In case you wonder why I no longer work as a researcher in philosophy, there are too many reasons to list here. To cut a long story short, putting aside more mundane reasons like difficulties of obtaining funding (could be worse), the signal-to-noise ratio has become rather bad. Philosophy is not a science and has internal checks & balances problems. Moreover, science administration and evaluation became unacceptable at my university over the years, for example a new evaluation policy counts any publication in an indexed journal the same, regardless of which journal, and there are no attempts to track quality at all. This practically invites researchers to publish a lot of garbage in bad journals. I may write a detailed summary about my 30+ year experience with that old-fashioned niche discipline if I find time.
That being said, it was a great opportunity to do research as a postdoc and getting paid for work in philosophy always felt like an exceptional privilege and honor. I'm particularly thankful to the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) whose work and support over the years has always been spotless and immensely helpful! I continue to be interested in philosophical problems and topics like moral decision making, the modeling of theories, thruthlikeness, and the role of epistemic value in theory revision. Past publications concern formal value theory, linguistic context sensitivity of evaluative language use, specific problems in formal ethics & decision making, problems of indexicality and essential indexicals, indexical and nonindexical context dependence (contextualism vs. relativism), the Knowledge Argument and qualia, interpretation as inference to the best explanation, categorial grammar, intensional type theory, and concepts.
Publications
- Books
- Rast, E.: Reference
and
Indexicality. Berlin: Logos Verlag
2007. ISBN 978-3832517243. [This book is an improved
version of my PhD Thesis and was published in the series Logische
Philosophie at Logos, Berlin. The original thesis was
published as E. Rast (2006): Reference and Indexicality. PhD
Thesis, Roskilde University. An online version is available
here.]
- Articles & Book Chapters
- Better-making Properties and
the Objectivity of Value Disagreement, European
Journal of Analytic Philosophy, Vol. 20 No. 1, 2024, pp.
155-179. DOI https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.20.1.7.
(link) (pdf)
- Does “Better Than” Have a
Common Scale? The Journal of Value Inquiry, publ.
online in June 2024. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-024-09992-7.
(pdf)
- Values. In Mayer Branco, M. J.
& Constâncio, J. (eds): Essays on Values, Volume 1,
Instituto de Filosofia da Nova / ARTIPOL 2023, pp. 173-192. (pdf)
- Metalinguistic disputes,
semantic decomposition, and externalism. Linguistics and
Philosophy, Vol.46, 2023, pp.65-85. DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-022-09357-y.
(link)
(pdf)
- The Multidimensional Structure
of 'better than', Axiomathes 32, 2022, pp. 291-319,
DOI 10.1007/s10516-020-09525-4. (link)
(pdf)
- Contextual Meaning and Theory
Dependence. In: Wuppuluri, S., Stewart, I. (eds) From
Electrons to Elephants and Elections: Exploring the Role of
Content and Context. The Frontiers Collection.
Springer, Cham 2022, pp. 39-64. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92192-7_4.
(link) (pdf)
- The Theory Theory of
Metalinguistic Disputes. Mind & Language, Volume
37 Issue 4, 2022, pp. 586-604. DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12355. (link)
(pdf)
- "Valores". Entry in
Santos Campos, André & Marques, António (eds.):
Dicionário de Filosofia Moral e Política, Ed. 2, publ. online
Feb. 2019 at URL http://www.dicionariofmp-ifilnova.pt/valores/
(transl. by Susana Cadilha). [A revised English version was
published under the title “Values” in 2023.]
- Towards a Model of Argument
Strength for Bipolar Argumentation Graphs. Studies in
Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric 55 (68) 2018, pp.
31-62. (link)
- Theory of Concepts. In Hansson,
Sven Ove & Hendricks, Vincent F. (eds.): Introduction to
Formal Philosophy, Springer 2018, pp. 241-250. (pdf) (link)
- Perspectival Disagreement, Theoria - a Swedish Journal of
Philosophy, Vol. 84, No. 2 (May 2018), pp. 120-139.
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12143.
- Moral Choice Without Moralism.
In Marques, A. and Sàágua, J. (eds.): Values and
Practical Rationality, Peter Lang 2018, pp. 133-154. (link)
- Metalinguistic Value
Disagreement, Studia
Semiotyczne, Vol. XXXI No. 2 (2017), pp.
139-159. (pdf) (link)
- Value Disagreement and Two
Aspects of Meaning, Croatian
Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 17 No. 51(3) (2017), pp.
399-430. (pdf)
(link)
- Modeling Value Disagreement. Erkenntnis, Vol. 81, No.
4 (August 2016), pp. 853-880, DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-015-9772-8.
(pdf)
(link)
- Commentary on Hitchcock's All
Things Considered. In Lewinski, M. & Mohammed, D.:
Proceedings of the 1st European Conference on Argumentation,
Vol. 1. College Publications 2016, pp. 181-186. (Hitchcock's
article - my comment)
- Harming Yourself and Others: A
Note on the Asymmetry of Agency in Action Evaluations. Polish
Journal of Philosophy, Vol. VIII, No. 2 (2014), pp.
65-74. ISSN 1897-1652. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/pjphil20082219.
(pdf)
[Note: Publ. in January 2016. The volumes are backdated.]
- Context as Assumptions. In
Lihoreau, F. & Rebuschi, M. (eds.): Epistemology,
Context, and Formalism. Springer 2014, pp. 9-39. (link)
- De se Attitudes and Semiotic
Aspects of Cognition. In Fonseca, J. & Gonçalves, J.
(eds.): Philosophical Perspectives on the Self. Peter
Lang 2015, pp. 121-146. (pdf)
- Book review of Fenstad's
"Grammar, Geometry, & Brain", Studia
Logica , February 2014, Vol. 102, No. 1, pp.
219-223. (pdf) (link)
- On contextual domain
restriction in categorial grammar. Synthese
Vol. 190 No. 12 (Aug. 2013), pp. 2085-2115. (pdf)
(link)
- De Se Puzzles, the Knowledge
Argument, and the Formation of Internal Knowledge, Analysis
& Metaphysics, Vol. 11 (Dec. 2012), pp. 106-132.
(pdf)
- Nonindexical Context-Dependence
and the Interpretation as Abduction Approach. Lodz
Papers in Pragmatics, Vol. 7 No. 2 (Dec. 2011), pp.
259-279. (pdf)
- Classical Possibilism and
Fictional Objects. In Lihoreau, F. (ed.): Truth
in Fiction. Frankfurt: Ontos 2011, pp. 77-92. (link)
- Plausibility Revision in
Higher-Order Logic With an Application in Two-Dimensional
Semantics. In Arrazola, Xabier and Ponte, María (eds.): LogKCA-10 - Proceedings of the
Second ILCLI International Workshop on Logic and Philosophy
of Knowledge, Communication and Action. San
Sebastian/Donostia: University of the Basque Country
Press/ILCLI 2010, pp. 387-403. (pdf)
- Introduction to Meaning
and Context (together with L. Baptista), In Rast /
Baptista (eds.): Meaning
and Context, Peter Lang 2011, pp. 1-17.
- What Simulations Can't Do:
Reply to Fonseca and Gärtner. The
Reasoner Vol. 3, No. 10 (Oct. 2009), pp. 5-6.
- Context and Interpretation. In
Larrazabal, Jesus M. and Zubeldia, Larraitz: Meaning,
Content, and Argument. San Sebastian/Donostia:
University of the Basque Country Press/ILCLI 2009, pp.
515-534. (pdf)
- A Remark About Essential
Indexicals. The Reasoner
Vol. 2, No. 10 (Oct. 2008), pp. 5-6.
- Reference and
Indexicality. PhD Thesis, Roskilde University 2006. (Thesis
and book differ in pagination and some of the content.)
- What do we believe in? In:
Guldborg-Hansen, Pelle / Pedersen, Stig Andur: Shipping News.
Vol. 3 (December 2003). PHIS. Roskilde University Press,
Denmark.
- Talks
- 2023-10-12 Chist-Era Antidote
Meeting: Inference to the Best Explanation, Reflective
Equilibrium, and Subjective Probability. [We
were short on time and so I didn't use the slides; here they
are for anyone interested.] (pdf)
- 2023-02-24 Open Seminar,
IFILNOVA: How Objective Is Value Disagreement? (pdf)
- 2022-05-20 International
Conference "Metalinguistic Disagreement and Semantic
Externalism", May 19-20, 2022, IFILNOVA, Universidade
Nova de Lisboa: Discussing Word Meaning: The Question of
Internalism vs. Externalism. (pdf)
- 2022-05-04 Ethics and Political
Philosophy Reading Group, IFILNOVA, Universidade Nova de
Lisboa: (Metalinguistic) Value Disagreement. (pdf)
- 2022-03-11 Open Seminar,
IFILNOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa: Does "better than" have
a common scale? (pdf)
- 2022-09-22 ANTIDOTE Lisbon
Reading Group (Zoom), IFILNOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa:
On "Harman (1965): The Inference to the Best Explanation." (pdf)
- 2021-03-19 Open Seminar Online
(Zoom), IFILNOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa: Contextual
Meaning and Theory Dependence. (pdf)
- 2021-03-03 Ethics and Political
Philosophy Reading Group (Zoom), IFILNOVA, Universidade Nova
de Lisboa: On "Karl Dieter Opp (2013): Norms and Rationality".
(pdf)
- 2020-06-26 Value Seminar Online
(Zoom), IFILNOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa: Metalinguistic
Disputes and Externalist Meaning. (pdf)
- 2020-03-04 Ethics and Political
Philosophy Reading Group, EpLab, IFILNOVA: On Sven Ove
Hansson's overview article "Formal Investigations of Value". (pdf)
- 2019-11-22 Value Seminar,
IFILNOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa: The Theory Theory of
Metalinguistic Disagreement. (pdf)
- 2019-07-11 MERELY Workshop on
Metalinguistic Negotiation and Conceptual Engineering,
Universidade de Lisboa: Some Remarks About Theory Change
and Topic Continuity. (pdf)
- 2019-05-17 Uppsala Higher
Seminar in Practical Philosophy, Uppsala University (by
invitation of Erik Carlson): A Multidimensional Approach
to 'better than'. (pdf)
- 2019-04-12 Value Seminar,
IFILNOVA, Universidade de Lisboa: Does Collective Action
Require We-Intentions? (pdf)
- 2019-02-05
ArgLab Colloqium, IFILNOVA, Universidade de Lisboa: Multidimensional
'better than'.
- 2019-01-23 Ethics and Political
Philosophy Reading Group, EPLap, IFILNOVA, Universidade de
Lisboa: Discussion of Klocksiem (2016): "How to accept
the transitivity of 'better than'." (pdf)
- 2018-12-19 CFCUL Reasoning
Group, Universidade de Lisboa: Multidimensional 'better
than' and Decision Making.
- 2018-09-28 ArgLab Colloqium,
IFILNOVA: Reasons for the Occasional Illusion of
Faultless Moral Disagreement. (pdf)
- 2018-05-24 Ethics and Political
Philosophy Group, IFILNOVA: Value Disagreement and
Meaning.
- 2018-03-16 Values in
Argumentative Discourse Research Seminar, IFILNOVA: Lexicographic
Principles in the Theory of Value Structure. (pdf)
- 2017-12-15 Values in
Argumentative Discourse Research Seminar, IFILNOVA: Passing
the Buck the Right Way. (pdf)
- 2017-06-09 Values in
Argumentative Discourse Research Seminar, IFILNOVA: Argument
Strength for Bipolar Argument Graphs. (pdf)
- 2017-05-14 Philang 2017, Lodz,
Poland: Value Disagreement and Dual Aspect Semantics. (pdf)
- 2016-10-21, Langcog Group,
Universidade de Lisboa: Implicit Value Disagreement.
(pdf)
- 2016-10-21, ArgLab Colloquium,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa: Value Disagreement and
Different Aspects of Meaning. (pdf)
- 2016-06-16, 3rd International
Conference Economic Philosophy (PhiloEco2016), GREQAM,
Aix-en-Provence, France: Perspectival Disagreement.
(pdf)
- 2016-02-23, IFILNOVA Institute
of Philosophy, Lisbon, Research Colloquium: Is There
Nonsymmetric Disagreement?
- 2015-06-17, Decisions, Games
and Logic 2015, London School of Economics, UK: Making up
one's mind: from values to value judgments. (pdf)
- 2015-06-10, 1st European
Conference on Argumentation: Argumentation and Reasoned
Action, Lisbon: Comment on Hitchcock's "All Things
Considered."
- 2014-09-05, Congresso Português
de Filosofia da SPF 2014, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon
: How tenable is Negative Utilitarianism? (pdf)
- 2014-07-08, Encontro IFL 2014:
Order-based values - their
scope and their limits. (pdf)
- 2013-04-08, GV-Conf 2013: Evaluating time-continuous
action alternatives from the perspective of Negative
Utilitarianism. [not properly peer-reviewed] In
Sovreski, Z., Mokry, M., Badura, S. &
Lieskovský,A.: Proceedings of the Global Virtual
Conference 2013 (ISBN: 978-80-554-0649-7), EDIS - University
of ilina, pp. 349-351.
(pdf)
- 2012-12-11, IFL: Soft
moral choice. (pdf slides)
- 2012-03-16, Knowledge and
Disagreement, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon: Disagreement
and understanding what has been said. (pdf
slides)
- 2011-07-07, IFL: On
the interplay between subjective plausibility and default
reasoning in the context of interpreting natural language
utterances. (pdf slides)
- 2011-05-13, PhiLang 2011, Łodz:
Nonindexical
context-dependence and the interpretation as abduction
approach. (pdf slides)
(Note: In my opinion abduction only makes sense when you also
consider a rational way of revising the underlying
plausibility ordering/preference relation in light of new
evidence. Anything else would be cheating.)
- 2010-11-03, LogKCA-10,
Donostia: Plausibility
revision in higher-order logic with an application in
two-dimensional semantics. (pdf
slides)
- 2010-06-09, OFA 6, Lisbon: Some argument against epistemic
contextualism.
- 2009-11-12, Epiconfor,
University of Nancy/MSH Lorraine: Context
as assumptions (pdf slides)
- 2009-09-18, ENFA 4, University
of Evora, Portugal: Whose context
anyway?
- 2009-07-15, IFL, New University
of Lisbon, Portugal: Classical
possibilism and fictional objects. (pdf
slides) (Note: In this and the previous talk,
description theory is primarily used for illustrative
purposes. As I have argued in Reference&Indexicality
Millianism is adequate for modelling a narrow notion of semantic
reference.)
- 2009-06-18, BW6, University of
Barcelona, Spain: Possibilia and the
description theory of reference.
- 2009-05-08, SPR09, University
of the Basque Country, Donostia/San Sebastian: Context
and interpretation. (pdf
slides)
- 2009-02-21 OFA5, Lisbon: Description theory and identifying reference.
(manuscript)
- 2008-11-26, IFL: Quantifier
Domain restriction in categorial grammar. (pdf slides)
- 2008-02-22, IFL: Indexicality
and information II. (IFL General Seminar Series.)
- 2008-02-08,
IFL: Indexicality and
information I. IFL General Seminar Series.
- 2007-12-19, 'Emotion,
Cognition, Communication', UNL: Pragmatic
context.
- 2007-05/06, Humboldt University
Berlin: Logische Aspekte
der Bezugnahme. (short series of invited talks)
- 2006-12-14, Roskilde
University, Denmark: Talk of PhD
defense. (pdf
slides)
- 2005-07-01, Humboldt University
Berlin: Deskriptivismus und modale
Aspekte der Existenz. (pdf
slides)
- 2004-11-06, 3rd PHIS Graduate
Conference: Modest possibilism.
(pdf slides)
- 2003-12-12, 2nd PHIS Graduate
Conference: Presentation of PhD project
"Indexicality and Reference". (Powerpoint
presentation)
- 2003-09-19, RUC Friday Seminar:
Are essential indexicals really
essential? (handout)
Projects
- PHILA Group, interest
group working in the Philosophy of Language and related areas,
financed internally by the "ArgLab" at IFILNOVA
(Role: Project Member/Senior Researcher).
- ANTIDOTE European Project on Explainable AI,
funded by the Chist-Era program of the European Union (Role:
Project Member/Senior Researcher).
- APPLY European Network for Argumentation and Policy
Analysis, funded by the COST Action program of the
European Union (Role: Member)
- Values in Argumentative
Discourse (PTDC/MHC-FIL/0521/2014), financed
by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Role:
Principal Investigator/Project Leadership).
- Understanding Each
Other: Contextualism, Relativism, and the Role of
Interpretation (SFRH/BPD/84612/2012), financed by the
Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Role:
Individual Research Project).
- Argumentation, Context,
and Communication (PTDC/FIL-FIL 110117/2009), financed
by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Role:
Project Member/Senior Researcher).
- Knowledge
and Ability, financed by the Institute
for the Philosophy of Language (IFL), Universidade Nova de
Lisboa (Role: Project Member/Senior Researcher).
- Context
and Communication (PTDC/FIL/68643/2006), financed
by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Role:
Project Member).
Academic CV
Positions
2019 - 2025 Appointed Research Fellow at the Nova Institute of Philosophy (IFILNOVA), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
2013 - 2019 Research Fellow for the Portuguese Foundation for
Science and Technology, Portugal
2008 - 2013 Research Fellow at the Institute for the Philosophy of Languge (IFL), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
2003 - 2007 International Ph.D. Fellowship, Roskilde University,
Denmark
Degrees
2007 Ph.D., Roskilde University, Denmark; Supervisor: Prof. Dr.
Stig Andur Pedersen
2002 M.A. in Philosophy and General Linguistics,
Humboldt-University of Berlin, Germany
Study
International Ph.D. student in Philosophy and Science Studies at
Roskilde University, Denmark
Philosophy at Humboldt University of Berlin and General
Linguistics at Technical University of Berlin, Germany
Philosophy and General Linguistics at University of Tübingen,
Germany