As I mentioned in my conference report from Durham, there’s a new Templeton funded project on ‘Emergence’ starting at Durham. The project is led by Robin Hendry and features three broader subprojects, on Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science, and Physics. Other philosophers involved are E.J. Lowe, Sophie Gibb, Nick Zangwill, Nancy Cartwright, and Peter Vickers; in addition there are three physicists from Durham involved.

I thought it might be worth advertising the postdocs and PhD studentships available in the project, as they might be of interest to some readers of this blog. They’re great opportunities, with three years of funding (four for physics studentships). I should also mention that although metaphysics isn’t strictly speaking mentioned as a subproject, I think that they are more than willing to consider people working in metaphysics and with an interest in either philosophy of science or philosophy of mind — Durham is generally quite hospitable to metaphysicians! Anyway, best of luck to anyone who might be applying for these jobs!

As some readers are no doubt already aware, the Academy of Finland has selected me as an Academy Research Fellow, starting this September in Helsinki. This is a lucrative five year, senior research position — something of a Holy Grail in Finland’s highly competitive academic research circles. I’m obviously rather pleased about this, especially since it was the first time I applied for the position. You can expect to see a series of posts related to this in the near future, as I set out my plans for the next five years. This includes several conferences, international visitors in Helsinki, two longer visits abroad by myself (first of these most likely to Reading, UK), an online presence for the project, recruiting grad students and post-docs (I will post a call for expressions of interest in due course) etc.

The list of new Academy Research Fellows is available here (pdf). There were 20 awards this year, and only two in philosophy. The applications are assessed by an international panel of experts, and I have to say that I was impressed by its standard (the panel included multiple ‘household names’ from Anglo American analytic philosophy) — even if I am a little biased given the results!

My current Post-Doctoral Fellowship is also funded by the Academy of Finland, but it would have ended at the end of 2013, so I’ve been on the market this year. I haven’t had much luck with permanent positions, but earlier I managed to secure a so called EURIAS Fellowship at the Central European University Institute for Advanced Study, in Budapest. I was looking forward to going to Budapest, but unfortunately there isn’t much flexibility with these types of Fellowships (the EURIAS one or the Academy one), so I had no choice but to turn down the EURIAS Fellowship. My EURIAS profile is still up, but I imagine that they’ll take it down at some point. The project, entitled ‘Truth-grounding and Fundamentality’, was pitched for an interdisciplinary audience, but I do have ‘serious’ research interests in this area (and a couple of papers in the works).

The Academy Research Fellow project, however, is on a different topic, more directly related to my on-going research on the foundations of metaphysics. The title is ‘Essential Knowledge: The Metaphysical Basis of Scientific Realism’. This is a very broad project, involving research on metaontological themes, modal epistemology, epistemology of essence, apriority, formal ontology (logic of essence, grounding, fundamentality), natural kinds, philosophy of science (chemistry, biology), Aristotle, ‘Neo-Aristotelianism’, realism, and so on. Of course, these are all themes that I’ve worked on before, at least to a certain extent, but this project ties a lot of threads together. The goals are quite ambitious, but I do have five years at my disposal, with minimal teaching commitments.

The actual research proposal for the project is too long to post here (12 pages), but let me post an outline of the project’s primary Research Focuses as well as the abstract, which will give you an idea about the primary themes and extent of the project, even if not the technical aspects:

Outline of Research Focuses

Natural science studies the natural world, but what makes the world natural? According to scientific realism, nature comes with a designated structure, and it is this structure that natural science investigates. Biological species, chemical substances, and subatomic particles are all part of this structure. The assumption underlying scientific inquiry is that we have some means to identify where one kind of structure ends and another kind begins: the notion of natural kind captures this assumption. But what fixes the identity of a natural kind? What guarantees that a given organism belongs to one biological species rather than another? Why should we consider two isotopes of a chemical element to constitute distinct chemical substances? Moreover, what reasons do we have to think that natural kinds are mind-independent rather than merely conventional, a product of our psychological makeup?

This project aims to determine the metaphysical foundations for any attempt to answer these questions. The hypothesis is that there are indeed genuine natural kind essences. The notion of essence has a long philosophical history — it has made its way back into analytic metaphysics via the ‘neo-Aristotelian’ movement — but it is often misunderstood in contemporary contexts. The consensus among those working in the neo-Aristotelian tradition is that the notion of essence has been misrepresented in much of contemporary work. This is largely due to a misconception of what essences are, or rather, the misconception is that essences are ‘things’ in the first place. Essence, I suggest, is shorthand for whatever it is that makes a given natural kind the very natural kind that it
is. Since the majority of philosophers and scientists subscribe to some form of scientific realism, the theme of this project is of enormous importance.

The notion of essence has been a central theme in my work for nearly a decade – and it is one of three topics pursued in my previous, Academy of Finland funded project. What are essences, how do we come to know them, and why do they matter? These are some of the questions explored in this project, giving raise to the following core objectives:

1. To establish a rigorous definition of the notion of ‘essence’.
2. To examine and revise the ontological status and logic of the established notion.
3. To develop an epistemology of essence.
4. To develop applications of the established notion, specifically with regard to philosophy of science and neo-Aristotelianism.

If you’re intrigued by any of this and want to know more, do drop me a message! Make sure to stay tuned for announcements from Dynamis: The Finnish Network for Metaphysics as well, as we’ve got a couple of things planned…

A job opportunity for a young philosopher in Gothenburg, Sweden, where Anna-Sofia Maurin is building the department. I thought I’d advertise it since they encourage applications from people working in metaphysics/ontology (and metametaphysics/metaontology) in particular, although the position is open to anyone in the areas of metaphysics, the philosophy of language, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind. Note, however, that a criterion for eligibility is that a PhD has been obtained no more than three years prior to the application deadline (April 25th, 2013). Go to the actual announcement for details.

This postdoc in Paris should be of interest to any scientifically inclined metaphysican. I’d probably be applying myself if I didn’t have other commitments! Deadline February 15.

A postdoctoral position will be available at IHPST (Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, Paris) within the French ANR funded project “Metaphysics of Science”, for one year (September/October 2013 – August/September 2014), renewable for a second year (September/October 2014 – August/September 2015).
The successful candidate must pursue research, and already have some expertise, in at least one of the three domains in the focus of the project: 1) Levels of reality, 2) Individual objects in physics and biology, and 3) Dispositions in psychology and physics.

The post-doc will be expected to present his/her research at conferences and seminars, and to publish in peer-reviewed journals.

He or she will work at IHPST in Paris and will provide organizational support for the activities of the teams. Residence in Paris is strictly mandatory.

Major tasks will be to:
1) run the Metaphysics of Science seminar on a regular basis,
2) help organize the workshops of the research project,
3) create and maintain a website on the metaphysics of experimental sciences, which will provide tools of cooperation within the team and help disseminate the results of our research,
4) constitute a database on metaphysics of science.

Applicants must have a doctorate in philosophy. Knowledge of French is not required, but fluency in English is.

Salary will be approximately 2000 € net (2500 € gross) per month.

Application material:
-A cover letter addressed to Max Kistler, Metascience coordinator
-A CV with a list of publications
-A writing sample (e.g., a publication or a dissertation chapter)
-Three letters of recommendation
-A statement of research agenda that fits into one of the areas of the project (2-3 pages)

Applications should be submitted electronically, in a single PDF file, to:
Max Kistler: mkistler@univ-paris1.fr

Deadline for submission of application: 15 February 2013.

Candidates will be informed of the decision by 31 March 2013.

For further information, please contact Max Kistler.

In other words, better update that Curriculum Vitae, which is exactly what I have done. With the impending doom of the daunting US job market, I bet that many hopeful candidates are trying to think of ways to bulk up the CV. Well, I’ve decided to give the US job market a shot this year, so I needed a fitting CV as well. I’ve experimented with a number of LaTeX templates for CVs, such as moderncv and europecv. While I like something about all of the templates I’ve tried, none of them were really what I was looking for. After being adviced to switch to a more conventional formatting for the US market, I’ve decided to go the way of a very plain but neat and functional look — very similar to CVs you may be familiar with from NYU graduates… The pdf version is here. Any feedback is welcome, although I’m, fairly happy with it as it stands. I may have missed some bugs though, so feel free to let me know if you spot something strange. I’ll keep the rather more liberal formatting on the html version on my webpage, I need to assert some personality after all!

I should also take the opportunity to point any interested readers to the very helpful job market related posts at The Philosophers’ Cocoon. See the summary post in particular. New posts on related matters will surely keep coming, and I will probably post there about my own experiences about the US job market.