Web

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.]

Links

These and more links are available at del.icio.us/greg_restall.

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. →

consequently.org

Logical Pluralism, in Tartu

I’m off to Tartu in late August, for what looks like a really fun conference on logical pluralism. The list of speakers is extraordinarily high-powered. Having so many smart people talk about logical pluralism is exciting, and not a little bit scary.

If you’re interested in coming along, let the organisers know by July 1. If you’re interested in the state of the art on logical pluralism, this conference is the place to be.

Thanks, Daniel, Marcus and Peter for organising this. It’s going to be my highlight of the second half of the year.

April 16, 2008 • permanent link • 1 comment

Informal Logic: now open access

The journal Informal Logic, on argumentation theory and related issues, is now open access and online, after a 27 year history as a print (closed access) journal. The editors have sent out a request for interested parties to subscribe. Subscription is free: just fill in this form on the site. The editors are aiming get enough subscribers to secure funding from the SSHRC to keep the journal going now that they’re not taking paid subscriptions.

This is a worthy goal: the more open access journals, the better! So, if you’re at all interested in argumentation theory and informal logic, please sign up.

April 9, 2008 • permanent link • comment

We're in the news...

Alas, we are in the news for not-very-good reasons. Given the recent retirements in Philosophy at Melbourne, it would be worse than surprising if any of the new redundancies hit Philosophy. However, the atmosphere around here not good — what concerns us most is the scope for new hiring when the Faculty as a whole is in the red so much. It is very hard to effectively plan ahead when so much is in flux and you’re not sure whether your efforts will benefit the discipline.

I hope to find out more when we hear what the Dean and the Vice Chancellor has to say at a meeting of all Arts Faculty staff this Tuesday. Let’s hope that they can articulate something that goes beyond slashing positions to rectify a budget hole.

I’m sorry to start posting on something so grim, but “trouble at mill” has been on our minds since mid-2007. I hope to post more about more enjoyable things soon.

Meanwhile, take a look at my writing page. There are quite a few new items there.

March 30, 2008 • permanent link • comment

Sorry...

This has been a good day. (Here is the video —- in three parts.)

As PJK said, when you change the government, you change the country…

February 13, 2008 • permanent link • comment

Melbourne Philosophy Undergraduate Workshop

Are you an undergraduate student in philosophy, or do you know any undergraduate philosophy students? If so, you might be interested in the Melbourne Philosophy Undergraduate Workshop to be held from September 21 to 23. This will be a chance for Australian and New Zealand undergraduate students who are interested in philosophy, to get together to talk philosophy with the faculty here at the University of Melbourne. Given that we have a broad range of interests, from Continental and Asian Philosophy, through Ethics and Social Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, to Metaphysics and Logic, this will be a fun weekend.

The deadline for applying for a grant to come to the workshop is coming up very soon: it’s August 15. For more details of how to be involved, read on…

More...

August 6, 2007 • permanent link • comment

Talk on the Philosopher's Zone

I gave a talk on Logic in Australia at Monash University’s Arts in Action festival in early June. (This was a part of a long-running project on a History of Australasian Philosophy. The talk is now appearing, in two parts, on the (wonderful) ABC Radio National program, The Philosopher’s Zone. The first part was broadcast this weekend, but the audio can be downloaded from their website for the next four weeks. That was the first half of the talk, on possible worlds. The second half, on paraconsistency, will be broadcast next week.

In the talk, I made heavy use of digital projection. I think you can follow the talk without it, but if you want to see the pretty pictures and diagrams, you can download the slides of the talk here:

  • Logic in Australia.mov 22.5MB Quicktime file. (Navigate it by clicking or by using the arrow keys.)
  • Logic in Australia.pdf 3.3MB PDF file. (This does not have all of the fancy transitions in the quicktime file.)
  • Logic in Australia.key.zip 3.8MB compressed keynote file. (This has all the fancy transitions, and is the original document, but it requires Apple’s Keynote presentation program to view.)

August 5, 2007 • permanent link • 1 comment

... and we're back

I’ve been back in Melbourne for a while. The trip was very enjoyable, but I’ve returned to Melbourne with a chest bug, which has meant that I’m not quite up to full speed yet. All non-essential activities (and alas, some essential ones, I fear) are progressing much more slowly than usual.

Here are some highlights of the trip.

  • Logica 2007 with so many great people, and then exploring Prague, catching up with Richard, and getting to know more Czech logicians.
  • Overdosing on Medieval logic in Bonn, and especially talking over Bradwardine with Stephen Read.
  • Exploring København with Christine and Zachary. It was my second visit there, and Christine’s umpteenth, so it was a lot easier to get around given than we were more familiar with the place.
  • Navigating our way on the trains and buses from Århus to Legoland in Billund with Zachary, and then enjoying all there was to see and do there.
  • Meeting everyone at Logic Colloquium in Wrocław — and especially thinking through — with Pavel Pudlák, Albert Visser, Alasdair Urquhart and Vedran Čačić — a counterexample to a conjecture of Grzegorczyk’s. The result of our thinking is here. Most of the thinking got done in a hike in the hills near Wrocław.
  • Flying back home with Z. Normally he finds the in-flight entertainment much more attractive than mundane activities such as sleep. This can sometimes cause difficulty, especially when flying in to an airport for a quick change of planes, and we have a tired unhappy boy to navigate through the system. This time, however, he slept well on both flights (Frankfurt to Singapore and Singapore to Melbourne), and we managed to get back home with very little jetlag.

So, a good time was had by all. It’s good to be back, even if we have to struggle through a bit more of winter here. At least our AFL team is performing better than expected, so we might be able to cope with the end of the season here in football-mad Melbourne.

August 5, 2007 • permanent link • 1 comment

... arrived!

I’ve arrived in a sunny and summery Prague. The locals tell me they it’s cooler than the unseasonably warm that it’s been in the last few years, but it seems nicely summery for one who has come from a winter. I’m now chatting in the office with Timothy, Jarda and Vladimir, and monopolising Jarda’s computer while the others do work preparing for the conference.

June 18, 2007 • permanent link • 2 comments

Heading off...

I’m waiting in Gate 9 at the international terminal Melbourne Airport, getting ready to board my first flight on my trip to Europe. It’s not a short hop — Singapore/Frankfurt/Prague, but at least I’ll be in a very nice place for what to all appearances will be a very enjoyable conference. From then, it’s Bonn, and then Denmark (København, and Århus) to meet up with Christine and Zachary, to have a little holiday while Christine does some work. On the way out, it’s Wrocław, where I’ll play a little part in a big conference before heading home with Zachary.

Please, let me know if you’re going to be around anywhere in the vicinity during this European trip. I’ll be catching up with some mates, but it’s always fun to meet more friends.

(If I owe you an email, that’s because I’ve been ridiculously busy preparing for this trip, teaching courses, looking after the boy, etc… But I’m ploughing through my backlog, and I might just get there in the next few weeks. One can hope!)

June 17, 2007 • permanent link • 3 comments

Not 'gargoyle' but 'finial'

You learn something new every day. What we mistakenly called gargoyles are actually finials. (I’ve corrected the caption on the photo — in case you don’t understand what Christine meant.)

Christine took that photo on a finial-photographing expedition with Zachary and a friend from his class in school, on Zachary’s birthday a few weeks ago.

May 3, 2007 • permanent link • comment

Logic Job at Auckland

As I’ve said before, logic jobs in Philosophy Departments are pretty rare. Well, as Richard mentioned earlier, there’s a logic job in Philosophy at Auckland. A little bird has told me that even though the deadline is close (May 18), they’re keen to get the word out to get as many applicants as possible. So, if you qualify (PhD or equivalent in philosophy, teaching experience, some research publications) then hop to it and apply. The details are here.

May 3, 2007 • permanent link • 2 comments

Logica 2007 is coming up

The program for Logica 2007 has been released, and it looks great. It looks like it will be seriously good, and it will be my first ever conference held in a monestery.

April 4, 2007 • permanent link • 3 comments

Book Launch! Inside Lawyers' Ethics

This Tuesday, I’m going to a party: It’s a launch for Christine’s book Inside Lawyers’ Ethics, which she’s coauthored with Adrian Evans from Monash Law School. The book will be launched by Louise Sylvan, from the ACCC. This party will be held at the Monash University Law Chambers in the city.

Congratulations, Christine and Adrian!

It seems to be the season for book launches. Simon Holt’s God Next Door is launching on April 19 and Matt Carter’s Minds and Computers is launching on April 23.

(Activity here on the site will be quiet as I attempt to plough through a big teaching load and rather too many work commitments…)

March 30, 2007 • permanent link • comment

In Banff: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday...

Liveblogging talks was a bit beyond me, but I’ve been keeping up with a few notes on the talks here in Banff. They’re not as extensive as my notes on Branden and Delia’s talks, but they’ll give you an idea of the fun we’ve been having here. (After lunch today, there’s a batch of five talks, including mine. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to write up comments on those, since before dinner I have to catch a shuttle to Calgary to catch a plane early tomorrow morning.)

So, after the jump, comments on the talks:

More...

February 23, 2007 • permanent link • 1 comment

My talk in Banff

I’ve finished up the slides for my talk in Banff. If you’re interested, the slides are available here

Modal Models for Bradwardine’s Truth [1.3MB pdf]

It’s a talk giving a modal logic interpretation for a medieval theory of truth due to Thomas Bradwardine, as it’s reconstructed by Stephen Read. This will hopefully help out Steve’s project, by providing tools for exploring the strength of this kind of theory of truth.

I’ll write up an extended paper version of this after getting comments from the audience. Since the audience contains people who know a heck of a lot more than me about truth and about modal logic, I’m a little more on the anxious side than usual for such things. Wish me luck!

February 23, 2007 • permanent link • 5 comments

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