Miklos Redei
studied physics and philosophy at Lorand Eotvos University in Budapest,
Hungary, receiving his PhD in philosophy from Eotvos University in
1982. Currently he is associate professor in the Department of History and
Philosophy of Science, Eotvos University. He has had numerous visiting
positions in Europe and in the U.S.A., in particular: he was a Visiting
Fellow and Fulbright Scholar at the Center for Philosophy of Science in
Pittsburgh (1994/95) and he was Senior Resident Fellow in the Dibner
Institute, MIT, (1997/98). His research interests concern foundational and
philosophical problems of modern physics, especially quantum theory, and
related more general issues in philosophy of science such as the
interpretation of probability and theories of probabilistic causation. He is
the author of the book
Quantum Logic in Algebraic Approach (Kluwer,
1998) and co-editor of the volume
John von Neumann and the Foundations of
Quantum Physics, M. Redei and M. Stoeltzner (eds.) (Kluwer, 2001). He is
co-organizer of the 3 year European Science Foundation Network
"Fundational and Philosophical Problems of Modern Physics". For more
information, see his
homepage.
Summer 2004
Jan-Willem Romeyn
(1975) studied at Utrecht University, where he graduated cum laude in physics and philosophy. Following these studies, he was employed as a statistician in financial consultancy. Since autumn 2000 he has worked on his thesis to attain a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Groningen. As of January 2005, he is employed at the Psychology Department of the University of Amsterdam, where he lectures in philosophy of science and statistics.
Summer 2005
Teddy Seidenfeld works at the interface between philosophy and statistics, often being concerned with problems
that involve multiple decision makers. For example, in collaboration with M.J. Schervish and J.B. Kadane
(Statistics, CMU), they have relaxed the norms of Bayesian theory to permit a unified standard, both for
individuals acting as separate decision makers and collectively, in forming a cooperative group agent.
By contrast, this is an impossibility for strict Bayesian theory. For a second example, in collaboration
with Larry Wasserman (Statistics, CMU), they have examined the short-run consequences of using Bayes rule
for updating a set of expert Bayesian opinions with shared information. They focus on anomalous cases
(they call dilation), where an experiment is certain to result in new evidence that increases the
experts: uncertainty about an event of common interest where uncertainty is reflected in the extent
of probabilistic disagreements among the experts. His current collaborations with Kadane and Schervish
incude a theory for indexing the degree of
incoherence in non-Bayesian statistical decisions, and work on the representation of coherent choice-functions.
Summer 2004
Hykel Hosni received his
Laurea (MA) degree from the Department
of Philosophy of the University of Pisa, Italy, in November 2001. Since
January 2002 he is a PhD student in Mathematical Logic, specializing
in Uncertain Reasoning, at the department of Mathematics of The
University of Manchester. He is Graduate Fellow of the Institute for
the Science and Technologies of Information of the Italian Research
Council, Pisa, Italy. His research is mainly focused on the
mathematical characterisation of "rational" choice functions and the role that
the latter play in the general context of choice and reasoning under
uncertainty, from Bayesian (subjective) reasoning to non-monotonic reasoning
to the theories of interactive and social choice. For more information see
his
homepage.
Summer 2004
Vladimir Reznikov received his PhD in Philosophy from the Novosibirsk State University in 1997. From 1986 through 1997 he worked as research scientist in applied statistics at the Novosibirsk Institute of Medical and Biological Cybernetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. Since 1998 he has been teaching at the Department of Philosophy of the Novosibirsk State University. Since 1997 Vladimir Reznikov has been working as senior researcher at the Novosibirsk Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His research concentrates on the methodology of statistics, causal analysis, philosophy of science and logic-statistical inference in expert systems.
Summer 2004
Jossi Berkovitz
graduated from the
University of Cambridge in 1996 with a Ph.D. in Philosophy. He held
postdoctoral positions at the University of Haifa and the University of
Cambridge and a Visiting Fellowship at the Center for Philosophy of Science, University
of Pittsburgh. He taught at the London School of Economics and since 2000 he
has been teaching at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. In his
research, he has used philosophical analyses of causation and probability in
order to clarify the nature of the quantum realm, the concept of randomness in
deterministic processes, the metaphysical and epistemological status of
principles of causal inference, the philosophical foundations of decision
theory and scientific methodology.
Spring 2003
James Hawthorne
received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Minnesota in 1989. From 1980 through 1989 he worked as a research scientist in artificial intelligence. Since 1989 he has been teaching in the Philosophy Department at the University of Oklahoma, where he is an associate professor. His research has mainly focused on probabilistic logic, nonmonotonic logic, and issues in the philosophy of science, logic, and mathematics. For more information about his research see his
Homepage.
Winter 2002-2003
Jacob Rosenthal
graduated with a Diploma in Mathematics (specialising in Number Theory) and Computer Science from the University of Würzburg. Afterwards he studied Philosophy at the University of Konstanz and received his PhD in 2002 with a dissertation on Objective Interpretations of Probability Statements, in particular the Propensity Theory. Currently he is employed at the University of Bonn where he teaches ethics as well as the philosophy of science and mathematics. His research interests lie in the fields of epistemology, general philosophy of science (especially the concept of probability, probability theory and statistics), and moral philosophy.
Winter 2004/2005
Christian List
is Reader in Political Science at the London School of
Economics and Political Science (LSE). He graduated in mathematics,
philosophy and politics from the University of Oxford and held research and
visiting positions at Oxford (Nuffield College), the Australian National
University (Research School of Social Sciences), Harvard University (Center
for Basic Research in the Social Sciences) and MIT (Department of Linguistics
and Philosophy). His research areas are social choice theory, political
philosophy and the philosophy of social science. He currently works on
developing both philosophical and mathematical aspects of the theory of
judgment aggregation. For more information about his research see his
Homepage.
Summer 2005
Peter Towbin
studied Math and Physics at the University of
California, Santa Cruz
and then received a Master's degree from UC Irvine in
Computer Science. After
working for a number of years in industry (developing
models and optimization tools
for integrated circuit design and then molecular structure
analysis for medicinal
drug design) he has returned to UC Santa Cruz as a Ph.D.
student in the Department
of Applied Mathematics and Statistics. Peter's interest
in political economy and
international relations have led him to search for better
modeling paradigms for
social dynamics than the traditional rational agent
assumptions of neoclassical
economics. He is particularly interested in agent base
modeling for participatory
decision making in problems which are too complex and
interdependent for
individualistic reasoning to be meaningfully informed. He
is a fellow with
the University of California's Institute for Global
Conflict and Cooperation,
in their program on Public Policy and Nuclear Threats. He
also does research
on foundational issues in probability and statistics.
Summer 2005
Berna Kılınç
, formerly with the last name Eden, received her M.A. in
mathematics from Indiana University, Bloomington, and Ph.D. (1997) in
the Conceptual Foundations of Science Program at the University of
Chicago. After working for some years as a fellow in the
Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte in Berlin, she joined
the Philosophy Department of Bogazici University, Turkey. The center
of gravity of her diverse research interests falls within history and
philosophy of probability theory, in particular, the frequency theory
of probability and the cognitive aspects of reasoning under
uncertainty. For more information about her research see her
Homepage.
Summer 2005
David McCarthy
is a Reader in the Department of Philosophy, University of
Edinburgh. Recent work has focused on the use of representation theorems to
understand the content of utilitarianism and prioritarianism. Current work
extends this approach to deal with incommensurable goods and aggregation across
time. Earlier work developed a treatment of topics like harming and allowing
harm within a broadly contractualist framework. The longterm goal is to offer a
unified treatment of all of these topics which shows that the utilitarian and
Kantian contractualist traditions are complimentary rather than antagonistic.
Summer 2005
