Peter Ludlow
Encyclopedia
Peter Ludlow who also writes under the name Urizenus Sklar, is a professor of philosophy at Northwestern University
. Before moving to Northwestern, Ludlow taught at University of Toronto
, the University of Michigan
, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook
. He has done much interdisciplinary work on the interface of linguistics and philosophy—in particular on the philosophical foundations of Noam Chomsky's
theory of generative linguistics
and on the foundations of the theory of meaning in linguistic semantics
. He has worked on the application of analytic philosophy of language to topics in epistemology, metaphysics
, and logic
, among other areas.
Ludlow has also established a research program outside of philosophy and linguistics. Here, his research areas include conceptual issues in cyberspace
, particularly questions about cyber-rights and the emergence of laws and governance structures in and for virtual communities. MTV.com has described Ludlow as one of the 10 most influential video game players of all time, in part due to his role in showing how video game companies can be challenged as part of the gameplay. In recent years Ludlow has written nonacademic essays on hacktivist culture and related phenomena such as Wikileaks
.
in 1985 under the direction of Charles Parsons
, but also studied with Noam Chomsky
and James Higginbotham
at MIT. He received his B.A. in 1979 from Bethel College
.
has revolved around three basic themes.The first theme is that generative linguistics at its best is concerned with understanding
and explanation
, and not just with observation
and data
gathering. To this end, generative linguistics is interested in underlying mechanisms that give rise to language related phenomena
, and this interest will often trump the goal of accumulating more data.
The second theme is what he calls the "Ψ-language hypothesis". It is the hypothesis that the underlying mechanisms (the more basic elements) posited by generative linguists are fundamentally psychological mechanisms and that generative linguistics is a branch of cognitive psychology
, but against Noam Chomsky's
I-Language hypothesis Ludlow argues that it doesn’t follow that cognitive psychology must therefore be interested in psychological states individuated solely by what happens inside the language user's head. It is consistent with the Ψ-language hypothesis that psychological states (and indeed syntactic states) are individuated in part by the embedding environment.
The third theme is what Ludlow calls the principle of "methodological minimalism". It is the thesis that best theory criteria like simplicity
and formal rigor cannot be given theory neutral definitions, and thus must really come down to one thing: seek methods that help linguists to do their jobs with the minimum of cognitive labor.
was an attempt to combine work in the theory of meaning
with contemporary work in generative linguistics, but using resources that are more parsimonious than those typically used in semantic theory—for example without using the higher-order function
s and intensional objects
deployed in Montague grammar
. The resources were largely limited to primitives like truth
and reference to individuals.
His subsequent work has explored ways of formalizing alternative approaches to semantic theory—including the possibility of formalizing
a Wittgensteinian use theory or expressivist
semantics for natural language, which is to say a theory in which the building blocks of a semantic theory are expressions of attitudes
rather than primitives like truth and reference.
, and revived by W.V.O. Quine
in philosophy and James McCawley in linguistics, according to which so-called "intensional transitive verbs" like "seek" and "want" are really propositional attitudes in disguise. He has subsequently developed these ideas in collaboration with the linguists Richard Larson and Marcel den Dikken.
in Chapter 7 of his book Beyond Rigidity). Ludlow's response to Soames involves the idea that propositional attitude reports are not supposed to correspond to some fact about what is going on inside the agent's head but rather are created by a speaker S, for the benefit of a hearer H, to help H form some theory about the agent being reported on. Crucial to this account is the idea that the lexicon
is dynamic and that speakers engaged in conversation will negotiate the coinage of terms "on the fly" in constructing attitude reports.
according to which meaning shifts are much more common than intuition suggests. He rejects the "common coin" view of word meaning, and argues that word meanings are negotiated on the fly as conversational partners build little microlanguages together. These ideas have subsequently been applied to controversies in epistemology (see below).
reality of comparison class variables in adjectival constructions. That is, when one says "the elephant is small", there is an implicit variable for the comparison class (in this case elephants, as in "small for an elephant"), and that variable is represented by the language faculty. That work was influential in subsequent work on the context sensitivity of language by Jason Stanley
and Zoltán Gendler Szabó, and has played a role in debates about contextualism
in contemporary epistemology.
by arguing that knowledge attributions are context sensitive—our standards of knowledge vary from context to context. So, while in a philosophy class I may not know I have hands, in other contexts (for example, chatting in a bar) I do. Ludlow initially argued that there were implicit argument positions for standards of knowledge. In response to criticism from Jason Stanley
in his book "Knowledge and Practical Interests", Ludlow has advanced a doctrine that he calls "Cheap Contextualism". The idea is that on the dynamic lexicon view, shifts in word meaning are ubiquitous, and the meaning of the term "know" is not an exception. Contextualism in epistemology is just a consequence of these garden variety shifts in meaning.
of determiners (words like "all", "some", and "no") and has pursued the idea that their most interesting properties can be given purely formal or syntactic accounts. The work borrows from one of the central ideas of medieval logic -- the hypothesis that all the key logical inferences can be reduced down to just two basic inferences that are sensitive to whether the syntactic environment was dictum de omni or dictum de nullo
-- classical notions that are basically equivalent to the contemporary notions of upward and downward entailing environments. To explain, in an upward entailing (de omni) environment a superset can be substituted for any set. In a downward entailing environment a subset may be substituted for a set. Ludlow revives the medieval project by combining it with the descriptive tools of contemporary Chomskyan linguistics and recent technical work in formal logic
.
, a metaphysical thesis that denies the reality of past and future events, is consistent with the intuitive truth of much of our tensed discourse. More recently, he has argued that while tense is an ineliminable feature of reality, the resulting position (called "tensism") does not force us to be presentists.
, where Ludlow used the avatar Urizenus Sklar. Its stories uncovered in-game scams and cyber-prostitution, and highlighted Electronic Arts
' indifference to the social problems in their game.
In a famous controversy, reported in the New York Times and elsewhere (including law journals), Ludlow was kicked out of The Sims Online after some blistering editorials against Electronic Arts Corporation for their failures at managing and policing the gamespace.
The newspaper subsequently migrated to another virtual world, Second Life
, in June 2004.
The Herald has been written about in Wired
and the Columbia Journalism Review
. Ludlow (in the voice of Urizenus Sklar) is currently a Contributing Editor, while the avatar Pixeleen Mistral, revealed by Ludlow in 2010 to be Internet pioneer Mark P. McCahill
, is the newspaper's Managing Editor.
Ludlow and Mark Wallace wrote a book about The Herald and its exploits called "The Second Life Herald: the Virtual Tabloid that Witnessed the Dawn of the Metaverse" (MIT Press, 2007). The book received the American Association of Publishers, Professional/Scholarly Publishing award for “Best Book in Media and Cultural Studies, 2007”, was named a Choice “Outstanding Academic Title, 2008”, and Library Journal
honored it as a “Top Sci-Tech Book, 2007,” (they ranked it one of top 39 science books of 2007 and top book in category of Computer Science).
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
. Before moving to Northwestern, Ludlow taught at University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
, the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook
State University of New York at Stony Brook
The State University of New York at Stony Brook, also known as Stony Brook University, is a public research university located in Stony Brook, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island, about east of Manhattan....
. He has done much interdisciplinary work on the interface of linguistics and philosophy—in particular on the philosophical foundations of Noam Chomsky's
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
theory of generative linguistics
Generative linguistics
Generative linguistics is a school of thought within linguistics that makes use of the concept of a generative grammar. The term "generative grammar" is used in different ways by different people, and the term "generative linguistics" therefore has a range of different, though overlapping,...
and on the foundations of the theory of meaning in linguistic semantics
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
. He has worked on the application of analytic philosophy of language to topics in epistemology, metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
, and logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
, among other areas.
Ludlow has also established a research program outside of philosophy and linguistics. Here, his research areas include conceptual issues in cyberspace
Cyberspace
Cyberspace is the electronic medium of computer networks, in which online communication takes place.The term "cyberspace" was first used by the cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson, though the concept was described somewhat earlier, for example in the Vernor Vinge short story "True...
, particularly questions about cyber-rights and the emergence of laws and governance structures in and for virtual communities. MTV.com has described Ludlow as one of the 10 most influential video game players of all time, in part due to his role in showing how video game companies can be challenged as part of the gameplay. In recent years Ludlow has written nonacademic essays on hacktivist culture and related phenomena such as Wikileaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
.
Education
Ludlow received his PhD in philosophy from Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1985 under the direction of Charles Parsons
Charles Parsons (philosopher)
Charles Dacre Parsons is a distinguished figure in the philosophy of mathematics.He is a son of social scientist Talcott Parsons. A specialist in the philosophy of mathematics and logic, Parsons earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1961, under the direction of Burton Dreben and Willard Van...
, but also studied with Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
and James Higginbotham
James Higginbotham
James Higginbotham is distinguished professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at the University of Southern California. Beforehand, he was Professor of Linguistics at MIT, Massachusetts, and at the University of Oxford, where he was head of the Linguistics Department.-Distinctions:*Visiting Fellow,...
at MIT. He received his B.A. in 1979 from Bethel College
Bethel University (Minnesota)
Bethel University is a Christian higher education institution with approximately 6,000 students from 36 countries enrolled in undergraduate, graduate, seminary, and adult education programs...
.
Philosophy of generative linguistics
Ludlow's work in generative linguisticsGenerative linguistics
Generative linguistics is a school of thought within linguistics that makes use of the concept of a generative grammar. The term "generative grammar" is used in different ways by different people, and the term "generative linguistics" therefore has a range of different, though overlapping,...
has revolved around three basic themes.The first theme is that generative linguistics at its best is concerned with understanding
Understanding
Understanding is a psychological process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person, situation, or message whereby one is able to think about it and use concepts to deal adequately with that object....
and explanation
Explanation
An explanation is a set of statements constructed to describe a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequencesof those facts....
, and not just with observation
Observation
Observation is either an activity of a living being, such as a human, consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any data collected during this activity...
and data
Data
The term data refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. Data are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables. Data are often viewed as the lowest level of abstraction from which...
gathering. To this end, generative linguistics is interested in underlying mechanisms that give rise to language related phenomena
Phenomenon
A phenomenon , plural phenomena, is any observable occurrence. Phenomena are often, but not always, understood as 'appearances' or 'experiences'...
, and this interest will often trump the goal of accumulating more data.
The second theme is what he calls the "Ψ-language hypothesis". It is the hypothesis that the underlying mechanisms (the more basic elements) posited by generative linguists are fundamentally psychological mechanisms and that generative linguistics is a branch of cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes.It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems.Cognitive psychology differs from previous psychological approaches in two key ways....
, but against Noam Chomsky's
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
I-Language hypothesis Ludlow argues that it doesn’t follow that cognitive psychology must therefore be interested in psychological states individuated solely by what happens inside the language user's head. It is consistent with the Ψ-language hypothesis that psychological states (and indeed syntactic states) are individuated in part by the embedding environment.
The third theme is what Ludlow calls the principle of "methodological minimalism". It is the thesis that best theory criteria like simplicity
Simplicity
Simplicity is the state or quality of being simple. It usually relates to the burden which a thing puts on someone trying to explain or understand it. Something which is easy to understand or explain is simple, in contrast to something complicated...
and formal rigor cannot be given theory neutral definitions, and thus must really come down to one thing: seek methods that help linguists to do their jobs with the minimum of cognitive labor.
Foundations of semantics
Ludlow's earliest work in semanticsSemantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
was an attempt to combine work in the theory of meaning
Meaning (linguistics)
In linguistics, meaning is what is expressed by the writer or speaker, and what is conveyed to the reader or listener, provided that they talk about the same thing . In other words if the object and the name of the object and the concepts in their head are the same...
with contemporary work in generative linguistics, but using resources that are more parsimonious than those typically used in semantic theory—for example without using the higher-order function
Higher-order function
In mathematics and computer science, higher-order functions, functional forms, or functionals are functions which do at least one of the following:*take one or more functions as an input*output a function...
s and intensional objects
Intensional logic
Intensional logic is an approach to predicate logic that extends first-order logic, which has quantifiers that range over the individuals of a universe , by additional quantifiers that range over terms that may have such individuals as their value...
deployed in Montague grammar
Montague grammar
Montague grammar is an approach to natural language semantics, named after American logician Richard Montague. The Montague grammar is based on formal logic, especially higher order predicate logic and lambda calculus, and makes use of the notions of intensional logic, via Kripke models...
. The resources were largely limited to primitives like truth
Truth
Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
and reference to individuals.
His subsequent work has explored ways of formalizing alternative approaches to semantic theory—including the possibility of formalizing
Formal system
In formal logic, a formal system consists of a formal language and a set of inference rules, used to derive an expression from one or more other premises that are antecedently supposed or derived . The axioms and rules may be called a deductive apparatus...
a Wittgensteinian use theory or expressivist
Expressivism
Expressivism in meta-ethics is a theory about the meaning of moral language. According to expressivism, sentences that employ moral terms–for example, “It is wrong to torture an innocent human being”–are not descriptive or fact-stating; moral terms such as “wrong,” “good,” or “just” do not refer...
semantics for natural language, which is to say a theory in which the building blocks of a semantic theory are expressions of attitudes
Attitude (psychology)
An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for something. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event— this is often referred to as the attitude object...
rather than primitives like truth and reference.
Intentional transitive verbs
Ludlow's PhD dissertation defended a proposal dating back to the medieval logician Jean BuridanJean Buridan
Jean Buridan was a French priest who sowed the seeds of the Copernican revolution in Europe. Although he was one of the most famous and influential philosophers of the late Middle Ages, he is today among the least well known...
, and revived by W.V.O. Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition...
in philosophy and James McCawley in linguistics, according to which so-called "intensional transitive verbs" like "seek" and "want" are really propositional attitudes in disguise. He has subsequently developed these ideas in collaboration with the linguists Richard Larson and Marcel den Dikken.
Interpreted logical forms
Ludlow's paper with the semanticist Richard Larson, "Interpreted Logical Forms", advocated a quasi-sententialist view of propositional attitude verbs (a view that has been criticized by Scott SoamesScott Soames
Scott Soames is a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. He specializes in the philosophy of language and the history of analytic philosophy...
in Chapter 7 of his book Beyond Rigidity). Ludlow's response to Soames involves the idea that propositional attitude reports are not supposed to correspond to some fact about what is going on inside the agent's head but rather are created by a speaker S, for the benefit of a hearer H, to help H form some theory about the agent being reported on. Crucial to this account is the idea that the lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
is dynamic and that speakers engaged in conversation will negotiate the coinage of terms "on the fly" in constructing attitude reports.
The dynamic lexicon
Ludlow's work on Interpreted Logical Forms has led to the development of a view of linguistic meaningLinguistic meaning
The nature of meaning, its definition, elements, and types, was discussed by philosophers Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. According to them 'meaning is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they mean '. One term in the relationship of meaning necessarily...
according to which meaning shifts are much more common than intuition suggests. He rejects the "common coin" view of word meaning, and argues that word meanings are negotiated on the fly as conversational partners build little microlanguages together. These ideas have subsequently been applied to controversies in epistemology (see below).
Implicit comparison classes
In his article "Implicit Comparison Classes" Ludlow argues for the syntacticSyntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
reality of comparison class variables in adjectival constructions. That is, when one says "the elephant is small", there is an implicit variable for the comparison class (in this case elephants, as in "small for an elephant"), and that variable is represented by the language faculty. That work was influential in subsequent work on the context sensitivity of language by Jason Stanley
Jason Stanley
Jason Stanley is an American philosopher currently teaching at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. His primary interests include linguistics, cognitive science, philosophy of language, and epistemology...
and Zoltán Gendler Szabó, and has played a role in debates about contextualism
Contextualism
Contextualism describes a collection of views in philosophy which emphasize the context in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs, and argues that, in some important respect, the action, utterance, or expression can only be understood relative to that context...
in contemporary epistemology.
Contextualism in epistemology
Recent work in epistemology has pushed back against skepticismSkepticism
Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...
by arguing that knowledge attributions are context sensitive—our standards of knowledge vary from context to context. So, while in a philosophy class I may not know I have hands, in other contexts (for example, chatting in a bar) I do. Ludlow initially argued that there were implicit argument positions for standards of knowledge. In response to criticism from Jason Stanley
Jason Stanley
Jason Stanley is an American philosopher currently teaching at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. His primary interests include linguistics, cognitive science, philosophy of language, and epistemology...
in his book "Knowledge and Practical Interests", Ludlow has advanced a doctrine that he calls "Cheap Contextualism". The idea is that on the dynamic lexicon view, shifts in word meaning are ubiquitous, and the meaning of the term "know" is not an exception. Contextualism in epistemology is just a consequence of these garden variety shifts in meaning.
Natural logic
Ludlow has written a series of papers on the logical formLogical form (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, particularly in the minimalist program, Logical Form , refers to a mental representation of a linguistic expression, derived solely from Surface Structure. In the words of Chomsky, LF captures "those aspects of semantic representation that are strictly determined by...
of determiners (words like "all", "some", and "no") and has pursued the idea that their most interesting properties can be given purely formal or syntactic accounts. The work borrows from one of the central ideas of medieval logic -- the hypothesis that all the key logical inferences can be reduced down to just two basic inferences that are sensitive to whether the syntactic environment was dictum de omni or dictum de nullo
Dictum de omni et nullo
In Aristotelean logic, dictum de omni et nullo is the principle that whatever is affirmed or denied of a whole kind K may be affirmed or denied any subkind of K...
-- classical notions that are basically equivalent to the contemporary notions of upward and downward entailing environments. To explain, in an upward entailing (de omni) environment a superset can be substituted for any set. In a downward entailing environment a subset may be substituted for a set. Ludlow revives the medieval project by combining it with the descriptive tools of contemporary Chomskyan linguistics and recent technical work in formal logic
Formal logic
Classical or traditional system of determining the validity or invalidity of a conclusion deduced from two or more statements...
.
Presentism and tensism
Ludlow's first book, Semantics, Tense, and Time, was devoted to arguing that presentismPresentism
Presentism may refer to:* Presentism * Presentism...
, a metaphysical thesis that denies the reality of past and future events, is consistent with the intuitive truth of much of our tensed discourse. More recently, he has argued that while tense is an ineliminable feature of reality, the resulting position (called "tensism") does not force us to be presentists.
Criticizing the greek god model of governance
Most of Ludlow's work on cyberculture has centered on the question of governance for virtual worlds and he has been critical of what he calls the "greek god model" of virtual world governance. This is a model in which virtual world platform owners do not have coherent systematic policies to deal with in world disputes, but rather reach in and dabble as suits their dispositions at the moment. In an e-book entitled "Our Future in Virtual Worlds" Ludlow argues that as our lives continue to move online, the Greek god model becomes ever more dangerous. This critique has been extended to social networking platforms more generally.The Alphaville Herald
Ludlow founded The Alphaville Herald on October 23, 2003. It was the unofficial newspaper for the Alphaville server of The Sims OnlineThe Sims Online
The Sims Online was a massively multiplayer online variation on Maxis's highly popular computer game The Sims. It was published by Electronic Arts and released on December 17, 2002 for Microsoft Windows. In March 2007, EA announced that the product would be re-branded as EA-Land and major...
, where Ludlow used the avatar Urizenus Sklar. Its stories uncovered in-game scams and cyber-prostitution, and highlighted Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
' indifference to the social problems in their game.
In a famous controversy, reported in the New York Times and elsewhere (including law journals), Ludlow was kicked out of The Sims Online after some blistering editorials against Electronic Arts Corporation for their failures at managing and policing the gamespace.
The newspaper subsequently migrated to another virtual world, Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
, in June 2004.
The Herald has been written about in Wired
Wired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
and the Columbia Journalism Review
Columbia Journalism Review
The Columbia Journalism Review is an American magazine for professional journalists published bimonthly by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961....
. Ludlow (in the voice of Urizenus Sklar) is currently a Contributing Editor, while the avatar Pixeleen Mistral, revealed by Ludlow in 2010 to be Internet pioneer Mark P. McCahill
Mark P. McCahill
Mark P. McCahill is an American programmer who has been involved in developing and popularizing a number of Internet technologies since the late 1980s....
, is the newspaper's Managing Editor.
Ludlow and Mark Wallace wrote a book about The Herald and its exploits called "The Second Life Herald: the Virtual Tabloid that Witnessed the Dawn of the Metaverse" (MIT Press, 2007). The book received the American Association of Publishers, Professional/Scholarly Publishing award for “Best Book in Media and Cultural Studies, 2007”, was named a Choice “Outstanding Academic Title, 2008”, and Library Journal
Library Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
honored it as a “Top Sci-Tech Book, 2007,” (they ranked it one of top 39 science books of 2007 and top book in category of Computer Science).
Partial bibliography
- High Noon on the Electronic Frontier (1996) ISBN 0-262-62103-7
- Semantics, Tense, and Time: an Essay in the Metaphysics of Natural Language (1999) ISBN 978-0262122191
- Crypto Anarchy, Cyberstates, and Pirate Utopias (2001) ISBN 0-262-62151-7
- The Second Life Herald: The Virtual Tabloid that Witnessed the Dawn of the Metaverse (2009) ISBN 978-0262513227
- Our Future in Virtual Worlds (2010) ASIN: B0044XV80U
- The Philosophy of Generative Linguistics (2010) ISBN 978-0199258536
External links
Articles about Ludlow
- Raking muck in "The Sims Online" Salon (December 12, 2003)
- Amy HarmonAmy HarmonAmy Harmon is a Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent for The New York Times. After receiving a B.A. degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan, she began her career in journalism as the Opinion page editor of the Michigan Daily, the university's student newspaper...
, A Real Life Debate on Free Expression in a Cyberspace City The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Jan. 15, 2004. - Jesse WalkerJesse WalkerJesse Walker is managing editor of Reason magazine. The University of Michigan alumnus has written the book Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America and maintains a blog called The Perpetual Three-Dot Column...
, Hobbes in Cyberspace Reason (2004) - The Second Life of Peter J. Ludlow Andrea Foster, The Chronicle of Higher EducationThe Chronicle of Higher EducationThe Chronicle of Higher Education is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty, staff members and administrators....
. Dec. 7, 2007.
Interviews with Ludlow
- Virtual Villany Part one of an interview with Ludlow, Telegraph 2006 | More news from another world, part two.
- The News from Second Life: an interview with Peter Ludlow. Henry Jenkins, Confessions of an Aca/Fan, Feb. 8, 2007.
- Il Virtuale Molto Reale. Interviewed by Giuseppe Granieri. Il Sole 24 OreIl Sole 24 OreIl Sole 24 Ore is an Italian national daily business newspaper owned by Confindustria, the Italian employers' federation.It was founded on 1965-11-09 as a merger between Il Sole, founded in 1865, and 24 Ore, founded in 1946. The headquarters are in Milan...
. Jan. 28, 2010. (In Italian) - Monarchia Social Network Interviewed by Alessandro Longo in L'EspressoL'Espressol'Espresso is an Italian newsmagazine. It is one of the two most prominent Italian weeklies, the other being Panorama. Since the latter has been acquired by right-wing tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi, l'Espresso enjoys the reputation of being the main politically independent newsmagazine...
, Oct. 10, 2010. (In Italian
Selected non-academic essays and articles by Ludlow
- Understanding Conspiracy: The Political Philosophy of Julian Assange. (Urizenus Sklar). Huffington Post, Dec. 8, 2010.
- 10 Ways Hacktivists have Punked Corporations and Oppressive Governments. with Burcu Bakioglu. Alternet, Oct. 19, 2010.
- Wikileaks and Hacktivist Culture. The Nation. Sept. 15, 2010.
- Choose Your Fictions Well. With Henry Jenkins. Confessions of an Aca-fan. April 14, 2010.
- Watching the Watchers. On Henry Jenkins' blog, Confessions of an Aca-fan. April 9, 2010.
- Teste da Ingegneri e Cuori da Umanisti: E Questo il Futuro. La Stampa, Jan. 13, 2010. (In Italian.)
- There Goes the Neighborhood. The Times (of London) Online. Jan. 31, 2004.
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/urizenus-sklar/charlie-sheen-nihilism_b_838065.html