Statement of Purpose – Toby Meadows Page 1 of 3

Statement of Purpose
My career goals are to become a cutting edge researcher in mathematical
and philosophical logic, and to become a successful manager of research
projects, programmes and institutes. I have already come part of the way
in achieving these goals and possess the talent and drive to complete
them. If accepted into the PhD programme with the Group in Logic and
Methodology of Science (the Group), I will hone my skills as a
mathematical logician and actively contribute to the research community
within the group.

Presently, I am completing a PhD in philosophical logic at the University of

Melbourne. My current research investigates alternative methods of
characterising the concept of possibility as it is used in philosophy of
language, science and metaphysics. The principal goal is to provide a
coherent logical foundation for attitudes toward modality that are more in
line with the ideas of Quine and Carnap. The central design requirements
are: that de re quantification is explained without recourse to essentialist
doctrine, and that necessity is only ever understood with reference to a
background theory or set of models. As a result of these desiderata, the
system uses a predicate rather than an operator to represent necessity.

Coming out of this research, I am hoping to have three publications in

philosophical logic by the time I would commence at Berkeley. The first
provides an alternative semantics for the modal logic developed by
Carnap in 1946. This approach makes a sentence possible if it is true in
some first order model. While this may seem like an intuitive way of
understanding possibility, the resultant logic is, for obvious reasons,
unaxiomatisable. I provide a general semantics with complete proof theory
by building on Henkin’s techniques for simple type theory. The second
paper develops a semantic theory of necessity which allows for iteration of
the necessity predicate. This work provides a response to Montague’s
paradox for necessity predicates and develops out of work by Kripke,
Leitgeb and Welch. The third paper develops a completeness theorem for
a logic for descriptive quantification into modal contexts using a variation
of the epsilon-calculus, which I have developed.
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This line of research has led me into a number of problems in model

theory, recursion theory and set theory. In order to tackle these problems I
have needed to develop my mathematical skills. It has also given me an
independent interest in these fields and this has been the main factor in
my decision to apply to undertake a PhD with the Group. My most
immediate research interests concern the theory of inductive definitions
developed by Moschovakis, and in understanding the relationship between
ramified accounts of forcing (as in Cohen) and contemporary approaches
that rely on topology or embeddings into Boolean algebras. I would like to
produce a dissertation in this area. Coming from a philosophical logic
background, I have greater familiarity with effective approaches, as
opposed to classical. I would eagerly address this gap during my
candidature.

As a graduate student at the University of Melbourne, I regularly present

my material at the Melbourne Logic Seminar. I find this process invaluable
as I receive feedback on my research and am able to discover any
weaknesses in my ability to effectively explain or justify my material. I also
work as a tutor for our undergraduate logic courses and enjoy teaching
others about a topic that I think is foundational in the development of a
critical attitude towards the world.

I am also passionate about the value of logic and I would like to develop
my skills in the administration of logic-related programs and projects. My
principal goals are to learn more about successful strategies for expanding
the use and influence of logic throughout the academic community and to
develop strategies for bridging the gaps between distinct logical
communities, such as philosophical logic and mathematical logic. I have
demonstrated my abilities as an administrator in employment as a project
manager and advisor on large scale public infrastructure projects, and I
would like to put these skills to use in an academic environment.

Given my goals, background and career trajectory, I think the Group would
be a particularly good fit for me. As a talented logician with a philosophical
Statement of Purpose – Toby Meadows Page 3 of 3

background, I believe I have something to offer the Group and I look

forward to the opportunity to contribute.