Call for applications: Conceptlab master stipends

Conceptlab announces 2 student stipends for MA students writing MA theses within Conceptlab's research areas.

The stipends are NOK 20 000 each. It is a requirement that the recipient is engaged in MA-level studies in philosophy at the University of Oslo or intends to enroll in our MA-program. (See below for Conceptlab’s research goals.)

In evaluating applications, emphasis will be put on grades, the relevance of the project for Conceptlab’s research, and recommendations in letters from supervisor or other teacher. We are especially interested in recruiting women and students with minority background to research, and encourages applications from these groups. The application should contain a project description of no more than 2000 words, and be sent electronically to: lina.tosterud@ifikk.uio.no

Application deadline: 15 December 2017

About the research at Conceptlab:

In any inquiry, whether scientific or practical, we use concepts to frame questions about reality. An obvious way in which the inquiry can be successful is by yielding answers to the resulting questions. A far less obvious form of success has to do with asking the “right” questions, formulated using the “right” concepts. It is clear that many great leaps in human insight and understanding have been associated with the forging of “better” concepts, which has enabled us to ask “better” questions: in physics, the differentiation of weight and mass; in mathematics, the Cantorian notion of “size” or number; in economics, the articulation of the present concept of money; in social science the concept of gender, as opposed to sex.

These are illustrations of how conceptual progress has been made in the past. Here are some questions of great contemporary relevance and promise:

•             What should our concepts of e.g. a ‘combatant’, ‘mental illness’ or ‘privacy’ be?

•             Does the liar paradox show that our ordinary concept of truth is deficient?

•             What should our concept of marriage be? Should it cover same-sex couples or not?

•             Is the customary division of the political landscape into a simple left-right spectrum an obstacle to clear thinking about the political life?

For more information about the project as a whole, see http://www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/research/projects/cl/our%20research%20themes/