Current Visitors

Agreeing to Disagree in Quantum Bayesianism

In recent work on Quantum Bayesianism, or “QBism,” a schism is emerging between “subjective” or “psychological” Bayesians on one side, and “objective” or “logical” Bayesians on the other, mirroring a similar division in the Bayesian foundations of classical statistical inference.  Leading advocates of QBism, including Caves and Fuchs, are taking an increasingly subjective stance, leading to some substantive disagreements with more objective Bayesian approaches.  One longstanding question, explored by Wigner, Peierls, Fuchs, Mermin, Spekkens, and others, concerns the problem of “inter-subjective compatibility,” or the extent to which different observers with different information can assign different quantum states to the same physical system.  Subjective and objective accounts can arrive at different conclusions. This project aims to clarify the scope of the disagreement between subjective and objective Bayesians on the compatibility of quantum states between different observers, and to argue for the “logical” Bayesian response.

Claiming Authority Across Borders: Towards a Cosmopolitan Statism 

Many political philosophers believe that demanding obligations of egalitarian justice and democratic inclusion arise only in distinctive political relationships, which are characterized by subjection to a coercively enforced system of political rule. Do states and their citizens stand in such political relationships to migrants and refugees, or do such relationships end at state borders? This question lies at the core of an ongoing debate in the philosophy of migration between proponents of statist and cosmopolitan accounts of justice in migration. In this project, I explore a novel intermediary view, which combines attractive features of the cosmopolitan and the statist position. This intermediary view is based on the idea that there are two distinct kinds of political relationships, which ground distinct sets of political obligations. I argue that political relationships of a weak kind extend beyond state borders, while political relationships of a strong kind obtain only between the citizens of legitimate states. Cosmopolitans are therefore right to insist that states have political obligations towards foreigners, while statists are right to insist that these obligations are more limited in scope than domestic political obligations.

Environmental Norms and Strategic Interactions

Achieving large-scale transitions in pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs) requires an understanding of how norms shape individual and collective decision-making. While norm-based interventions have been widely employed to promote sustainability, they have key limitations: their effects diminish over time, they are more effective for low-cost behaviours and may backfire if not carefully designed. 
To address these issues, the following research questions will be investigated: How do individuals update their beliefs about norm compliance, and what role does expectation formation play in maintaining pro-environmental behaviours? What game-theoretic mechanisms explain the emergence and stabilization of sustainable norms in strategic interactions?

Beyond Binary: Modelling Score-Based Cooperation Without Oversight

This project investigates how large-scale cooperation can emerge without surveillance or enforcement, using score-based reputations. Most models of indirect reciprocity assume binary reputations (good vs bad), limiting insight into richer, more realistic systems. A novel computational method has been developed to analyse populations with unbounded, positive reputation scores. This enables a full exploration of score-mediated strategies, including cases where both donors and recipients update reputations. The project is to use this to investigate which strategies simultaneously promote cooperation, require minimal oversight, and are robust to noise. The goal is to better understand how decentralized societies might sustain cooperation through reputational norms alone.

Universal Grammar: New Epistemological Challenges

The idea of a universal grammar which would be shared by all human languages and would correspond to a universal innate human faculty has been predominant in the field of contemporary linguistics, while at the same time it has been increasingly criticized in various disciplines.  During my research stay I will investigate three epistemological issues related to this idea which have not been addressed in the current scholarship: (1) epistemological status; (2) epistemological specificity; (3) the epistemological potential of large language models and new neurolinguistic theories for the idea of universal grammar. 

A Model of Reflective Equilibrium

Reflective Equilibrium is an epistemic state in which one's evaluative judgments cohere with general principles justifying those judgments. This project will build on recent work in reason-based choice to develop a formal model of reflective equilibrium. In particular, the project will study how epistemic states which are out-of-equilibrium can be revised to approach equilibrium, and how various cognitive procedures impact the revision process. The project also seeks to characterize a notion of 'shared reflective equilibrium', the pursuit of which is at the heart of deliberative democratic institutions. The hope is that a formal model of the deliberation process can shed light on conditions for convergence versus polarization. 

As part of the Cohesive Capitalism Programme, Dr Panjwani will also be teaching seminars for PP406 Philosophy for Public Policy in the Department of Philosophy this Winter Term.

Multiscale modelling, uncertainty, and inductive risk: Policy-making and challenges surrounding fusion energy.

His research is centred on complex (multiscale) modelling and the nature of scientific uncertainty in the fusion context, with a particular focus on the inductive risks and policy-making challenges surrounding the engineering, design, study, and application of fusion systems.

Marc works closely with philosophers of science at both the University of Edinburgh and within the broader philosophical community, together with the scientists and engineers at UKAEA, to gain clarity about the intricate conceptual challenges inherent in fusion energy, as well as how to approach policy-making in such an unfamiliar and uncertain environment. 

Ethics, Neuro-aesthetics, and Evolutionary Modelling

Neuroaesthetics seeks neural correlates of beauty, surprise, and desire, including moral goodness and beauty judgments. Despite intriguing findings like the orbitofrontal cortex's involvement in moral judgment, beauty judgment, and decision-making, the neural apparatus's complexity hinders many potentially illuminating analyses. Computational evolutionary modelling offers an alternative approach. Time-evolving models using empirical data and generative heuristics create novel representations of systems or datasets. Evolutionary techniques measure the asymmetry in model agreement within an ensemble, providing automated hypothesis generation and inherent epistemic uncertainty. Propositions with certain goodness of fit interact in consensus with measurable aesthetic symmetrical qualities, while dissensus serves as an explanatory artifact for model ensemble uncertainty. The central question is: can aesthetics assist a modeler in gaining understanding?