Two PhD positions in Philosophical Logic

The New Foundations for Intensionality (GOOD INTENSIONS) project, based at the Department of Philosophy and the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation at the University of Amsterdam, is looking to fill two four-year PhD positions. One position is on the philosophy, semantics and logic of property talk; the other position is on the philosophy, semantics and logic of modal talk.

GOOD INTENSIONS is a research project funded by a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant and led by Dr. Luca Incurvati (Principal Investigator). Intensional notions such as those of property, content, proof, possibility and necessity are central to philosophy, logic, mathematics and linguistics. However, these notions are threatened by paradoxes reminiscent of those that plagued the foundations of mathematics at the beginning of the XX century. The GOOD INTENSIONS project aims to provide new philosophical, semantical and logical foundations for intensional notions, which will deliver a comprehensive and uniform solution to the intensional paradoxes. The project is highly interdisciplinary and brings together methods and techniques from philosophy, logic and linguistics.

PhD 1 will be conducting research within the Property work package. The overall goal of this work package is to develop an account of the function, meaning and logic of property talk and to apply the account to the question of realism about properties. PhD 2 will be conducting research within the Modality work package. The overall goal of this work package is to distinguish between two expressive functions for modal talk and to develop a theory and logic of predicate modality. You will work under the supervision of the PI, Luca Incurvati, and will collaborate with him and the other team members. In addition to the PI and the two PhD students, the research team will include a postdoc working on propositions and a postdoc working on provability. The team also includes a research assistant, providing organizational and administrative support.

You have a master’s degree in philosophy, logic, or a related field. You have expertise in philosophical logic and advanced formal skills. For PhD 1, demonstrable expertise in formal property theory or class theory will be an advantage. For PhD 2, demonstrable expertise in modal logic (and in particular predicate approaches to modality) will be an advantage. Your track-record is that of a talented researcher ready to contribute to the project in terms of both expertise and teamwork. We are looking for an exceptionally motivated candidate with a marked collaborative attitude within an interdisciplinary setting, capable of working independently and efficiently against deadlines.

This is what you will be doing

You will be expected to:

• Carry out research in philosophical logic, in particular with reference to the objectives described in the relevant Work Package of the project proposal;
• Have regular meetings with the supervisor and take part in all of the project’s activities, including research visits abroad;
• Complete and submit, within the period of appointment, a PhD thesis, which will include at least four articles, suitably integrated and published/forthcoming in excellent peer-reviewed journals;
• Collaborate with the other project team members;
• Present intermediate research results at relevant international workshops and conferences;
• Participate in the Research School and Faculty of Humanities PhD training programmes;
• Follow some selected graduate courses at the ILLC and attend summer schools during the first and second year of the PhD fellowship;
• Help out with administrative and service tasks connected to the project, such as the organization of conferences and workshops and the editing of a collected volume (the list is non-exhaustive);
• Help out with the dissemination of the project results to non-specialists through, e.g., public lectures and social media.

All PhD candidates enrolled in the ILLC PhD Programme are, as an important part of their doctoral training, expected to gain teaching experience. Your teaching load will be no more than 0.2 FTE per year.

This is what we ask of you

You should

• Have a master’s degree in philosophy, logic, or related areas;
• Have excellent academic potential, as demonstrated by exam grades and writing sample;
• Have strong formal skills, as demonstrated by courses taken and corresponding exam grades;
• Have strong motivation to undertake excellent academic research;
• Be able and willing to work in a team and in an interdisciplinary setting;
• Have a good command of English.

Please note that if you already hold a doctorate/PhD or are working towards obtaining a similar degree elsewhere, you will not be admitted to a doctoral programme at the UvA. 

You must have completed or nearly completed your master’s degree by the closing date of this call. If the latter is the case, you must provide evidence in the cover letter that you will have obtained your master’s degree before the start of the position.

This is what else we offer you

• We offer a temporary employment contract for the period of 48 months. The first contract will be for 16 months, with an extension for the following 32 months, contingent on a positive performance evaluation within the first 12 months. The preferred starting date is 1 September 2026. 
• You will be appointed full-time (38 hours per week). The gross monthly salary will range from €3.059 in the first year to €3.881 (scale P) in the last year, in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities. This salary will be supplemented with an 8% holiday allowance and 8,3% year-end allowance. Your job profile will be that of PhD candidate according to the Dutch University Job Classification system (UFO, Universitair functieordenen).
• PhD candidates receive a tuition fee waiver;
• PhD candidates have free access to courses offered by the Graduate School of Humanities and the Dutch National Research Schools;
• The position comes with a generous budget for research expenses, including travel to international conferences and research visits (to be coordinated with other members of the research team);
• The position provides a unique opportunity to be part of a vibrant community of researchers working at the forefront of logic and philosophy and to further strengthen your research profile in view of the next steps of your academic career.

You will be affiliated with the Department of Philosophy of the University of Amsterdam and the ILLC, in whose doctoral programme you will be enrolled. The ILLC is a renowned research institute in which researchers from the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam collaborate. The research carried out at Humanities forms one of the six research schools within this faculty. The ILLC’s central research area is the study of fundamental principles of encoding, transmission and comprehension of information. Research at the institute is interdisciplinary and brings together insights from various disciplines concerned with information and information processing, such as logic, philosophy, linguistics, musicology, mathematics, computer science, artificial intelligence and cognitive science.

You will be part of the GOOD INTENSIONS research team. Work within the GOOD INTENSIONS project is highly collaborative and involves regular group meetings and regular seminars with invited speakers. In addition, several major international events and a number of research visits will be organized.