Conference: ECitS 2012 - Evidence and Causality in the Sciences, University of Kent, UK, 5-7 September 2012.

This conference will examine the relation between causality and evidence. This involves questions about the foundations of the sciences, e.g. what is evidence and how does it contribute to causal knowledge?  But it also involves questions about specific applications, e.g., how should we best deal with the many problems of evidence given by expert witnesses in court; and questions about policy-making, e.g., what constitutes evidence of causation that is relevant to the design of socio-economic and public health policies?  These questions are all of immense current concern.  Pressure on health systems from ageing populations and the obesity epidemic, coupled with severe financial constraints on public policy, means governments are demanding answers with increasing urgency.

New research project: Mechanisms and the evidence hierarchy, AHRC 2012.

Evidence-based medicine makes use of a 'hierarchy of evidence' according to which statistical evidence gleaned from randomised controlled trials trumps other kinds of evidence. Recent work on the epistemology of causality has suggested, however, that evidence of the underlying biological mechanisms (e.g., obtained from laboratory investigations), should be treated more on a par with evidence of statistical relationships. This project will explore the consequences of this work for evidence-based medicine, to examine whether improvements can be made to the evaluation of evidence in medicine.

New research project: From objective Bayesian epistemology to inductive logic, AHRC 2012-15

Inductive logic is the logic of reasoning about structure under uncertainty. While a viable inductive logic would be of crucial benefit to the sciences (e.g., biologists need to reason about protein structure in the face of limited evidence), philosophers have hitherto thought that the quest for a viable inductive logic is a hopeless task. This project aims to build on recent developments in probabilistic epistemology to develop a new inductive logic that may be able to survive the key philosophical criticisms to which other logics have succumbed.

Professor Frank Cioffi

It is with great sadness that the University reports the death on 1 January 2012 of Professor Frank Cioffi. Professor Cioffi joined the University of Kent in 1965 and later founded a philosophy department at the University of Essex. Well liked by both students and staff, he will be much missed. Read more about the life and work of Frank Cioffi in his obituary.

Graduate funding in Philosophy

Find out about our postgraduate funding opportunities for 2012.

Postdoctoral Research Associate and PhD studentship

Information about these grants.

Research interests of the Philosophy Department.