James Franklin (philosopher)
Encyclopedia
James Franklin is an Australian philosopher, mathematician
and historian of ideas
. He was educated at St. Joseph's College, Hunters Hill
, New South Wales
. His undergraduate work was at the University of Sydney
(1971–74), where he attended St John's College
and he was influenced by philosophers David Stove
and David Armstrong
. He completed his PhD in 1981 at University of Warwick
, on algebraic groups. Since 1981 he has taught in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of New South Wales
.
His research areas include the structuralist philosophy of mathematics and the 'formal science
s' (he is the founder of the Sydney School in the philosophy of mathematics), Australian Catholic history, the parallel between ethics and mathematics (work for which he received the 2005 Eureka Prize for Research in Ethics), restraint, the quantification of rights in applied ethics, and the analysis of extreme risk
. Franklin is the literary executor of David Stove
.
In 2008 he set up the Australian Database of Indigenous Violence.
Articles, a selection:
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
and historian of ideas
History of ideas
The history of ideas is a field of research in history that deals with the expression, preservation, and change of human ideas over time. The history of ideas is a sister-discipline to, or a particular approach within, intellectual history...
. He was educated at St. Joseph's College, Hunters Hill
St. Joseph's College, Hunters Hill
St Joseph's College is a Roman Catholic, Secondary, day and boarding school for boys. It is located in Hunters Hill, a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
, New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
. His undergraduate work was at the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
(1971–74), where he attended St John's College
St John's College, University of Sydney
]St John's College, or the College of St John the Evangelist, is a residential College within the University of Sydney.Established in 1857, the College of St John the Evangelist is the oldest Roman Catholic university college and second-oldest university college in Australia, and is one of the...
and he was influenced by philosophers David Stove
David Stove
David Charles Stove , was an Australian philosopher of science.His work in philosophy of science included detailed criticisms of David Hume's inductive skepticism, as well as what he regarded as the irrationalism of his disciplinary contemporaries Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, and Paul...
and David Armstrong
David Malet Armstrong
David Malet Armstrong , often D. M. Armstrong, is an Australian philosopher. He is well-known for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and for his defence of a factualist ontology, a functionalist theory of the mind, an externalist epistemology, and a necessitarian conception of the...
. He completed his PhD in 1981 at University of Warwick
University of Warwick
The University of Warwick is a public research university located in Coventry, United Kingdom...
, on algebraic groups. Since 1981 he has taught in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of New South Wales
University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
.
His research areas include the structuralist philosophy of mathematics and the 'formal science
Formal science
The formal sciences are the branches of knowledge that are concerned with formal systems, such as logic, mathematics, theoretical computer science, information theory, systems theory, decision theory, statistics, and some aspects of linguistics....
s' (he is the founder of the Sydney School in the philosophy of mathematics), Australian Catholic history, the parallel between ethics and mathematics (work for which he received the 2005 Eureka Prize for Research in Ethics), restraint, the quantification of rights in applied ethics, and the analysis of extreme risk
Extreme risk
Extreme risks are risks of very bad outcomes or "high consequence", but of low probability. They include the risks of terrorist attack,biosecurity risks such as the invasion of pests, and extreme natural disasters such as major earthquakes.-Introduction:...
. Franklin is the literary executor of David Stove
David Stove
David Charles Stove , was an Australian philosopher of science.His work in philosophy of science included detailed criticisms of David Hume's inductive skepticism, as well as what he regarded as the irrationalism of his disciplinary contemporaries Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, and Paul...
.
In 2008 he set up the Australian Database of Indigenous Violence.
Publications
Franklin wrote several books and articles:- 1996 and 2011, Proof in Mathematics: An Introduction ISBN 978-1-8761-9200-6, originally published as Introduction to Proofs in Mathematics, in 1988.
- 2001, The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal ISBN 978-0-8018-7109-2;
- 2003, Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy in Australia ISBN 978-1-8764-9208-3;
- 2006, Catholic Values and Australian Realities ISBN 978-0-9758-0154-3;
- 2007, Life to the Full: Rights and Social Justice in Australia (edited) ISBN 978-1-921421-00-6
- 2009, What Science Knows: And How It Knows It ISBN 978-1-59403207-3
Articles, a selection:
- 1994, The formal sciences discover the philosophers’stone, in: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Volume 25, No. 4, 513–533, Elsevier Science Ltd.
- 2000, Thomas Kuhn's irrationalism, in: The New Criterion, Volume 18, No. 10, June 2000.
- 2000, Diagrammatic reasoning and modelling in the imagination: the secret weapons of the Scientific Revolution, in: 1543 and All That: Image and Word, Change and Continuity in the Proto-Scientific Revolution, ed. G. Freeland & A. Corones, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 53–115.
- 2003, The representation of context: ideas from artificial intelligence in: Law, Probability and Risk 2, 191–199.
- 2006, Chapter on 'Artifice and the natural world: Mathematics, logic, technology', in: Cambridge History of Eighteenth Century Philosophy, ed. K. Haakonssen, Cambridge, 2006, 817–853.