M, PhD and PostDoc opportunities at UJ

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The University of Johannesburg has released a special call offering masters, doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships, for start asap, deadline 8th Feb 2020.

These are in any area, but I would like to specifically invite anyone wishing to work with myself (or colleagues at UJ) on any of the areas listed below. From May 2020, I will be Director of the Institute for the Future of Knowledge at UJ (a new institute – no website yet – but watch this space!), and being part of this enterprise will, I think, be very exciting for potential students/post-docs. I would be delighted to receive inquiries in any of the following areas:

  • Philosophy of medicine
  • Philosophy of epidemiology
  • Causation
  • Counterfactuals
  • Causal inference
  • Prediction
  • Explanation (not just causal)
  • Machine learning (in relation to any of the above)
  • Cognitive science
  • Other things potentially relevant to the Institute, my interests, your interests… please suggest!

If you’re interested please get in touch: abbroadbent@uj.ac.za

The call is here, along with instructions for applicants:

2020 Call for URC Scholarships for Master’s_Doctoral_Postdoctoral Fellowships_Senior Postdoctoral fellowships

DOCTORAL OPPORTUNITY – Biological complexity – still open

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Despite receiving some good applications, I’ve been unable to find the right match for this position yet, originally advertised in August. If you are interested please follow instructions in the original ad here:

DOCTORAL OPPORTUNITY: Increasing Complexity – the First Rule of Evolution?

The opportunity will expire at end of January.

Korean translation of ‘Philosophy of Medicine’

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I’m delighted to learn that there will be a Korean translation of my 2019 book Philosophy of Medicine. My 2013 book Philosophy of Epidemiology was also translated into Korean.

I would be interested to connect with other audiences in the eastern parts of the world; if anyone has potential connections that I could explore, please let me know.

Sydney HPS Winter School on Evolutionary Medicine

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The 2020 Sydney History and Philosophy of Science Winter School will take place from Monday 27 July to Friday 31 July. The year’s topic is the History and Philosophy of Evolutionary Medicine. The school will run for four days with an excursion on the last day.

Both history and philosophy of science have the potential to contribute to a deeper understanding of the nature and potential of Evolutionary Medicine. Some philosophers of science have examined key concepts in the field. Others have debated its potential to inform medical practice, or to transform understanding of health and disease. These debates will be explored and advanced at the Winter School. Evolutionary Medicine is underexplored in the history of science and medicine. The Winter School will explore perspectives on this history from both leading practitioners and HPS scholars. The overall aim of the Winter School is to encourage and enable philosophical and methodological commentary on evolutionary medicine, and to develop an agenda for research on evolutionary medicine by historians of science and medicine.

The Winter School will be of interest to early career researchers in history and philosophy of science, as well as to ECRs in medicine and biomedical science who want a broader perspective  on Evolutionary Medicine.

Confirmed instructors:

Randolph M. Nesse (Arizona State University)

Tatjana Buklijas (University of Auckland)

Paul Griffiths (The University of Sydney)

Dominic Murphy (The University of Sydney)

Djuke Veldhuis (Monash University)

Applications to attend the Winter School, and applications for financial support for postgraduate students, will open with a more detailed announcement about the Winter School in February.

Please feel free to distribute this announcement to others. For all enquiries please email philosophy.tmb@sydney.edu.au

Organised by the School of History and Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney with support from the University of Sydney and the John Templeton Foundation.

Reviews of Philosophy of Medicine

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So far, I’ve seen three reviews, two positive, one negative:

Shane Glackin in BJPS writes: ‘Rarely can a single book have so crystallized and advanced an entirely new agenda for a field that had no idea it needed it.’ http://www.thebsps.org/2019/10/glackinonbroadbent/

The New Books Network writes: ‘An accessible and user-friendly guide, Philosophy of Medicine puts these different debates into perspective and identifies areas that demand further exploration.’ https://newbooksnetwork.com/alex-broadbent-philosophy-of-medicine-oxford-up-2019/

On the other hand, Donald Gillies in Metascience writes: ‘He puts forward quite a number of novel theses, but the present reviewer finds most of these rather implausible.’ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11016-019-00463-5

A Marmite book?…

marmite.jpg

 

 

 

 

Open 4-year Assistant Professorship of Artificial Intelligence and Causal Inference in Life Course Studies: Copenhagen

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An open 4-year Assistant Professorship of Artificial Intelligence and Causal Inference in Life Course Studies is being advertised at the University of Copenhagen. The position is shared between Section of Epidemiology and Section of Biostatistics and it is part of a larger initiative to build capacity within this area:.

https://candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationInit.aspx/?cid=1307&departmentId=19002&ProjectId=150314&MediaId=5&SkipAdvertisement=false.

DOCTORAL OPPORTUNITY: Increasing Complexity – the First Rule of Evolution?

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An opportunity for funded doctoral study exists on a grant titled ‘Increasing Complexity: the First Rule of Evolution?” (Templeton, $973,000). The project is in evolutionary biology, but has a philosophical component, to which the doctoral project will contribute. The PI is Matthew Wills in Bath, UK, and Alex Broadbent at the University of Johannesburg is responsible for the philosophical component of the grant, and will supervise this doctoral student. The exact topic is up to the student, but will relate to the topic of the grant. For example, a project might ask about the significance of driven complexity for notions such as biological law, teleology in evolutionary biology, and/or quantum evolution. The student must be registered at the University of Johannesburg but may engage in distance study. The opportunity comes with a stipend of ZAR 140,000 plus fees, renewable annually subject to satisfactory performance and availability of funds. Start date in October 2019, but may be pushed back to February 2020. The non-negotiable deadline for completion is 31 October 2022 (i.e. the doctorate must be completed within 3 years). Support and guidance will be given towards meeting this deadline, as part of the larger project. The opportunity is open to anyone with a philosophical background, not confined to philosophy of biology. Interdisciplinary engagement will be integral to the project. A Masters degree is required by the time of first registration. Deadline is open until further notice is posted on https://philosepi.wordpress.com, with earlier applications having an advantage.

Applicants should send CV, covering letter, and a sample of written work to Alex Broadbent abbroadbent@uj.ac.za

Health as a secondary property – print version finally out

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https://academic.oup.com/bjps/article/70/2/609/4102132

Health as a Secondary Property 

Alex Broadbent
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Volume 70, Issue 2, June 2019, Pages 609–627, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axx014

In the literature on health, naturalism and normativism are typically characterized as espousing and rejecting, respectively, the view that health is objective and value-free. This article points out that there are two distinct dimensions of disagreement, regarding objectivity and value-ladenness, and thus arranges naturalism and normativism as diagonal opposites on a two-by-two matrix of possible positions. One of the remaining quadrants is occupied by value-dependent realism, holding that health facts are value-laden and objective. The remaining quadrant, which holds that they are non-objective but value-free, is unexplored. The article endorses a view in the latter quadrant, namely, the view that health is a secondary property. The article argues that a secondary property framework provides the resources to respond to the deepest objections to a broadly Boorsean account of natural function, and so preserves the spirit, though not the letter, of that account. Treating health as a secondary property permits a naturalistic explanation—specifically, an evolutionary explanation—of the health concept, in terms of the assistance such a concept might have provided to the survival and reproduction of those organisms that had it. (This approach is completely distinct from evolutionary and aetiological accounts of natural functions.) This provides the explanation, missing from Boorse’s account, for the fact that function is determined with reference to the contribution to the goals of survival and reproduction, relative to the age of the sex of the species, rather than some other equally natural goals or reference classes.

  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Two Ways to Disagree about Health
  • 3 Secondary Properties
  • 4 Health as a Secondary Property
  • 5 Conclusion