Are you looking for a challenging position in a dynamic setting? The
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation currently has a vacant PhD position as part of the ‘Open Competitie’ Project
Counting the Bees - A Data-Driven Investigation Into Early Modern British Thought, funded by NWO and led by principal investigator Arianna Betti at the
Concepts in Motion lab. The ILLC is one of the five Research Schools within the
Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research.
The ILLC is a research institute in the interdisciplinary area between mathematics, linguistics, music, computer science, philosophy and artificial intelligence. The position will be embedded in the ILLC’s
Epistemology and Philosophy of Science Unit (EPS).
Counting the Bees fits EPS’s high profile in the newly developed area of computational philosophy, and is conducted as part of research of the
Concepts in Motion lab directed by Arianna Betti. The lab pioneers the application of data-driven, computational methods from different strands of AI in the investigation of the development of scientific ideas (concept drift), in particular ideas from logic and methodology of the sciences.
What are you going to do?Axiomatic science, such as logic or mathematics, is seen by many as incompatible with experimental science. The hypothesis behind
Counting the Bees is that this idea is mistaken, and that in the Early Modern period – a time considered the cradle of present-day science - axiomatics was seen as a key component in experimental science as well. We aim to research this hypothesis using a mixed method combining philosophical, data-driven and computational analysis. The data-driven component will rely on massive datasets to be built within the project.
You will work withing a team of philosophers and programmers and in cooperation with the library industry to investigate the following:
Main Question: To what extent did the axiomatic ideal inform thinking about science in British Early Modern science and philosophy, and, if that extent was significant, in what way were the axiomatic and the experimental ideal of science made philosophically compatible?
Your task is to produce at least four top quality publishable research papers on the
Main Question of the project using a novel mixed method involving qualitative research in concept modelling and quantitative data-driven history and philosophy of science. The papers must be bundled up in a PhD dissertation ready for defence within four years.
Further information regarding the project and its initial sub questions is available on request to candidates selected to interviews.
Tasks and responsibilities: - submission of a PhD thesis within the period of appointment;
- participating in meetings and other activities of the project research group, including highly interdisciplinary ones, and co-developing shared databases, documentation and other preparatory materials;
- preparing for publication four top quality articles publishable in top venues;
- presenting intermediate research results at workshops and conferences;
- organising knowledge dissemination activities;
- Teach courses at bachelor’s and/or assist at master’s level in the 2nd and 3rd year (0,2 FTE per year);
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participation in the Research School and Faculty of Humanities PhD training programmes.