consequently.org/news

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.

“Molinism and the Thin Red Line,” paper in progress. Presented at the Molinism: The Contemporary Debate conference hosted by Ken Perszyk and Ed Mares at Victoria University of Wellington. →
“Modal Models for Bradwardine’s Theory of Truth,” Review of Symbolic Logic 1 (2008), 225-240. Special issue on Mathematical Methods in Philosophy, edited by Richard Zach, Alasdair Urquhart and Aldo Antonelli →
“Assertion and Denial, Commitment and Entitlement, and Incompatibility (and some consequence),” Studies in Logic 1 (2008), 26-36. →
[with Tony Roy] “On Permutation in Simplified Semantics,” to appear in the Journal of Philosophical Logic. →
“Proof Theory and Meaning: on second order logic,” pp 157-170 in Logica 2007 Yearbook, edited by Michal Pelis, Filosofia, 2008. →

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.

Breaking Silence

I’ve been pretty quiet here, lately. I’ve been busy with things, getting stuff done. I hope to be posting more soon, when various up-in-the-air things are more settled. Still, here are some recent highlights which are worth sharing.

WCP4 was a blast. It was very busy, but lots of fun was had: it was good to catch up with many folks I hadn’t seen for ages including (Diderik Batens, Bryson Brown, Francesco Paoli, Ole Hjortland, Jerry Seligman, Gill Russell and especially JC, who I hadn’t seen in an all-too-long period of time) and to make the acquaintance of new folks (Francesco Berto, David Ripley, Andreas Pietz, Ben Burgis, Patrick Girard and many others).
It’s been lots of fun to have Andi Pietz, Dave Ripley and Ole Hjortland hang out with us in Melbourne this semester. I think they’re having fun, and I’m having fun talking logic with them.
Reasoning & Uncertainty is my new level 2/3 undergraduate subject. I’ve got a class of 60, doing philosophy of probability, decision theory, etc., and we’re having a lot of fun. Having students turn up to class, enthusiastic, despite 9am lectures, is something to behold. Conrad Asmus is my tutor, and working with him makes things very easy.
Conrad Asmus, my former PhD student, has all-but-passed his PhD. He has minor changes to make (which will be done within a few weeks, won’t they, Conrad?), and once they’re OKd by the local examiner, he’ll graduate. Congratulations, Conrad! You’re my first beginning-to-end supervised graduate student, and I’m proud to have supervised your work.
I’m off to Estonia in a week’s time, for the Logical Pluralism Extravaganza, which looks like it will be smaller, more focussed blast than WCP4.
After getting back from Estonia, I’m speaking at a ‘Men’s Breakfast’ at my church, under the gradiose title of ‘From Church to the Campus and Back Again: tales from a Christian teaching Philosophy at University.’ I’m under instruction to be funny, serious, profound, accessible and provocative — in under 20 minutes. I’ll see how I go…

It’s been a hard year here, with reduced staffing numbers in Philosophy at Melbourne. Everyone’s working Very Hard and doing Very Good Things, but until we get new positions and More People, things are going to be a struggle. Hopefully we’ll have some better news soon, so we can advertise some jobs in the next few months. Watch this space…

Posted 08:11 PM on August 16, 2008

Comments

If you think that is bad … at a Christian gathering I was once given the task of speaking for less than 20 minutes on “Dooyeweerd for plasterers”!

Good to have an update from you.

Best of luck, Paul

Paul Robinson , August 16, 2008 10:17 PM