logicandlanguage.net

December 01, 2010

We are the world

Today's "things I thought I'd never see:"

Posted by Gillian Russell at 06:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 22, 2010

Lecture Stunts

I love hearing about tricks and stunts that people have used as part of their teaching strategy in lectures. I have just been reading Williamson's description of his technique for setting up real life Gettier cases:

To make the point vivid, I have occasionally created Gettier cases for lecture audiences. For example, I have begun a lecture by apologizing for not giving a power-point presentation; I explained that the only time I gave a power-point presentation it was a complete disaster. Since my listeners had no reason to distrust me on a claim so much to my discredit, they acquired through my testimony the justified belief that the only time I gave a power-point presentation it was a complete disaster. They competently deduced that I had never given a successful power-point presentation. Thus they acquired the justified belief that I had never given a successful power-point presentation. That belief was true, but the reason was that I had never given a power-point presentation at all (and still do not intend to.) My assertion that the only time I had given a power-point presentation it was a complete disaster was a bare-faced lie....Someone commented "you can't believe the first thing he says." (192, The Philosophy of Philosophy, 2008)

(I like the story, but I also like the subversive insertion of a hyphen into "powerpoint.")

My friend Nate Williams told me a story about a professor who taught intro ethics at Chapel HIll. Upon the first occasion in the semester a student relativised an ethical claim to a person, as in "Eating meat is wrong for you but it isn't wrong for me" he would have them removed from the lecture hall by a couple of grad students in white coats. When the student (invariably) protested that this was wrong, the professor would reply, "well it might be wrong for you..."

The same friend also gave me an idea for a trick I use when teaching personal identity. After some discussion of the soul, I ask the students whether they think they have souls, and if so, whether they are the kind of thing that can be sold to another person. After getting their views, I hand out contracts beginning "I hereby agree to sell my soul to Gillian Russell for the price of one candy bar..." The contract states that if they have no soul, or if its ownership is not transferable to me, then get to keep the candy bar and the contract is complete. Then I lay out enough candy for the entire class on the front desk and wait ... I have seven so far. All reasonable offers will be considered.

Anyone know of any others?

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November 21, 2009

my mistress, my checkout girl...

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November 19, 2009

Scottish Cafe and Restaurant at the National Gallery

I've just returned from a clandestine (i.e. intentionally non-work related) visit to Scotland. As evidence, here are a couple of pictures taken from the 'ferry:

Forth Rail Bridge.jpg

Forth Road Bridge.jpg

One of the nicest surprises of my trip was stumbling across the Scottish Cafe and Restaurant at the National Gallery on Princes Street in Edinburgh.

My parents are Scottish and I was an undergraduate at St Andrews, so I'm used to thinking of Irn -Bru as the national drink, and Bridies and deep fried Mars bars as the stuff of feasts, which is sort of a shame, because i) I'm vegetarian and ii) despite my Scottish roots, I rather like food, and I'm quite sure it's possible to make it out of locally grown Scottish ingredients.

So the existence of this cafe is very, very welcome. One of the most amazing aspects is the cheese board section on the back of the menu. Here's an excerpt:

Cheese Board - Export.jpg

See that? Every entry tells you whether or not the cheese is made with vegetarian rennet. Hurrah! Here's what a small version of the Pentland cheese board looked like:

Chese Board Real.jpg

According to the menu I have Angus MacLay to thank for the world miraculously turning out to be the way I've always wanted it to be, at least in this tiny corner of Edinburgh. Thanks, Angus!

Posted by Gillian Russell at 05:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 13, 2009

Books!

Very exciting mail this morning! Just received a (gratis) copy of John P. Burgess' new book Philosophical Logic. Among other things it's nice to have a good copy of a Burgess-written text on tense logic (or, as he calls it "Temporal Logic") - my copy of his article "Basic Tense Logic" is the first chapter of my "course pack" of photocopies from his Heresies in Logic course at Princeton and all the pages are now loose and apt to disappear. Anyway, I haven't read the book yet, but I'm confident it's going to be a very strong candidate for the textbook when I teach philosophical logic next. Also it's like ~~$20~~ $14 in hardcover! I'm guessing there'll be no better bargain this year.

My old grad school friend Antony Eagle also has a new book out, an edited collection of readings in the Philosophy of Probability. No doubt that would also make a good course book.

Posted by Gillian Russell at 04:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

May 19, 2009

Survey on Causation

My good friend Antony Eagle has a survey on causation that he'd like people to have a look at. The link is here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=flm10kfdTBAcPUGy1hay9A_3d_3d

x-posted at Thoughts, Arguments and Rants

Posted by Gillian Russell at 02:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 10, 2009

Assertion

Wow, Geach is great, isn't he? I've just been reading through "Assertion" (Phil Review, vol. 74, no, 4 (Oct 1965)) and my favourite one-liners include:

I do not think there is anything in this.

this is just an idiotism of idiom

..and this is what Professor Antony Flew has aptly called a conventionalist sulk

I wonder if I can manage to use all of these in my next question session? (Though maybe they won't buy me dinner if I do.)

Posted by Gillian Russell at 02:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

January 24, 2009

Linguisic Anarchy!

I'm one of those people who can often get over an inability to settle down to work by going out to a cafe. Since I'm in Berkeley now, naturally the cafe I found this afternoon was no ordinary Seattle's Best, but the Mediterraneum Caffé (Caffé Med) on Telegraph, former haunt of Ginsberg and other Beats, and the place that claims to have invented the latte.

I asked for a small latte. The young server paused and said, "would a medium be ok?" I said ``er, sure..." and she said "because technically if it's in a cup smaller than this one (holding up a cup that would make a perfectly respectable soup bowl) then it's not called a latte. Actually, if it's like a latte but in this cup (holding up a cup that is still generous for a coffee cup) it's called a macchiato."

Having been influenced by old Language Log posts on Starbucks' (you don't say small you say tall) and Microsoft's (Microsoft has no genitive) amateurish attempts to regiment language in various ways, I'm never very impressed by this sort of thing. It's not that I'm opposed to the regimentation of language in general---in fact, I usually follow one of my old teachers in recommending that my logic students refrain from using valid in informal senses (valid point of view, valid claim etc.) and reserve the word for it's technical senses (which are tricky enough as it is, given that many books reserve one technical use of the word for first order logical truths, as well as allowing the more well-known use on which it is a property of arguments or argument schemata in general.) So anyway, that sentence got away from me. It's not that I'm opposed to the regimentation of language in general, but just that I reject the authority of just about everyone in imposing it, including Starbucks, but also including funky historical local coffee shops.

So what's the difference between what they're doing, and what I feel justified in doing in my classes? Well, I think it's just that I have a good justification for the regimentation. Reserving valid for the technical uses aids communication and understanding of the subject at hand. A regimentation that makes it impossible to request a coffee like a medium latte, but smaller, by saying "small latte'' does not. In fact, it seems like a snobbish attempt to wield power for the sake of it. Similarly for the Microsoft and Starbucks examples.

Am I right? I can imagine someone defending the Starbucks example by claiming that the justification for having special names for their coffee sizes is artistic. They want their customers to have the best, most enjoyable most interesting/mysterious/exotic coffee-drinking experience possible, and what better justification could there be for their decision to name their sizes as they have?

But even if that is so, it could only justify their introduction of the new expressions, not the outlawing of the old---and hence not the regimentation.

Anyway, though I wasn't impressed by the no-such-thing-as-a-small-latte claim, neither am I impressed by people who are rude to young service workers, so I tried to make conversation, dredging up some faint memories about what a macchiato actually was: "That's interesting. I thought a macchiato was where you just marked the expresso with foam?" "Oh no,'' she said, "a machiatto is just like a latte but with less milk." And I just shut up and smiled and handed over my 4 bucks.

Maybe Berkeley cafes are going to be more distracting than the ones in St Louis.

Posted by Gillian Russell at 05:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)