Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method

Come and meet academic staff from the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the LSE undergraduate Open Day next Wednesday 27 June. Please see Open Days| to book a place.

The Department has been ranked 3rd in the UK in the University Guide 2013: League Table for Philosophy|.

Dr. Amandine Catala (LSE Fellow) will take up a one-year fellowship at the Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics in the Université Catholic de Louvain (Belgium) starting in the Fall of 2012.

Dr. Foad Dizadji-Bahmani (LSE Fellow) will take up a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy in California State University in LA starting January 2013.

We are proud to announce that Dr. Alex Voorhoeve| is one of five winners of the 2012 LSE Teaching Excellence Award. Teaching Excellence Awards are major prizes within the School that recognise and reward the best teachers in the School. Nominations come from students and the process is entirely student-led.

Congratulations to Alex upon this achievement! His contribution to the philosophy teaching programme is truly outstanding and we are grateful for the inspiration that he continues to offer to our students.

Please join us in congratulating Chris Blunt for winning the 2012 GTA Teaching Award. Well done, Chris!

Richard Bradley|, Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme 'In Our Time' on May 10 to discuss the nature and significance of game theory.

For more information on the programme and to listen to the discussion, see here|.

To download the podcast, click here|.

The Department is pleased to welcome a new lecturer, Dr Gabriel Wollner| (currently at Harvard and Bayreuth), and three new LSE Fellows, Dr Joseph Mazor| (currently at Stanford), Emily McTernan| (currently at Cambridge), and Andrew Khoury| (currently at ASU), who will be taking up their positions during the coming academic year.

John Worrall|, Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, participated in a discussion of the significance of Nassim Nicholas Taleb and his book 'The Black Swan' in the BBC Radio 4 programme 'Analysis'.

For more information on the programme and to listen to the discussion, see here|.

To download the podcast, click here|.

Lakatos Award 2011

The London School of Economics and Political Science announces that the Lakatos Award, of £10,000 for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science, will not be awarded in 2011.

The Management Committee for the Lakatos Award has considered the reports from the Selectors on the books shortlisted for the 2011 prize. While there is no doubt that all of the shortlisted books have their virtues, and that some make weighty contributions to the field, the overall view taken by the Management Committee on the basis of the Selectors' reports is that none quite meets the level of impact and significance required to merit the Award; and consequently no Award will be made this year.

For more information, see here|.

John Worrall|, Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, participated in a discussion of philosophy and the scientific method in the BBC Radio 4 programme 'In Our Time'.

For more information on the programme and to listen to the discussion, see here|.

To download the podcast, click here|.

Alex Voorhoeve|, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, has accepted a Laurence Rockefeller Fellowship for 2012–2013 at The University Center for Human Values| at Princeton University. Congratulations, Alex!

Congratulations to PhD student Susanne Burri and MSc Philosophy of Science student Zhixiong Brian Sng!

Susanne Burri was awarded the Popper Prize this year for her paper 'The Fair Distribution of Bad Luck'.

Zhixiong Brian Sng was awarded the Imre Lakatos Prize for his outstanding dissertation.

NEW BOOK: Group Agency: The Possibility, Design and Status of Corporate Agents

Christian List|, Professor of Political Science and Philosophy in the Department of Government and the Department of Philosophy at LSE, and Philip Pettit|, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University, have a new book exploring the subject of group agency.

Are companies, churches, and states genuine agents? Or are they just collections of individuals that give a misleading impression of unity? This question is important, since the answer dictates how we should explain the behaviour of these entities and whether we should treat them as responsible and accountable on the model of individual agents. Group Agency offers a new approach to that question and is relevant, therefore, to a range of fields from philosophy to law, politics, and the social sciences. Christian List and Philip Pettit argue that there really are group or corporate agents, over and above the individual agents who compose them, and that a proper approach to the social sciences, law, morality, and politics must take account of this fact. Unlike some earlier defences of group agency, their account is entirely unmysterious in character and, despite not being technically difficult, is grounded in cutting-edge work in social choice theory, economics, and philosophy. For more information, see here|.

Please join us in congratulating Charlotte Werndl|, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the LSE, on winning the James T. Cushing Memorial Prize in History and Philosophy of Physics for 2011.

The John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, along with the Graduate Program in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Notre Dame and the Advisory Committee of the James T. Cushing Memorial Prize in History and Philosophy of Physics awarded the prize for her paper "What Are the New Implications of Chaos for Unpredictability?" published in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science in 2009. The Cushing Prize carries a $1000 award plus an invitation to deliver a lecture as part of the History and Philosophy of Science Colloquium at the University of Notre Dame. For more information, please see the announcement here|.

Professor Richard Bradley| has been awarded an AHRC Fellowship to complete his book on "Decision Making with a Human Face". The £82K award is to provide salary replacement for the duration of the award (January to September 2012).

LSE–Philosophy leads on Graduate Prospects in the University League and Subject Tables

A. Independent University League and Subject Tables:

1. LSE–Philosophy received the highest score (86) of any Philosophy Department in the UK on Graduate Prospects in the University League and Subject Tables followed by Oxford (82) and Durham (78).

2. In overall scores, LSE-Philosophy placed second with a score of 98.1, with Oxford in first place (100) and Cambridge in third place (94.9).

3. Within the LSE, the graduate prospects score for Philosophy (86) is comparable to the scores for Economics (90), Accounting and Finance (88) and Mathematics (84). Click here| for more information.

B. Guardian University Guide:

LSE-Philosophy scored third in the Guardian University Guide. Click here| for more information.

The Andrea Mannu Prize UG for 2010/11 was awarded to Jonathon Gunn for best performance by an undergraduate in any degrees administered by the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method. The Departmental Teaching Prize was awarded to Ben Ferguson.

Sarah Alexandra George, a third year BSc student in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, has been awarded the 'Cara Giulietta' ('Dear Juliet') prize after writing a letter to Shakespeare's most romantic heroine. For more info, click here|. To read her prize-winning letter, click here|.

Please join us in congratulating Alexandru Marcoci on winning this year's Lakatos MSc Scholarship. Alexandru received a BA in Philosophy (2008) from the University of Bucharest and an MSc in Logic (2010) from the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation in Amsterdam. He is mainly interested in formal epistemology, (dynamic) epistemic logic and game theory. His research so far has been on offering a formal framework for reasoning about the surprise examination paradox and showing what impact this paradox can have on logics of belief and knowledge. Currently he is interested in the epistemic foundations of game theory and in modal logics for reasoning about games. Outside academia Alexandru is interested in international relations and in 2011 he was an intern at the Romanian Embassy in the Hague.

The 2012 issue of Philosoverse, a magazine at the intersection of philosophy and poetry created and designed by students in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, is now available online|.

Choice Group Events|

The LSE Choice Group is a group of philosophers, political scientists and economists based mainly at the LSE and with a shared interest in the theory of rational decision making in individuals and groups and its application to economic, political and social questions.

Sigma Club Events|

The Sigma Club organises seminars and talks dealing with issues in the philosophy and foundations of modern physics. The meetings of the Club are held in the seminar room of the Centre for the Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS) at the LSE (T206) on selected Mondays from 5pm to 7pm (maps and directions|).

CPNSS Events|

The Centre for Natural and Social Science (CPNSS) organises seminars, lectures, conferences and workshops as part of its routine activities. It also hosts events organised by the LSE Philosophy Department and the British Society for the Philosophy of Science.

The Forum for European Philosophy Events|

The Forum for European Philosophy organises and runs a varied programme of philosophy and interdisciplinary events, including public lectures, panel discussions, dialogues and seminars. Events are free and open to the public.

The Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, together with the Forum for European Philosophy, warmly invites you to the International Conference on the Politics of Secession in the European Union, which will take place on 22 May, 2012. For more information, please see the conference webpage|.

The Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method gratefully acknowledges the support of the LSE Annual Fund and the Institute of Philosophy.

Graduate Programme|

The range of postgraduate masters degrees offered by the Department reflects its strengths: it offers four different MSc programmes, each dedicated to the teaching of one of its particular specialties.

 How to Apply|

 For students considering study at the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics and Political Science.