Tag: Semantics

Call: “Valence Asymmetries”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

The Valence Asymmetries project, led by Isidora Stojanovic at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, is looking for expressions of interest from people who would like to join. The call reads:

We are interested in including new team members in our project. Before opening a new position, we are inviting those interested in joining us to express their interest.

The new team member(s) should have research interests that align directly with the objectives of the project, broadly understood. They will already have a very solid publication track, will cherish interdisciplinary research, and will want to combine theoretical and empirical methodology.

We are particularly interested in the following research profiles:

  • Decision theory, philosophy of rationality & framing effects
  • Formal value theory & formal semantics
  • Philosophy of emotions & social and/or moral psychology
  • Moral cognition & philosophy of well-being

Additionally, any other research profile that offers a novel perspective on the project’s objectives is potentially welcome.

The duration of the contract will depend on the range of project tasks that the new team member will be hired to work on, and in any case cannot exceed the duration of the project (i.e. July 2029).

In addition to prospective candidates who would like to join us for a longer duration, we are also inviting tenured faculty who have a demonstrably heavy teaching load to consider joining us for a one year period (assuming that they can get a leave of absence from their home institution) that they can devote to research.

The expected gross salary is approx. 31.000 gross per year (negotiable for senior and/or already tenured faculty).

NB: The project’s team members must live in Barcelona (region), they regularly meet in person, attend seminars and conduct in-person research. The position is incompatible with living and/or spending considerable periods of time elsewhere.

If you are interested in joining the project, please send an email to Isidora Stojanovic (PI), explaining your motivation and interests, together with a complete CV.

Call: “Laws Many Users”

Posted on by Alexander Max Bauer

Alex Davies and Nikolai Shurakov organize a conference on “Law’s Many Users – Legal Interpretation Within and Beyond Legal Institutions,” which will take place at the University of Tartu from November 12 to 14.

Abstracts for presentations can be submitted until August 12. The call reads:

Law is interpreted and implemented by many hands. Some of them belong to judges, legislators, or lawyers – but many belong to nurses, teachers, municipal officials, or department heads: professionals who encounter law not in courtrooms or casebooks, but in institutional documents, contracts, checklists, and internal protocols. These actors do not interpret law as legal theorists or as abstract “laypeople,” but as role-bound individuals embedded in specific organizational contexts. Their understanding of legal norms is shaped by institutional incentives, bureaucratic hierarchies, resource constraints, inherited routines, and pressures to defer to internal authorities. They are interpreters, but also implementers – conduits through which law acquires practical meaning.

While experimental jurisprudence has deepened our understanding of how legal concepts like causation, intention, or rights are grasped by legal experts and ordinary citizens, it has rarely focused on this middle terrain: how individuals interpret legal rules as part of their job, within the constraints and affordances of organizational life.

This conference is an occasion for exploring that terrain.

Call for Abstracts (submission deadline: August 12, 2025)

We invite submissions from scholars across disciplines interested in how laws and regulations are interpreted, implemented, and transformed in real-world institutional settings.

Legal meaning is shaped not only in courts or legislatures, but in offices, classrooms, clinics, and council chambers – by actors whose interpretations are framed by professional roles, organizational logics, and institutional incentives. This conference invites reflection on the interpretive practices that emerge in such contexts, and how these practices affect what law becomes in use.

We welcome work from experimental jurisprudence, philosophy of language, linguistics, law & economics, public administration, and related fields. Contributions may be theoretical, empirical, or methodological.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

  • Studies of how non-lawyers interpret and apply legal or regulatory texts
  • Experimental investigations of interpretation in institutional settings
  • Pragmatic and semantic analysis of policy and legal communication
  • Incentive structures and role-based reasoning in interpretation
  • Legal meaning as mediated through contracts, guidelines, or protocols
  • Interpretive drift and discretion in organizational environments
  • Extensions or critiques of experimental jurisprudence beyond traditional contexts
  • Interdisciplinary methods for studying law “in the wild”

Abstracts are applications for either 30-minute slots (20 minute talk + 10 minute discussion) OR 1-hour slots (30–40 minute talk + 30–20 minute Q&A). Abstracts (max. 600 words – excluding a list of references) should: (a) make clear the line of argument for the conclusion defended; (b) make clear the relevance of the envisioned talk to the conference theme; (c) make clear whether your applying for a 30-minute or 60-minute slot; and (d) be prepared for anonymous review.

Submitting Abstracts: Abstracts should be submitted with a separate coversheet (author, email, institution) to laws.many.users@gmail.com.