which we cover proof theory and its applications to semantics.

Events

AAL2007: the annual conference of the Australasian Association for Logic, University of Melbourne November 9 to 11, 2007.

Recent Past

University of Melbourne Philosophy Undergraduate Workshop, University of Melbourne September 21 to 23, 2007.

Logic Colloquium 2007, Wrocław, Poland, July 14-19, 2007.

1st GPMR Workshop on Logic & Semantics on Medieval Logic and Modern Applied Logic, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Germany, on June 28-30, 2007.

Logica 2007, Hejnice Monastery, Czech Republic, 18-22 June 2007.

Heart of Philosophy Café talk and discussion on “What Marx, Freud and Nietzsche have taught me about belief in God”. Tuesday May 8, 7--9pm in the Merrick's General Store.

Assorted Observations

It’s been difficult to get back into the swing of work, but I’m slowly clawing my way through. Jetlag has been much worse on my return than on the European end of the trip. I’ve also been concentrating on my parental duties, as my Significant Other is taking her conference trip. Playing with your son is much more fun than doing niggly administrative tasks. If you’re awaiting an email reply from me, it should be coming in the next few days. The delay is nothing personal — the queue is rather long right now.

The promised observations:

When you speak to a radio presenter on the telephone, it sounds eerily like you are talking to a radio.
If you buy your coffee on campus, pricing varies from place-to-place. Now, despite the fact that Plush Fish (the sushi place), Chill Out (the rice paper rolls and juice place) and Café Suave (the place in the commerce courtyard, near the Ballieu Library) are run by the same people, the price you pay extra for your fairtrade coffee differs from place to-place. This week I have paid a 30 cent premium for faitrade at Plush Fish and Chill Out but only 10 cents at Café Suave. This could be either a subtle marketing exercise (their selling fairtrade coffee is a recent innovation) or an error in the programming of their cash registers, or something else entirely.
For more on fairtrade coffee on campus, check here.
The pricing for the fairtrade coffee is on top of the base of $3.10 price for my medium skim milk flat white with no sugar. It is a mouthful to order, saying ‘a medium skim milk fairtrade flat white with no sugar, please’, but that’s the way of the world. At least I don’t order decaf.
That makes ordering coffee as complex as ordering a metcard. Try remembering a ‘10 trip, 2 hour, zone 1, full fare metcard’ each time you need one. I’ve never managed to get it right. Today I asked for a ‘2 trip, 10 hour, zone 1, full fare metcard’ which would not be the same thing at all. I’ve had some long tram journeys, but none have been 10 hours.
Maybe I should order my metcards over the internet. (They promise to mail them to you for free.) That way I’d not have to embarrass myself in front of a flesh-and-blood human being.

Posted 11:23 PM on July 7, 2006

Comments

Ok…so in doing a self-absorbed google search of the UniMelb First Year Blog site…I came across your blog when you referenced Jeremy’s discussion of a recent World Cup soccer match!

I had to comment and say YOUR SON IS SOOOO BLOODY ADORABLE!!!!!!!! I LOVE THE PARTY HAT PHOTO!!!!!!!

Apart from that… It’s good to know some of those who work for Melbourne also have an active blogging life and Blogs are not just a place for us First Years. :-)

Sophie , July 11, 2006 11:10 PM

P.S

I just asked my boyfriend if he ever had you for Philosophy and he said he did and that you were a really good lecturer who was very funny!!!!

Such a small world! (Though I guess Melbourne Uni is a big place!)

Damn…sometimes I wish I was doing Arts…I am yet to have any funny lecturers in Commerce :-( All lectures are so serious and dry. Sigh What one puts up with to become filthy rich…

Sophie , July 11, 2006 11:16 PM

Neat! I’m glad to have made a positive impression (both through this site, and in my teaching). I hope your bloke is happy with his result in the class, as well as with my jokes!

I’m sure you’ll have some good lecturers in Commerce — though I’m sure that the Arts faculty would live it if you wanted to enrol in a combined Commerce/Arts degree!

I’ve noticed that in teaching something like Philosophy — where there’s no pressure at all in training people for some particular profession, and where people are just doing the subject because they’re interested in it — is easier and more fun than than taching in the professional subjects like Commerce, Law or Medicine.

Greg Restall , July 11, 2006 11:34 PM

Hi Greg, Thanks for the heads up on the fairtrade coffee - last time I bought coffee at Suave they only had the free trade sort. Now to get to work on Barettos…

joanna , July 12, 2006 09:02 AM

trumps my large, doubleshot, skim hazelnut.

fernando , July 13, 2006 01:37 AM

I’m not even too sure how I got here. Anyway - now I’m here, I recommend that you read The Undercover Economist By Tim Harford for the chapter on coffee pricing, it mentions fair trade coffee pricing too. You can easily read the coffee chapter in a bookshop without buying the book.

Francis Xavier Holden , July 21, 2006 06:18 PM

Thanks, Francis, for the tip. I’ve heard good things about The Undercover Economist, and I’ll look it up.

Greg Restall , July 21, 2006 07:48 PM

greg - I didn’t mean you should read the chapter in the bookshop to sound as if you shouldn’t buy the book. I often read whole books (skim) in the bookshop, and some I admit I’ve gone back a read a bit more leisurely. I justify it on the basis I buy lots of other books.

er …I think I’ve gone uncharacteristically all defensive being on a philosophy type blog..aaah - I’ll get out of your way.

Francis Xavier Holden , July 24, 2006 03:05 PM