Summer Programs in Philosophy for Graduate Students – 2020
This is a post for the listing of summer programs in philosophy for graduate students.
[Alex Thibodeau, Lunar Calendar 2020, detail]
Central European University Summer Schools in Philosophy
1 – Identity: Logic and Metaphysics
July 27 – August 1, 2020
CEU Budapest Campus
Application Deadline: February 14, 2020
Description: This 6-day research-oriented course is designed to familiarize participants with the latest advances in the philosophical debates about identity and related matters. The specific topics to be discussed will be the logic of identity and identity and modality; identity and essence; identity and indiscernibility; time, composition and identity; and personal identity. The course will be delivered by five leaders in their fields, and they will not only introduce those topics but also discuss their latest research on them. Participants will not only be able to interact with the course faculty in the classroom, but also during course breaks, and during lunch and dinner. The course will follow a seminar format, and classes will be interactive with active involvement from the participants. There will be readings assigned for each class and the participants will be expected to familiarize themselves with the topics by reading the material. The course is open to graduate students (both masters and doctoral students) and early career philosophers with a background and research interest in philosophical issues concerning identity and/or metaphysics more generally. Time permitting, selected participants may have occasion to present their own research.
Further information: https://summeruniversity.ceu.edu/identity-logic-and-metaphysics-2020
2 – The History and Philosophy of the Concepts of Scientific Law and Probability
July 6 – July 17, 2020
CEU Budapest Campus
Application Deadline: February 14, 2020
Description: The history and metaphysics of the concepts of laws of nature and objective probabilities are closely connected with one another and with main topics in the philosophy and history of science. Fundamental laws of physics, particularly quantum theory and statistical mechanics, posit objective probabilities and it has been debated whether all objective probabilities are ultimately grounded in such laws. Laws and probabilities also figure prominently in the special sciences (e.g. biology, psychology, economics) Understanding the metaphysics of scientific laws and objective probabilities are central concerns of philosophy of science. Understanding begins with the history of both concepts. The idea that it is a goal, perhaps the primary goal, of the sciences to discover laws arose in the 17th century. Descartes (and various of his contemporaries) conceived of laws as principles that describe how God makes material bodies move. Subsequently some (e.g. Newton) came to think of laws as themselves governing physical events while others (especially David Hume) came to think of laws not as governing but rather as describing patterns and regularities among events. These two views have developed into the two main philosophical accounts of the metaphysics of laws which are usually called anti-Humean and Humean accounts. The idea that some events are chancy also arose in the 17th century first to describe the behavior of gambling devices (e.g. Pascal) and later to deal with patterns of events that were either too complicated to account for in terms of laws or were not subject to laws at all. However, in the 20th century probability was incorporated into the laws of statistical mechanics, evolutionary and genetic theory and quantum mechanics. The main views concerning the metaphysics of probability mirrors the views about laws. Anti-Humean views construe probability as a measure of the propensity of a situation to produce an effect (e.g. the propensity of a lump of radium to emit an alpha particle in a given time period) while Humean views construe probability as describing patterns of events (e.g. the frequency of a lump of radium to emit an alpha particle in a given time period or the probability implied by the Best System). The first week of the summer school will concern the history and metaphysics of the concept of laws and the second will concern the history and metaphysics of the concept of probability and how objective probability is connected to laws.
Further Information: https://summeruniversity.ceu.edu/concepts-of-scientific-law-and-probability-2020
For listings of summer programs in philosophy for undergraduate students, please visit this page.
Art: “The Instruments Agree” by Alec Thibodeau
While the application deadline just passed, the Global Priorities Institute at Oxford runs an annual summer program for philosophy and economica grad students interested in global priorities research.
Early Career Conference Programme
June 6 – July 4
Oxford, UK
gpi-office@Greg Gauthier.ox.ac.uk
Deadline January 10
We are looking for researchers to develop and present fundamental research on how to do the most good. The programme is intended for both PhD students and early career researchers in economics, philosophy, and other relevant fields. Travel and accommodation (as well as fees related to visa applications where applicable) will be fully funded (paid for by the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research).
https://globalprioritiesinstitute.org/eccp/
PhD Summer Workshop on Politics between Utopia and a Troubled World
May 19 – June 26
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
See all details on PhilEvents: https://philevents.org/event/show/78846?fbclid=IwAR02gWF8jD7GssdZzMZrL9FzmyXxXa0b2_qdGhKlkj8mEuET3sKL4WjPeKg
And note that the deadline for applications is in a week, Jan 20th!
The American Institute for Philosophical and Cultural Thought (AIPCT) is pleased to announce the Foundation for the Philosophy of Creativity (FPC) Summer Dissertation Research Fellowship is now accepting applications.
The FPC Fellow must be in residence at the AIPCT in Murphysboro, IL, from June 1 until August 2, 2020, and will receive housing and $1000 per month, plus a travel stipend of $200. The FPC Fellow will carry out research on the dissertation (the idea is to finish a chapter while there). The dissertation can be in any discipline in the humanities or social sciences, so long as the topic of the research relates to theoretical ideas about creativity, broadly construed. The dissertation need not be wholly concerned with creativity, but the portion of the research carried out at AIPCT must be related to creativity. Toward the end of residency the FPC Fellow will present the research at AIPCT in a public lecture, the William S. Minor Fellowship Lecture (the 2018 dissertation lecture and other presentations sponsored by FPC can be viewed here). See the AIPCT website (www.americanphilosophy.net) for more information about the research location, and visit the FPC website (www.creativityfoundation.org) for information about the grantor. To apply, please send:
*Brief application letter
*CV
*1000-1500 word description of the project (and how it relates to themes of creativity)
* A letter of support from the dissertation director
Send all e-mail attachments to [email protected]. The deadline is February 15, 2020. Notification of results by February 28, 2020.
*Summer School in Philosophy, Science, Antiscience*
June 15-17, 2020
Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb (Croatia)
Application Deadline: March 15, 2020
E-mail: [email protected]
Description: “The belief in the value of scientific truth – Max Weber once remarked – is not derived from nature, but is a product of definite cultures”. In 1938, Robert K. Merton, one of the founding fathers of the sociology of science, added that, under certain conditions, “this belief is readily transmuted into doubt or disbelief”. Skepticism, in turn, can develop into open hostility and rejection. In fact, since its emergence, modern science has been subject to a vast range of criticisms, which have further intensified with the explosive transformations that science and technology have brought about – for better and for worse – in the past three hundred years. Sometimes, these criticisms are motivated by ideological or emotional factors; other times, instead, they are related to the very structure of the scientific enterprise or to the ways in which scientific knowledge is achieved and communicated. But what is modern science, and what is it that distinguishes it from other – past and present – forms of knowledge? The aim of this course is, on the one hand, to explore the historical processes that led to the development of what today we call “science” and to the rejection or marginalisation of what is no longer considered such; on the other hand, it is to discuss some of those skeptic or antiscientific attitudes as they emerge both within and without the domain of science proper. These topics will be addressed from historical, philosophical and sociological perspectives.
Admission is open to both graduate (MA, MSt) and postgraduate (PhD) students.
Program and info at: https://pts.ifzg.hr/
Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute
University of St Andrews, Scotland
Jun 28 – July 18, 2020
Funding offered to all accepted applicants
https://www.diverseintelligencessummer.com/
Center for Ethics and Education:
The Graduate Institute in Philosophy of Education aims to support and cultivate new scholars with knowledge and skills for future philosophical engagement with education. The course will focus on the theme of education and social mobility.
Program Details
10-day intensive summer course in Chicago, IL June 14-26, 2020
6-day summer course in Madison, WI June 6-12, 2021
Participants will be supported in developing a new paper in, or related to, philosophy of education to submit to AERA, which will be held April 9-12, 2021 in Orlando, Florida
Students admitted into the program will have all travel, accommodations and most meals paid for at the Chicago and Madison meetings.
A 1-2 page statement explaining your interest in the Institute and in pursuing philosophical work on education
A writing sample of 10-15 pages, in the citation format of your choice
One letter of recommendation
A current curriculum vitae
An unofficial transcript
Eligibility
Applicants for the program should be graduate students from schools of education, philosophy departments, or related fields who are interested in pursuing normative questions of policy and practice in education. We welcome applicants studying at institutions outside the U.S.
http://ethicsandeducation.wceruw.org/grad-programming.html
Note: Philosophers applying must have a philosophical interest in education, but needn’t be able to demonstrate that in their file. We’re eager to get good philosophers and induce them to become more interested in education.
The Summer Institute in Technology Ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics from July 27-August 7, 2020 in Santa Clara, California will provide 25 graduate students, postdocs or early career researchers with an intensive in-residence exposure to foundational and current approaches in technology ethics, especially AI ethics. Participants will receive a $2750 stipend to cover their expenses, thanks to a grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation. Core instructors are Shannon Vallor (McKenna Professor of Philosophy at Santa Clara University, soon the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and AI at the University of Edinburgh) and John Sullins (Professor of Philosophy at Sonoma State University), with a host of distinguished guest faculty visitors from a range of related disciplines. Confirmed visitors so far include David Danks (CMU), Rob Reich (Stanford), Safiya Noble (UCLA), Aimee van Wynsberghe (Delft), Patrick Lin (Cal Poly) and Anna Lauren Hoffmann (UofWash). To foster more interdisciplinary and public-facing modes of scholarly engagement, the academic cohort will also have opportunities throughout the Institute to interact with a parallel professional cohort of working technologists, as well as with external stakeholders and public audiences.
Applications close on January 26, 2020 – further details and applicant criteria, as well as a link to the application form can be found at https://www.scu.edu/media/ethics-center/technology-ethics/SITE-Student-Application.pdf
*Please note that due to the number of hours of instruction, applicants must already have permission to study in the US, as the hours/week exceeds what is permitted on a tourist visa or ESTA waiver for recreational study)
Philosophical Lessons from and for the ‘Post-Truth Era’
Date: 10 – 14 August 2020
Early bird deadline: 1 March 2020
Application deadline: 1 June 2020
In the aftermath of the Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, both Oxford English Dictionaries and
the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Sprache declared ‘post-truth’ or ‘postfaktisch’ as Word of the Year
2016. Ever since, political, sociological, and psychological analysts have tried to explain what it means
for our society as well as our personal lives that “objective facts have become less influential in
shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” (OED). Throughout this course,
we will discuss the multiple facets of this ‘post-truth phenomenon’.
In the first part of the course, we will critically engage with 1) the politics of developing post-truth claims,
2) the journalistic tools and strategies for covering such claims, and 3) the psychological mechanisms of the public to process them.
In the second part of the course, we will explore the philosophical dimension of the ‘post-truth phenomenon’ – the meaning and conditions of ‘truth’ are, after all, traditional philosophical topics. To this goal, we will consider three recent philosophical accounts of truth and truthfulness:
1) Harry Frankfurt’s notion of ‘bullshit’ as “a greater enemy of the truth than lies’;
2) Martin Heidegger’s theory about the connection between truth and authenticity;
3) Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of ‘Enlightenment pluralism’.
On this basis, we will map the differences and conflicts between the most influential modern and
postmodern notions of truth. Finally, it will enable us to formulate (a) response(s) to the problematic
features of the ‘post-truth attitude’. This course will consist of lectures as well as seminars with group
discussions.
Anyone knowing if the Feminist Summer Reading School is happening this year?