[PHILOS-L] JOB: 3-year full-time postdoctoral fellowship in St Andrews
Franz Berto
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**Apologies for multiple postings**
The Department of Philosophy
and the Arché Research Centre
at the University of St Andrews invite applications for a 3-year full time postdoctoral fellowship.
The postdoc will work in a 4-year project funded by the Leverhulme Trust,
started on 1 January 2025 and entitled ‘What if…? Knowing
by imagining [WIKI].
The Logic and Rationality of Imagination’, PI prof.
Franz Berto. Here follows a short description of the WIKI project:
‘What if?'-counterfactual questions are of momentous importance for scientific explanations (‘Would we see that particle track if the atom was ionized?’), to ascertain responsibilities (‘Would he have hit the brakes, had he not been distracted?’), to choose what to do (‘Would I get to the other side if I jumped the stream?’). We address them by imagining that a hypothetical situation obtains and wondering what would follow. But how can imagination give us knowledge of reality, if it's free departure from reality? WIKI will apply in the philosophy of imagination tools from formal epistemology, in particular epistemic and probabilistic logic, to address this issue. If we start by taking counterfactual imagination as a kind of simulated belief revision, we can then analyze it using formal theories of belief revision, in qualitative (focusing on full, all-or-nothing belief) and quantitative clothing (focusing on credences/degrees of belief). In three interrelated subprojects, WIKI will (1) develop a logic and formal epistemology of imagination as suppositional thinking, (2) apply them to analyse the workings of scientific thought experiments, and (3) compare them to empirical results from the psychology of reasoning, to provide an account of how we can become better hypothetical reasoners.
Link to the full project description here:
https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/arche/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/WIKI-full-3.pdf
The post
is
tied to WIKI Subproject 3, Improving Mental Simulation. The postdoc will have completed a PhD in philosophy or psychology by the time of the application or will have it completed
before the starting date of the job. We are looking for a specialist of logic and/or the psychology of reasoning, ideally with expertise in the study of hypothetical thinking.
Deadline to apply:
2 May 2025
Interview dates: 11-12 June 2025
Start Date: 1 January 2026
Link to apply here, N.B. download and read the Furter Particulars attachment carefully:
https://www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/5915/0/445252/889/research-fellow-ar3093rs
For further details on the job and inquiries, contact the PI Franz Berto (fb...@st-andrews.ac.uk).
---------------------------
Franz Berto FRSE
Professor of Logic and Metaphysics
st-andrews.ac.uk/philosophy/people/fb96
Editor-in-Chief, The Philosophical Quarterly
Edgecliffe, The Scores
St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9AL
+44 (0)1334 46 2415
The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland, No: SC013532
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