>-- The Garden of Forking Paths --<

San Diego is lovely this time of year

Just got this announcement, which may be of interest to some Gardeners. 

Philosophers,

We are encouraging submissions for a neurophilosophy and philosophy of neuroscience discussion at the 2009 Autonomous Neurodynamics Meeting.  In particular, we are interested in talks:

1) On the limitations of dynamical systems or neurocomputational modeling.

2) On conceptual or historical issues related to homeostasis, epilepsy, or control theory.

3) On addiction, seizures, and the loss of control generally.

4) On empirical research related to Free Will.

The conference has always had a philosophical component, but only today have the organizers moved to devote an entire block to philosophical issues. 

 

Abstracts due by July 17, 2009.

Conference Meets in San Diego July 27-29th, 2009.

More here. 

Warning: the time frame is ludicrously short for submitting something (i.e., tomorrow!) because the conference is at the end of this month. 

Big Dutch Conference on Responsibility

Some Gardeners and friends will be there. 

Details here.

Free Will, Computers, and Forbes Magazine

Here. 

Mele in the NYT

The good stuff is here. 

Most frequently cited free will monographs published between 1980-2005

Partly as a reaction to Kevin's post below, and partly out of perversity, I assembled a list monographs on free will that received 30 or more citations according to Google Scholar. In order to constrain the search, I looked only at books published between 1980 and 2005. I also threw out any book that wasn't a philosophy book and any book that was not centrally preoccupied with free will and/or moral responsibility.

Titles were gotten by trolling the bibliography of the Oxford Handbook of Free Will, and one or two other more recent books near my computer. I did not include anthologies or collections of papers, so influential philosophers who haven't written monographs on free will don't show up. I used 2005 as an arbitrary cutoff date, mainly because any books published since then will not have anything remotely like a representative citation impact given how long it takes reviews, responses, and the like to make it into print. Sure enough, newer books generally fared worse than books that have been out for 10 years or so, so bear that in mind as you look at the results below. Also, keep in mind that Google Scholar is far from perfect. In some cases, it splits references to the same book into several entries, and I surely failed to notice all such instances and to adjust citation counts accordingly. In other cases, it likely collapsed some citations for an article into a book with the same name. And, of course, I strongly doubt that Google Scholar perfectly captures all citations published in philosophy journals. 

If you think I missed something, please look up said author/volume in Google Scholar and verify that it has more than 30 citations. If it does, please post the correction below.

With no further ado, the results are below for your viewing pleasure. Please enjoy with a pinch of salt. 

At what point should one pull a paper from a journal?

I have a colleague who has had a paper under review at a Philosophically Respectable journal for about 7 months. (UPDATE: Since several people have asked off-thread whether I'm talking about me, I should confirm that I wasn't actually asking on my own behalf— really!) The journal claims to let authors know within 3-4 months about an initial decision on submissions. A couple of months ago (at the 5 month mark), after not having heard anything, he contacted the journal to see if there was any news. The journal sent a boilerplate reply, apparently, about how the article was still being looked at. So, now my friend is asking me for advice about whether and how to pull the article from that journal. My own advice is to pull it now, explain to the journal why, and move on to a peer journal or better. Still, I thought I'd check with you all for thoughts on the matter. 

Here's an interesting aspect to the case though: time is of the essence for him. The paper is on an emerging "hot topic" in his field, and he has reason to believe that a number of other people are writing papers on this subject matter. He tells me that he is concerned that he might get scooped, or that acceptance will get harder because the terrain will start to shift as these papers get finished and submitted to more timely journals. So, matters are not as straightforward as they oftentimes are. 

Still, this sort of situation pisses me off. If you aren't part of the solution, I hereby declare you part of the problem. ¡¡Viva la revolución!! 

A proposal is below.

Apparently, elementary particles satisfy the control condition on moral responsibility

Actually, the result sounds potentially interesting in its own terms, even if the way the claim is framed is a bit odd. More here. 

Get your free will here

A nice survey article by Gardeners Levy and McKenna is now up at Philosophy Compass. Go read it here.

Also, for those who use newsreaders, there is a new RSS feed for PhilCompass, and a cheap pay-per-view rate for articles, if your school is too much of a cheapskate to get the journal. 

HT: Brian Weatherson at TAR.

Backlogged?

I have a friend (no, really) who recently asked me which (respectable) journals are not particularly backlogged right now. I wasn't really sure, but I figured the GFP would know. Any thoughts?

I'm less interested in the time-to-referee's-decision, because that seems to be highly variable (although there are, of course, some journals where the editor keeps things moving— yay to editors thus described, and to referees who are efficient!) and more interested in identifying journals with short time-to-publication-for-papers that have been accepted, where that means something like less than 6 months and/or less than a year. 

Help a brother out, won't you?

Experimental Philosophy, Salt Lake City, and You

Shaun Nichols passes on word of a terrific-looking NEH Institute he and Ron Mallon are running this summer. Info below.

------

Experimental Philosophy is a new movement that uses experiments to address traditional philosophical questions.  Although the movement is only a few years old, it has attracted prolific practitioners as well as ardent critics.  (For more about Experimental Philosophy, see the recent article in the New York Times or the ongoing discussion at the Experimental Philosophy Blog.)

This summer, the NEH is sponsoring an Institute on Experimental Philosophy. The Institute will bring in over a dozen distinguished guest faculty, who will present their latest research across a wide range of issues and perspectives. The Institute will also provide participants with the opportunity to learn experimental methods that are used in Experimental Philosophy.

The Institute will take place in SLC from June 22-July 17 2009.  Eligible participants must have a teaching position at a U.S. college or university.  The deadline for application is March 2. More information about the Institute, as well as application materials, are available here.