Mark Colyvan Professor of Philosophy Director of the Sydney Centre for the Foundations of Science University of Sydney Research Page

Contents:

Current Research Projects

• Formal Consensus Methods (DAFF funded)
• A Paraconsistent Approach to Vagueness (ARC funded)
• Decision and Risk in Environmental Science (CERF funded)
• Complex Environmental Decision Making (NSF funded)
• Ethics and Decision Theory (ARC funded)
• Formal Approaches to Social Epistemology (Dutch Science Foundation funded)

Major Research Awards

• Dutch Science Foundation Internationalisation Grant (2008–2010): Formal Approaches to Social Epistemology (with Stephan Hartmann, Cristina Bicchieri, and Jesus Pedro Zamora Bonilla)
• ARC Discovery Grant (2008–2010): Ethics and Formal Theories of Decision
• AEDA Project Funding (2008–2010): Environmental Ethics and Decision Theory
• ACERA Project Funding (2007–2009): The Evaluation and Development of Formal Consensus Methods
• Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities (CERF) Research Hub (2006–2010): Applied Environmental Decision Analysis (AEDA) (with Hugh Possingham and several other CIs)
• Australian Government funded Centre of Excellence (2006–2010): Australian Centre of Excellence for Risk Analysis (ACERA) (administered by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) (with Mark A. Burgman and several other CIs)
• ARC Discovery Grant (2006–2008): A Paraconsistent Approach to Vagueness (with Dominic Hyde)
• University of Queensland Research Grant (2005): A Paraconsistent Approach to Vagueness
• ARC Discovery Grant (2002–2004): The Role of Naturalism in Ontology and Scientific Methodology
• University of Tasmania Institutional Research Grant (2002): A Metaphysical Approach to Vagueness
• ARC SPIRT Grant (2001): Mathematical Issues at the Foundation of Population Ecology
• University of Tasmania Institutional Reserach Grant (2001): Philosophical Naturalism
• ARC Small Grant (2000): The Identification and Treatment of Uncertainty in Threatened Species Classification
• University of Tasmania Industry Collaborative Research Grant (1999–2000): Uncertainty in Risk Assessment

Visiting Appointments

• 2007: Department of Philosophy at the University of Otago
• 2004: The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh
• 2002–2003: Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the California Institute of Technology
• 2001: Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California, Irvine

Other Short-term and Honorary Positions

• 2007–present: Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science at Tilburg University
• 2005: The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University
• 1999: The Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies

Publications

You can download pdf files of some of these by selecting the relevant titles.
For publications listed by topic, see Mark's Publications by Topic.

Books

• Ecological Orbits: How Planets Move and Populations Grow, Oxford University Press, New York, 2004. (Coauthor: Lev R. Ginzburg.)
• The Indispensability of Mathematics, Oxford University Press, New York, 2001.

Edited Volumes

• Reduction and the Special Sciences, special issue of Synthese, forthcoming. (Guest editor with Stephan Hartmann.)

Refereed Papers

• 'Analogical Thinking in Ecology: Looking Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries', Quarterly Review of Biology, forthcoming. (Coauthor: Lev R. Ginzburg.)
• 'An Inferential Conception of the Application of Mathematics', Noûs, forthcoming. (Coauthor: Otávio Bueno.)
• 'There is No Easy Road to Nominalism', Mind, forthcoming.
• 'Modelling the Moral Dimension of Decisions', Noûs, forthcoming. (Coauthors: Damian Cox and Katie Steele.)
• 'Mating, Dating, and Mathematics: It's All in the Game', in K. Miller and M. Clark (eds.), Dating and Philosophy, Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming.
• 'Environmental Ethics and Decision Theory: Fellow Travellers or Bitter Enemies?', in B. Brown, K. de Laplante, and K. Peacock (eds.), Handbook of the Philosophy of Science Volume 11: Philosophy of Ecology, North Holland/Elsevier, forthcoming. (Coauthor: Katie Steele.)
• 'Fictionalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics', in E.J. Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Online edition, Taylor and Francis, 2009, forthcoming.
• 'Applying Inconsistent Mathematics', in O. Bueno and Ø. Linnebo (eds.), New Waves in Philosophy of Mathematics, Palgrave MacMillan, 2009, pp. 160–72.
• 'Philosophical Issues in Ecology: Recent Trends and Future Directions', Ecology and Society, Vol. 14, No. 2 (December 2009), article 22. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art22/ (Coauthors: Stefan Linquist, William Grey, Paul Griffiths, Jay Odenbaugh, and Hugh Possingham.)
• 'Mathematics and the World', in A.D. Irvine (ed.), Handbook of the Philosophy of Science: Philosophy of Mathematics, North Holland/Elsevier, 2009, pp. 651–702.
• 'Buying Into Conservation: Intrinsic Versus Instrumental Value', Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 24, No. 4 (April 2009), 187–91. (Coauthors: James Justus, Helen M. Regan, and Lynn A. Maguire.)
• 'Naturalising Normativity', in D. Braddon-Mitchell and R. Nola (eds.), Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, MIT Press, 2009, pp. 303–13.

• 'Some Practical Suggestions for Improving Engagement Between Researchers and Policy-makers in Natural Resource Management', Ecological Management and Restoration, Vol. 9, No. 3 (December 2008), 182–6. (Coauthors: Philip Gibbons, et al.)
• 'Paraconsistent Vagueness: Why Not?', The Australasian Journal of Logic, Vol. 6 (2008), pp. 107–21. (Coauthor: Dominic Hyde.)
• 'Vagueness and Truth', in H. Dyke (ed.), From Truth to Reality: New Essays in Logic and Metaphysics, Routledge, 2008, pp. 29–40.
• 'The Ontological Commitments of Inconsistent Theories', Philosophical Studies, Vol. 141, No. 1 (October 2008), 115–23.
• 'Mathematical and Physical Continuity', Australasian Journal of Logic, Vol. 6 (2008), pp. 87–93. (Coauthor: Kenny Easwaran.)
• 'Who's Afraid of Inconsistent Mathematics?', Protosociology, Vol. 25, (2008), pp. 24–35. Reprinted in G. Preyer and G. Peter (eds.), Philosophy of Mathematics: Set Theory, Measuring Theories and Nominalism, Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt, 2008, pp. 28–39.
• 'Is Probability the Only Coherent Approach to Uncertainty?', Risk Analysis, Vol. 28, No. 3 (June 2008), pp. 645–52.
• 'The Explanatory Power of Phase Spaces', Philosophia Mathematica (3), Vol. 16, No. 2 (June 2008), pp. 227–43. (Coauthor: Aidan Lyon.)
• 'Population Ecology', in S. Sarkar and A. Plutynski (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Biology, Blackwell, 2008, pp. 301–20.
• 'Philosophy of Mathematics: Five Questions', in V.F. Hendricks and H. Leitgeb (eds.), Philosophy of Mathematics: Five Questions, Automatic Press, 2008, pp. 75–85.
• 'Relative Expectation Theory', Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 105, No. 1 (January 2008). pp. 37–44.

• 'Mathematical Recreation Versus Mathematical Knowledge', in M. Leng, A. Paseau, and M. Potter (eds.), Mathematical Knowledge, Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 109–22.
• 'Right Decisions or Happy Decision Makers?', Social Epistemology, Vol. 21, No. 4. (October–December, 2007), pp. 349–68. (Coauthors: Katie Steele, Helen M. Regan and Mark A. Burgman.)
• 'Legal Decisions and the Reference-Class Problem', International Journal of Evidence and Proof, Vol. 11, No. 4 (2007), pp. 274–85. (Coauthor: Helen M. Regan.)

• 'No Expectations', Mind, Vol. 115, No. 459 (July 2006), pp. 695–702.
• 'A Formal Model for Consensus and Negotiation in Environmental Management', Journal of Environmental Management, Vol. 80, No. 2 (July 2006), pp. 167–76. (Coauthors: Helen M. Regan and Lisa Markovchick-Nicholls.)
• 'Scientific Realism and Mathematical Nominalism: A Marriage Made in Hell', in C. Cheyne and J. Worrall (eds.), Rationality and Reality: Conversations with Alan Musgrave, Springer, 2006, pp. 225–37.
  
• 'Naturalism and the Paradox of Revisability', Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 87, No. 1 (March 2006), pp. 1–11.

• 'Probability and Ecological Complexity', Biology and Philosophy, Vol. 20, No. 4 (September 2005), pp. 869–79.
• 'Problems with the Argument from Fine Tuning', Synthese, Vol. 145, No. 3 (July 2005), pp. 325–38. (Coauthors: Jay L. Garfield and Graham Priest.)
• 'Ontological Independence as the Mark of the Real', Philosophia Mathematica (3), Vol. 13, No. 2 (June 2005), pp. 216–25.

• 'Logical Non-Apriorism and the Law of Non-Contradiction', in G. Priest, JC Beall, and B. Armour-Garb (eds.), The Law of Non-Contradiction: New Philosophical Essays, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 156–75. (Coauthor: Otávio Bueno.)
• 'The Philosophical Significance of Cox's Theorem', International Journal of Approximate Reasoning, Vol. 37, No. 1 (August 2004), pp. 71–85.

• 'Yablo's Paradox and Referring to Infinite Objects', The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 81. No. 3 (September 2003), pp. 402–12. (Coauthor: Otávio Bueno.)
• 'The Galilean Turn in Population Ecology', Biology and Philosophy, Vol. 18, No. 3 (June 2003), pp. 401–14. (Coauthor: Lev R. Ginzburg.)
• 'Laws of Nature and Laws of Ecology', Oikos, Vol. 101, No. 3 (June 2003), pp. 649–53. To be reprinted in R.A. Skipper Jr., R. Ankeny, C.F. Craver, L. Darden, G.M. Mikkelson, and R.C. Richardson (eds.), Philosophy and the Life Sciences: A Reader, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA., forthcoming. Translated into Estonian and reprinted in Akadeemia, forthcoming. (Coauthor: Lev R. Ginzburg.)
• 'Paradox without Satisfaction', Analysis, Vol. 63, No. 2 (April 2003), pp. 152–6. (Coauthor: Otávio Bueno.)

• 'A Taxonomy and Treatment of Uncertainty for Ecology and Conservation Biology', Ecological Applications, Vol. 12, No. 2 (April 2002), pp. 618–28. (Coauthors: Helen M. Regan and Mark A. Burgman.)
• 'Mathematics and Aesthetic Considerations in Science', Mind, Vol. 111, No. 441 (January 2002), pp. 69–74.

• 'Russell on Metaphysical Vagueness', Principia, Vol. 5, No. 1–2 (2001), pp. 87–98.
• 'Looking for Contradictions', The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 79, No. 4 (December 2001), pp. 564–9. (Coauthor: JC Beall.)
• 'Ranking in Threatened Species Classification', Conservation Biology, Vol. 15, No. 6 (December 2001), pp. 1814–6.
• 'The Miracle of Applied Mathematics', Synthese, Vol. 127, No. 3 (June 2001), pp. 265–78.
• 'Is it a Crime to Belong to a Reference Class?', The Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 9, No. 2 (June 2001), pp. 168–81. Reprinted in H.E. Kyburg and M. Thalos (eds.), Probability is the Very Guide of Life, Open Court, Chicago, 2003, pp. 331–47. (Coauthors: Helen M. Regan and Scott Ferson.)
• 'Heaps of Gluts and Hyde-ing the Sorites', Mind, Vol. 110, No. 438 (April 2001), pp. 401–8. (Coauthor: JC Beall.)

• 'Fuzzy Sets and Threatened Species Classification', Conservation Biology, Vol. 14, No. 4 (August 2000), pp. 1197–9. (Coauthor: Helen M. Regan.)
• 'Conceptual Contingency and Abstract Existence', The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 198 (January 2000), pp. 87–91.
• 'A Proposal for Fuzzy IUCN Categories and Criteria', Biological Conservation, Vol. 92, No. 1 (January 2000), pp. 101–8. (Coauthors: Helen M. Regan and Mark A. Burgman.)

• 'Contrastive Empiricism and Indispensability', Erkenntnis, Vol. 51, No. 2-3 (November 1999), pp. 323–32.
• 'Confirmation Theory and Indispensability', Philosophical Studies, Vol. 96, No. 1 (October 1999), pp. 1–19.
• 'Mathematics: Truth and Fiction?', Philosophia Mathematica (3), Vol. 7, No. 3 (October 1999), pp. 336–49. (Coauthor: Edward N. Zalta.)
• 'Causal Explanation and Ontological Commitment', in U. Meixner and P. Simons (eds.), Metaphysics in the Post-Metaphysical Age: Papers of the 22nd International Wittgenstein Symposium, Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria, 1999, Vol. 1, pp. 141–6.
• 'The Treatment of Uncertainty and the Structure of the IUCN Threatened Species Categories', Biological Conservation, Vol. 89, No. 3 (August 1999), pp. 245–9. (Coauthors: Mark A. Burgman, Charles R. Todd, H. Resit Akcakaya and Chris Boek.)

• 'Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics', entry in E.N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 1095-5054, Stanford University, (December 1998), URL= http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mathphil-indis.
• 'Can the Eleatic Principle be Justified?', The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 28, No. 3 (September 1998), pp. 313–36.
• 'Is Platonism a Bad Bet?', The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 76, No. 1 (March 1998), pp. 115–9.
• 'In Defence of Indispensability', Philosophia Mathematica (3), Vol. 6, No. 1 (February 1998), pp. 39–62.

Book Reviews

• 'Review of M. Sagoff, The Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law, and the Environment', The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol, 83, No. 3 (September 2008), p. 301.
• 'The Calculus of Cat and Mouse', The Australian Review of Public Affairs, (December, 2007), URL= http://www.australianreview.net.
• 'Myths and Mathematics in our Vision of the World', The Australian Review of Public Affairs, (1 August 2005), URL= http://www.australianreview.net. Reprinted as 'Of Demons, Gods and Mathematicians' in The Australian Financial Review, Friday 19 August 2005, p. Review 3.
• 'The Pursuit of the Riemann Hypothesis', Metascience, Vol. 14, No. 1 (March 2005), pp. 78–80.
• 'Models and Explanation in Ecology', Metascience, Vol. 13, No. 3 (December 2004), pp. 334–7.
• 'Review of M. Giaquinto, The Search for Certainty', Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 10, No. 2 (June 2004), pp. 214–6.
• 'Review of J.R. Brown, Philosophy of Mathematics', Philosophy in Review, Vol. 22, No. 1 (February 2002), pp. 14–6.
• 'Review of J.P. Burgess and G. Rosen, A Subject with No Object', Studia Logica, Vol. 67, No. 1 (February 2001), pp. 146–9.
• 'Review of M. Steiner, The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem', Mind, Vol. 109, No. 434 (April 2000), pp. 390–4.
• 'Quaternions and Space-Time', Metascience, Vol. 8, No. 3 (November 1999), pp. 489–90.
• 'Review of P. Maddy, Naturalism in Mathematics', Mind, Vol. 108, No. 431 (July 1999), pp. 586–90.
• 'Review of H.G. Dales and G. Oliveri (eds.), Truth in Mathematics', Australian Mathematical Society Gazette, Vol. 26, No. 2 (June 1999), pp. 82–6.
• 'Review of M.D. Resnik, Mathematics as a Science of Patterns and S. Shapiro, Philosophy of Mathematics', The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 49, No. 4 (December 1998), pp. 652–6.
• 'Review of A. Morton, and S.P. Stich (eds.), Benacerraf and his Critics', The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 75, No. 2 (June 1997), pp. 262–5.

Other Publications

• 'Interview with Mark Colyvan', in The Reasoner, Vol. 3, No. 7 (July 2009), pp. 1–4. URL=http://www.thereasoner.org/. (Interviewed by Jan Sprenger.)
• 'Response to Sagoff', letter in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 24, No. 12 (2009), p. 644. (Coauthors: James Justus, Helen M. Regan, and Lynn A. Maguire.)
• 'Environmental Philosophy: Beyond Environmental Ethics', Arts, Vol. 29, 2007, pp. 95–104.
• 'Beauty and Scientific Virtue' in I. Sawford (ed.), Virtues and Vices, Pyrrho Press, Hobart, 2002, pp. 1–17.
• 'Philosophy's Role in the Taming of Uncertainty' in M. La Caze (ed.), Philosophy and the New Millennium, Pyrrho Press, Hobart, 2000, pp. 1–13.
• 'Dealing with Vagueness in Threatened Species Classification' in R.N. Dave and T. Sudkamp (eds.), Proceedings of the 18th International Conference of the North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society: Real World Applications of Fuzzy Logic and Soft Computing. IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, 1999, pp. 685–94. (Coauthors: Helen M. Regan and Mark A. Burgman.)
• 'The Bubble of Belief' in Y. Rider and G.A. Rutter (eds.), Proceedings of the 4th Australasian Philosophy Postgraduate Students Conference, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1997, pp. 35–43.
• 'Quine's Indispensability Argument' in A. Duckworth (ed.), Proceedings of the 3rd Australasian Philosophy Postgraduate Students Conference, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 1995, pp. 269–82.

Technical Reports

• 'Demonstrating Risk Analysis Capabilities', ACERA technical report prepared for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry, 2009. (Co-authors: Mark A. Burgman et al.)
• 'Survey of Group Consensus Methods', technical report for ACERA project "Evaluation and Development of Formal Consensus Methods", prepared for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry, 2008. (Co-authors: Katie Steele, Helen M. Regan, and Mark A. Burgman.)

Some Non-Philosophical Publications

Work Currently Under Consideration

• 'A Topological Sorites' (Coauthor: Zach Weber.)
• 'The Undeniable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Special Sciences', invited contribution to a volume on the history and philosophy of applied mathematics to be edited by Benjamin Wardhaugh (and intended for Brill).
• 'Evidenced-Based Policy' (Joint work with Adam La Caze.)
• 'The Environment is Valuable, but Not Infinitely Valuable' (Coauthors: James Justus and Helen M. Regan.)
• 'The Biodiversity Bank Cannot Be a Lending Bank' (Coauthors: Sarah Bekessy, Brendan Wintle, David Lindenmayer, and Hugh Possingham.)
• 'The Potential for Perverse Outcomes for Biodiversity from Broad-scale Plantation Establishment in a Carbon Economy' (Joint work with David B. Lindenmayer et al.)

Work in Progress

• A book manuscript, under contract with Oxford University Press, tentatively titled: Thinking about Ecology.
• A book manuscript, under contract with Cambridge University Press, tentatively titled: A Contemporary Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics.
• 'The Conservation Game' (Joint work with Helen M. Regan, and James Justus)
• 'Inclosing the Sorites' (Joint work with JC Beall, Zach Weber and Dominic Hyde.)
• 'Dutch Books and Bayesian Representation Theorems'
• 'Just What is Vagueness?' (Joint work with Otávio Bueno)
• 'Idealisations in Normative Models'
• 'What's Maths Got to Do with It?'
• 'A Ricci Curvature Tensor By Any Other Name'
• 'Reductions, Supervenience and Ontology' (Joint work with Kristie Miller and David Braddon-Mitchell)
• 'Yablo's Paradox Rides Again' (Coauthor: Otávio Bueno)