JAMES FRANKLIN

Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics, UNSW

Contact information

Brief History

Research Interests

My edited book, Life to the Full: Rights and Social Justice in Australia appeared in November 2007.
... report... introduction... review... Philosopher's Zone interview... Counterpoint interview... Sydney book launch... buy online.

My book Catholic Values and Australian Realities appeared in 2006 ... buy online ... review ... comments ... Cardinal Pell's comment

My book Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy in Australia was published by Macleay Press in 2003.

The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal (Johns Hopkins University Press) appeared in 2001. (The contents can be viewed here; also the latest review; Interdisciplinary Science Reviews review; the Wall Street Journal's review; Science's review; Quadrant's review.

I am the principal author of a textbook, Proof in Mathematics: An Introduction (Quakers Hill Press, 1996), originally published as Introduction to Proofs in Mathematics (Prentice Hall, 1988).

Research areas include the structuralist philosophy of mathematics and the `formal sciences' (I am a member of the Sydney School), Australian Catholic history, the parallel between ethics and mathematics, restraint, the quantification of rights in applied ethics, and the analysis of extreme risks.

Publications

• J. Franklin, S.A. Sisson, M.A. Burgman and J.K. Martin, Evaluating extreme risks in invasion ecology: learning from banking compliance, Diversity and Distributions 14 (2008), 581-91... story.
• A. Newstead and J. Franklin, On the reality of the continuum, Philosophy 83 (2008), 117-27.
• International compliance regimes: a public sector without restraints, Australian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics 9 (2) 2007, 86-95.
• Jenness Warin (with J. Franklin), Remote Aboriginal Communities: Why the trade in girls and other human rights abuses remain hidden, Bennelong Society occasional paper, 2007.
• (with S. Sisson) Assessment of strategies for evaluating extreme risks, ACERA report, Mar 2007.
• Natural law ethics in disciplines abstract to applied, Federation of Catholic Scholars Conference, April 2007.
• Case comment: quantification of the 'proof beyond reasonable doubt' standard, Law, Probability and Risk, 5 (2006).
• Australia's wackiest postmodernists, Mercatornet, 1 June 2006.
• Chapter on `Artifice and the natural world: Mathematics, logic, technology' in Cambridge History of Eighteenth Century Philosophy, ed. K. Haakonssen (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 817-53.
• Risk-driven global compliance regimes in banking and accounting: the new Law Merchant, Law, Probability and Risk 4 (2005), 237-50.
• Traditional Catholic philosophy - baby and bathwater, in Issues for Church and Society, ed. M. Whelan (St Pauls, 2006), 15-32.
• Preface to Enemy Aliens: The Internment of Italian Migrants During the Second World War
• A "Professional issues and ethics in mathematics" course, Gazette of the Australian Mathematical Soc 32 (2005), 98-100.
• Is Jensenism compatible with Christianity? Quadrant 48 (12) (Dec 2004), 30-1 ... Michael Jensen's reply ... my response ... Sydney Anglicans forum
• On the parallel between mathematics and morals, Philosophy 79 (2004), 97-119.
• J. Franklin & S.C. Tueno, Low fertility among women graduates, People and Place 12 (1) (2004), 37-44.
• S. Campbell & J. Franklin, Randomness and induction, Synthese 138 (2004), 79-99.
• The representation of context: ideas from artificial intelligence, Law, Probability and Risk 2 (2003), 191-99.
• J. Franklin & S.C. Tueno, Graduate and childless, Quadrant 47 (7/8) (July/Aug, 2003), 52-55.
  
• S.W.K. Chan & J. Franklin, Dynamic context generation for natural language understanding: A multifaceted knowledge approach, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: A 33 (2003), 23-41.
• Stove's discovery of the worst argument in the world, Philosophy 77 (2002), 615-24. (html)
• Two caricatures II: Leibniz's best world, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 52 (2002), 45-56.
  (Shorter version: Leibniz's solution to the problem of evil, Think 5 (2003), 97-101)
• Immigration versus democracy, IPA Review 54 (2) (2002), 29.
• A "Professional issues" course: grounding philosophy in workplace realities, Pantaneto Forum 7 (2002).
• Resurrecting logical probability Erkenntnis 55 (2001), 277-305.
• Regulated capitalism, market socialism Dissent no. 5 (2001), 11-13.
• The Sokal hoax and postmodernist embarrassment Continuum 14 (2000), 359-62.
• Thomas Kuhn's irrationalism New Criterion 18 (10) (June 2000), 29-34. (comment)
• Last bastion of reason, New Criterion 18 (9) (May 2000), 74-8.
• 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 (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2000), pp. 53-115.
• The Sydney philosophy disturbances, Quadrant 43 (4) (Apr, 1999), 16-21.
• Accountancy as computational casuistics, Eureka Street 9 (1) (Jan/Feb, 1999), 2, 43-6... updated 2007 version (winner of Eureka Street Ethics Essay Competition; reprinted in Australian Accounting Review 9 (2) (July, 1999), 36-43, in Business and Professional Ethics Journal 17 (4) (Winter, 1998), 31-37 and in Values Autumn, 1999; excerpted in City Ethics 34 (Summer, 1999).)
• Catholics versus Masons, Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society 20 (1999), 1-15.
• S.W.K. Chan and J. Franklin, Symbolic connectionism in natural language disambiguation, IEEE Trans. on Neural Networks, 9 (1998), 739-55.
• Two caricatures, I: Pascal's Wager, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 44 (1998), 109-14. (Abstract)
• D.R. Bellhouse and J. Franklin, The language of chance, International Statistical Review 65 (1997), 73-85.
• Stove's anti-Darwinism, Philosophy 72 (1997), 133-6.
• Where is mathematics going?, Gazette of the Australian Mathematical Society 24 (1997), 114-9.
• How a neural net grows symbols, Proceedings of the Seventh Australian Conference on Neural Networks, Canberra, 1996, 91-6.
• Catholic thought and Catholic Action: Dr Paddy Ryan MSC and the Red Peril, Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society 17 (1996), 44-55.
  (Summary in ADB article on Ryan)
• The Sokal hoax, Philosopher 1 (4) (1996), 21-4.

Selected older publications:

• J. Franklin & R.J. Stove, eds, Cricket versus Republicanism, by D.C. Stove (Quakers Hill Press, Sydney, 1995) (with introduction and bibliography by J. Franklin).
• The formal sciences discover the philosophers' stone, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 25 (1994), 513-33 (Math Reviews's summary; later discussion)
• Achievements and fallacies in Hume's account of infinite divisibility, Hume Studies 20 (1994), 85-101.
• R.K. Templeton & J. Franklin, Adaptive information and animal behaviour: why motorists stop at red traffic lights, Evolutionary Theory 10 (1992), 145-55.
• Healthy scepticism, Philosophy 66 (1991), 305-324.
• The ancient legal sources of seventeenth century probability, in S. Gaukroger, ed, The Uses of Antiquity (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1991), 123-144.
• Mathematical necessity and reality, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 67 (1989), 286-294. (Abstract)
• Homomorphisms between Verma modules in characteristic p, Journal of Algebra 112 (1988), 58-85. (Abstract)
• Non-deductive logic in mathematics, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (1987), 1-18.
• Are dispositions reducible to categorical properties? Philosophical Quarterly 36 (1986), 84-86.
• Aristotle on species variation Philosophy 61 (1986), 245-52.
• Natural sciences as textual interpretation: the hermeneutics of the natural sign Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 44 (1984), 509-20.
• Mental furniture from the philosophers, Et Cetera 40 (1983), 177-91.
• The Renaissance myth, Quadrant 26 (11) (Nov, 1982), 51-60.

An interview:

• Philosophy, mathematics and structure Philosopher 1 (2) (Winter, 1995), 31-38.

Book Reviews

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Opinions and News

The Australian 23 July had a story on my work on an Australian Database of Indigenous Violence ... Christopher Pearson column.

I spoke on The Philosophy of Mathematics and Infinity to the Philoagora forum on July 22.

I made a submission to the Review of Australian Higher Education, on the need for business to pay for the supply of graduates, especially via internships.

I made a submission to the 2008 Quarantine and Biosecurity Review.

I spoke on social justice on Philosopher's Zone interview 1 Dec 2007... Counterpoint 26 Nov. An Online Opinion piece, 'Social justice': Utopian fantasy or foundation of prosperity?

On Aug 18 2007 I discussed the worst arguments in philosophy on ABC Radio National's Philosopher's Zone ... transcript.

On July 10 2007 I spoke on 'Australian philosophy - a distinctive tradition' at Philoagora.

My presentation on `Happiness and restraint' to the Happiness and Its Causes Conference on 15 June was printed in The Australian's Higher Ed Supplement.

I spoke on `Why be moral?' on ABC Radio National's Counterpoint on Apr 2 ... transcript.

I gave a series of four lectures on the foundations of ethics at the Aquinas Academy in March 2007 ... details... first lecture... 2nd... 3rd... 4th.

Interview with the UK Catholic Herald.

The book launch of Catholic Values and Australian Realities was held on April 30 2006 ... an account.

A video on Wolfram's A New Kind of Science.

Letter in The Australian on the Business Council of Australia's whinges about the skills of graduates.

On Radio National's Encounter, Mar 12 2006, I debated postmodernism and religion

I was awarded the 2005 Eureka Prize for Research in Ethics ... story

On Oct 3 2005 I was interviewed on RN Counterpoint on restraint; see further on the restraint project.

Some opinions on the lack of quality control in Australian universities can be found in my submission to the West committee .
See also my collections of Australia's Wackiest Academic Web Sites ; Myths about the Middle Ages; self-reference jokes; my page on School of Mathematics' alumni.

I was interviewed on Radio National's Philosopher's Zone on Relativism and Ratzinger on 27 Apr 2005.

I was "in conversation" with Rai Gaita and Jean Curthoys on Corrupting the Youth at Gleebooks on July 7, 2004.
I debated Patricia Petersen on `Is there anything wrong with pornography?' at the Philorum Philosophy Forum on June 2, 2004 ... text.
I debated God and Science at the Blackheath Philosophy Forum Feb 7, 2004.

Some opinions on the direction of mathematics education can be found at Gazette Letter .
Something on the excitement of mathematics is at ABC radio talk, `A mathematical mind'.

My day, 15 Apr 2005; a profile.

I am the literary executor of the Australian philosopher David Stove.

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Student Supervision

Thesis topics can include the philosophy of mathematics, the history of ideas in probability and evidence, and the foundations of the logical approach to probability.

Inquiries are welcome from students at PhD, Masters and 4th year honours level who have thesis proposals in a range of areas connected with pattern recognition or the philosophy of mathematics. Students may be enrolled in either the School of Mathematics or the Schools of Computer Science and Engineering or Philosophy.

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