Dr Ioannis Votsis

Biography

Prof. Votsis hold degrees from the University of California, Berkeley (BA in Philosophy 1998) and the London School of Economics (PhD in Philosophy 2004). Currently, he is a Professor of Philosophy and the Research Head for the cluster ‘Reimagining Higher Education in the Age of AI’ at Northeastern University (London). He is also a UCU rep at the university, helping to negotiate fair and transparent work and pay conditions, as well as helping to ensure that our employer remains competitive, retaining and recruiting the best faculty and students.

Beyond Northeastern University London, he is a member of the Turing Institute’s Humanities and Data Science Special Interest Group as well as a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the London School of Economics. He spends some of my free time developing the app The Logic Calculator.

In recent years, Prof. Votsis have been a Visiting Scholar at the Openproof project, Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford University, but also a Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics. Prior to that he spent several years at the University of Düsseldorf, where he occupied a number of positions including that of Assistant Director and Research Fellow at the Düsseldorf Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science. He has also been a Visiting Research Fellow in the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Athens as well as a Teaching Fellow in the Philosophy Department at the University of Bristol.

His main area of expertise is the philosophy of science, particularly the scientific realism debate, but he also has active research interests in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of artificial intelligence and meta-philosophy. Research that he has conducted into these areas has been furthered via a number of grants, e.g. from the German Research Foundation and the British Academy. His work has been published in several journals including the European Journal for Philosophy of Science, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy of Science, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science and Synthese.

Together with various colleagues, he edited a number of special issues on themes like democracy, public debate and political decision-making, computationalism and the philosophy of information, underdetermination of theory by evidence, the role and value of novel predictions in confirmation, the nature of unification and coherence and the extent to which observation is theory-laden. He has also co-edited the European Philosophy of Science Association 2013 Conference Proceedings (Springer 2015).

Prof. Votsis is currently working on various projects, including how to model analogical reasoning, a neuro-symbolic approach to automating scientific discovery, the epistemology of machine learning, a visual representation of logical inferences, a variant of the resolution principle in automated theorem proving, and pedagogical experiments on conditional reasoning.

Qualifications

PhD in Philosophy, London School of Economics. (2004)

BA in Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley. (1998)

Professional affiliations

Aristotelian Society

British Society of the Philosophy of Science

European Philosophy of Science Association

Philosophy of Science Association (US)

External examiner appointments

King’s College London, external examiner for MPhilStud thesis, September 2018-September 2019

Research

Selected Publications

Edited Volumes/Special Issues

‘Towards Foolproof Democracy: Advancing Public Debate and Political Decision-Making’, Moral Philosophy and Politics, edited with David Lanius (forthcoming)

‘Computationalism meets the Philosophy of Information’, edited with Brian Ball and Fintan Nagle, Review of Philosophy and Psychology (forthcoming)

‘The Mind and Brain in the works of Daniel Dennett and Nicholas Humphrey’, edited with Brian Ball and Fintan Nagle, Topoi, (forthcoming)

Recent Developments in the Philosophy of Science: EPSA13 Helsinki, co-edited with Uskali Mäki, Stéphanie Ruphy & Gerhard Schurz (Springer, 2015)

‘Unification and Coherence’, lead editor, other editors: G Schurz, Theoria: An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science, vol. 30(1): 7-114 (2015)

‘Theory-Ladenness of Experience’, lead editor, other editors: G Schurz and M Tacca, Journal for General Philosophy of Science, vol. 46(1): 83-214 (2015)

‘Novel Predictions’, lead editor, other editors: G. Schurz and L. Fahrbach, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, vol. 45(1): 43-108 (2014)

‘Scientific Realism Quo Vadis? Theories, Structures, Underdetermination and Reference’, co-edited with G. Schurz, Synthese, vol. 180(2) (2011)

‘Theory-Ladenness: Testing the Untestable?’, Synthese.

‘Structural Realism’, in J. Saatsi (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Scientific Realism, London: Routledge, pp. 108-119 (2018)

‘Putting Theory-Ladenness to the Test’, Cognitive Science Society Proceedings, pp. 2630-2635 (2018)

Vale la pena debatir acerca del realismo científico?’, in B. Borge and N. Gentile (eds.), La ciencia y el mundo inobservable. Discusiones contemporáneas en torno al realismo científico, Buenos Aires: EUDEBA (2018)

‘Unification through Confirmation’, EPSA15 Selected Papers, European Studies in Philosophy of Science, vol 5, Berlin: Springer, pp. 83-93 (2017)

‘Philosophy of Science and Information’, in L. Floridi (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Information pp. 249-262, London: Routledge, pp. 249-262 (2016)

‘Ad Hoc Hypotheses and the Monsters within’ in V. C. Müller (ed.), Fundamental Issues of Artificial Intelligence (Synthese Library), Berlin: Springer, pp. 299-313. (2016)

‘Perception and Observation Unladened’, Philosophical Studies, vol. 172(3): 563-585. (2015)

‘Unification: Not Just a Thing of Beauty’, Theoria: An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science, vol. 30(1): 97-114. (2015)

‘Reconstructing Scientific Theory Change by Means of Frames’, in T. Gamerschlag et al. (eds.), Frames and Concept Types, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol. 94, Springer, pp. 93-109. secondary author, lead author: G. Schurz

‘Putting Realism in Perspectivism’, Philosophica, vol. 84: 85–122. (2012)

‘A Frame-Theoretic Analysis of Two Rival Conceptions of Heat’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol. 43(1): 105-114, [lead author, other author: G. Schurz). (2012)

‘The Prospective Stance in Realism’, Philosophy of Science, vol. 78(5): 1223-1234. (2011)

‘Data meet Theories: Up, Close and Inferentially Personal’, Synthese, vol 182(1): 89-100. (2011)

‘Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Structural Realism but Were Afraid to Ask’, European Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 1(2): 227–276, [co-authored with R. Frigg]. (2011)

‘Saving the Intuitions: Polylithic Reference’, Synthese, vol. 180(2): 121-137. (2011)

‘How not to be a Realist’, in E.M. Landry and D. Rickles (eds.), Structure, Objects and Causality, Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol. 77, Springer, pp. 59-76. (2011)

‘Structural Realism: Continuity and its Limits’, in A. Bokulich and P. Bokulich (eds.), Scientific Structuralism, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 281, Springer, pp. 105-117. (2011)

‘Making Contact with Observations’, in M. Suárez, M. Dorato and M. Rédei (Eds.) EPSA Philosophical Issues in the Sciences. Launch of the European Philosophy of Science Association, vol. 2, Springer, pp. 267-277 (2010)

Recent Talks, invited

‘Taking up Space: The Case of the Ether’, From Space to Spacetime, University of Oxford (June 2018)

‘Will I work for AI or will AI work for me?’, (panellist), LSESU Economics Symposium, London School of Economics (February 2018)

‘On the Brink: When Object-Level Debates Fail’, Debating Debates Workshop, Northeastern University London (November 2017)

‘The Physics of Intrinsic Properties’, University of Mainz. (August 2017)

Philosophical Debates about Models and Representations: What are they Good for?’, Models and Explanations in Economics, University of Rostock (July 2017).

‘Will Tomorrow be Another Day?’, TEDx talk hosted by SouthBank International London. (June 2017)

‘Artificial Intelligence and Philosophy: Some Themes’, Real Time Club. (May 2017)

‘Bragging’, PPE Society Fireside Chat, London School of Economics (with Susanne Burri). (January 2017)

‘Testing for Theory-Ladenness: The Stimulus Exchange Procedure (and Ostensive Learnability)’, Celebratory Colloquium in Honor of Gerhard Schurz, University of Duesseldorf. (December 2016)

‘Why is it Sensible to Trust the Senses?’, Departmental Colloquium, University of Duham. (November 2016)

‘Is the Scientific Realism Debate Irredeemably Mired?’ Realism, Progress, and Cognitive Values in Science and Philosophy Workshop, University of Trieste. (September 2016)

‘Truly Undesirable Hypotheses’, University of Rostock. (July 2016)

‘How to Bring Forward a Desirable Future’, TEDx talk hosted by the University of Nicosia. (November 2015)

‘Do you See what I See?’, IAI Academy, How the Light Gets in 2015 (Music and Philosophy Festival), Hay-on-Wye. (May 2015)

‘Is the World a Massive Simulation?’, IAI Academy, How the Light Gets in 2015 (Music and Philosophy Festival), Hay-on-Wye. (May 2015)

‘How to Really Win an Argument’, IAI Academy, How the Light Gets in 2015 (Music and Philosophy Festival), Hay-on-Wye. (May 2015)

‘What Makes a Hypothesis Ad Hoc?’, University of Montreal. (November 2014)

‘Empiricism Unchained: Debunking the Instrument Conspiracy’, University of Western Ontario. (November 2014)

‘Veridical Perception and Observation’, keynote lecture, Experience and Reality conference, Catholic University in Ružomberok, Slovakia. (June 2014)

‘The Metaphysical Status of Logical Principles’, Aspects and Prospects of Realism in the Philosophy of Science and Mathematics, University of Athens. (March 2014)

‘Logic as Ultra-Physics’, California State University Los Angeles. (October 2013)

‘Positivism in the 21st Century’, graduate seminar, University of California Davis. (October 2013)

‘Empiricism Unchained’, Bay Area Philosophy of Science, San Francisco State University. (October 2013)

‘Post-Hoc Monsters and the Frankenstein Theory of Confirmation’, Logos Colloquium, University of Barcelona. (April 2013)

‘The Houdini Argument for Intrinsic Properties’, The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism Workshop, University of Athens. (March 2013)

Recent Talks, contributed

‘Putting Theory-Ladenness to the Test’, (poster presentation), Cognitive Science Society 2018, University of Wisconsin, Madison (July 2018)

‘Computation: A Tale of Two Notions’, Philosophy and Theory of Artificial Intelligence, University of Leeds (November 2017)

‘A General Case for Scientific Realism… and for Anti-Realism’, PSA 2016, Atlanta (with Jamie Rumbelow). (November 2016)

‘Materiality does not Equal Lack of Generality’, 8th Quadrennial International Fellows Conference, University of Lund. (July 2016)

‘Measurements and Standards: The Case of the Meter’, PSF2016, Doorn. (May 2016)

‘Why Immaterial Standards Matter’, The Making of Measurement Conference, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge. (July 2015)

‘Can Theory-Laden Effects be Removed?’, 23rd Annual Meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, University of Tartu. (July 2015)

July 2015 – ‘How to Make a Long Theory Short’, British Society for the Philosophy of Science Annual Conference, University of Manchester. (July 2015)

‘Methods and Universality’, Symposium on: ‘The Scientific Method – Revisited’, Philosophy of Science Association 2014 Biennial meeting, Chicago. (November 2014)

‘Intelligence as Portability in Problem-Solving’, International Association for Computing and Philosophy 2014, Thessaloniki, Greece. (July 2014)

‘An Inferentialist Account of Confirmation’, Inferentialism in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science workshop, University of Madrid. (November 2013)

‘Science with Artificially Intelligent Agents’, 2nd Conference on the Philosophy and Theory of Artificial Intelligence (PT-AI 2013), University of Oxford. (September 2013)

‘The Scientific Method’, British Society for the Philosophy of Science Annual Conference, University of Exeter. (July 2103)

‘Objectivity in Confirmation’, Philosophy of Science in a Forest, Dutch Society for the Philosophy of Science. (May 2013)