Browsing All Posts filed under »Aaron Thomas-Bolduc«

Discovery and Invention Part I: Distinctions and Notations

December 6, 2018 by

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In this three part (probably) series, I’m going to look at the notions of invention and discovery as they relate to how we think about mathematics and logic. In this first post, I’m going to set up the distinction between discovery and invention as I see it, and then talk about whether systems of notation for […]

Meet ‘Most People’

November 12, 2018 by

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We often talk about the need for diversity in philosophy in general, but we also need diversity in our lives. (I know it sounds corny, hear me out.) What I mean is that it’s important to have friends and acquaintances from diverse backgrounds and with varying perspectives. This is important when doing research, thinking about […]

Grinworthy Quotes (16): Self-promotion Edition

October 8, 2018 by

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I just had a co-authored (with Eamon Darnell) paper that’s based on a chapter of my dissertation (both titled “Is Hume’s Principle Analytic?” — link to preprint of the paper) accepted for publication (yay!). Near the end of the paper, we raise an issue that seems (to me at least) to have been under the surface […]

Frege and Hume at Thanksgiving

October 2, 2018 by

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It’s almost Thanksgiving here in Canada, so here’s a thanksgiving themed post about concepts from Frege and Neo-logicism. In his Grundlagen (1884), Frege proposes that the number that belongs to two concepts is the same just in case the objects falling under those concepts can be correlated one-to-one (i.e. they’re equinumerous). The formalization of that claim is […]

Job Market Problems

September 28, 2018 by

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*Since drafting this post, I have moved to take a temporary job to be near my non-academic partner. I’ve decided to keep this post general, but hope to write about that experience once I’ve settled in properly. In this post, I’m going to talk about a couple of issues with the philosophy job market that […]

Talking to (other) Grad Students

August 7, 2018 by

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Thanks to Justin Caouette, I’ve been on Twitter for a little over a year and there’s something I’ve noticed about the way we talk to other early career researchers/teachers or the way advice is given to early career people: everyone assumes the structures and terminology are roughly the same as they are in their own […]

A Quick Update From Aaron

July 24, 2018 by

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Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t published a blog post in quite a while. There’s a good reason for that: I successfully defended my dissertation last month, and handed in my revisions a couple of weeks ago. That’s right, the whole editorial team here at APT are Doctors of Philosophy in philosophy! […]

Open Logic Update: OER Week

March 9, 2018 by

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This week (March 5-9, 2018) is OER week (OER stands for Open Educational Resources). As many of you know, I’ve been working on a free and open logic textbook, forallx: Calgary Remix. You can find my last update, including plenty of links, here. For OER week, Richard Zach and I gave a one hour workshop […]

It’s a Small World: The Leśniewski-Sobociński Theorem.

February 21, 2018 by

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The other day I was reading M. Resnik’s Frege and the Philosophy of Mathematics (1980). In discussing `Frege’s way out’, he mentions a proof by Leśniewski showing that Frege’s attempted fix to the system of the Grundgesetze is inconsistent, but gives a reference to a paper published by Sobociński in 1949. This intrigued me, as […]

Grinworthy Quotes (15)

February 16, 2018 by

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Frege on Euclidean geometry and axioms, but also astrology and alchemy. From his Nachlass*. Now the question is whether to strike Euclidean or non-Euclidean geometry from the ranks of science and to put it alongside of Alchemy and Astrology as mummies. Where one only let himself toy with ideas, he need not take things so […]

Grinworthy Quotes 14

January 18, 2018 by

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In discussing the possibility of adopting category theory as a (the) foundations for mathematics, Jean-Pierre Marquis has this to say in his Stanford Encyclopedia article (2015): To use a well-known metaphor: from a categorical point of view, Neurath’s ship has become a spaceship. I hope there is a literature developing about Neurath’s spaceship.

Teaching Logic and Forallx Update

December 7, 2017 by

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As many of you might remember, I taught the Logic I course here at UCalgary for the first time, and blogged about the experience here, here and here. You might also remember that I was involved in remixing a version of PD Magnus’ and Tim Button’s forallx open textbook for that course (see here and […]

The Further Adventures of Hero and Hera.

September 27, 2017 by

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Those familiar with the neo-logicism literature, may also be familiar with the characters Hero and Hera. Hero was introduced by Crispin Wright in the late `90s, and the story Hero and his sister Hera was fleshed out by Philip Ebert and Marcus Rossberg in 2007*. In that paper, we learn that Hero and Hera both […]

Grinworthy Quotes 13

August 9, 2017 by

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Avicenna and Gentile da Foligno, woodcut (extract), edition of the Canon and its commentary by Gentile da Foligno, Venice 1520. Public domain via Wikipedia Commons     This gem: At Physics II.8, however, Avicenna had undertaken a detailed analysis and critique of the idea of void and found it empty… is on page 19 of Jon […]

Public Philosophy in the PhD

June 4, 2017 by

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We in the philosophy blogosophere (especially) frequently discuss whether activities like blogging, podcasting, and other public philosophy activities or projects should count toward tenure. I fall squarely in the `yes’ camp – engaging audiences outside of our professional circles is vitally important for the discipline. And the APA officially agrees. It is also important for […]

Teaching as a Grad Student: Logic End of Semester

May 23, 2017 by

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This is the 5th post in this series, and the third about my experience teaching for the first time (see parts one, and two). As of a couple of weeks ago, I finally managed to submit the final marks for the Logic I course I had been teaching, marking the end of my responsibilities for […]

Teaching as a Grad Student: Guest Lecturing on Logicism

April 26, 2017 by

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I was recently given the opportunity to give a lecture on Frege’s logicism and related topics for our Logic III course (cross-listed as an undergraduate and a graduate course). That class had gotten up to the point of looking at second-order Peano Arithmetic, which is a natural jumping off point for looking at the logic […]

Teaching as a Grad Student: Logic mid-Semester

March 13, 2017 by

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This is the third installment of our occasional series: Teaching as a Grad Student. In the first installment, I discussed preparing to teach for the first time, as well as my first couple of weeks teaching logic. In the second installment, Alison discussed her experiences teaching philosophy of science. We’re just past the half-way point […]

Goldilocks, Bad Company and some Slippery Fish

February 28, 2017 by

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No this isn’t a terrible (amazing?) fairy tale. And no, the title isn’t (just) badly thought out clickbait. The Bad Company problem, the Goldilocks problem and the Problem of Fishiness are all problems I’m writing about in my dissertation. More specifically, the overarching idea is to look at ways of solving the Bad Company problem. […]

Some Facts about Facts

January 26, 2017 by

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Facts about Facts Facts, and in particular “alternative facts”, have been in the news a lot this week, and for good reason (I toyed with calling this post “Facts: talking metaphysics to power”). I’ll have something to say about “alternative facts” later in the post, but first I’m going to talk about facts more generally, […]

EDITORIAL TEAM

EDITORS: Alison McConwell; Justin Caouette; Aaron Thomas-Bolduc.

FOUNDING EDITOR: Justin Caouette

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