For the first The Illogician MoL alumni interview series, meet Prof. Catarina Dutilh Novaes (VU). Catarina is a philosopher who moves effortlessly from medieval manuscripts to modern logic, asking big questions about reasoning, dialogue, and what it really means to argue well. Hope you enjoy this wonderful conversation with this illustrious MoL alumnus. Let us know who do you want us to interview next!
Question 1
You were part of the very first cohort of the ILLC’s Master of Logic. The program is famous for its interdisciplinary character. Also you recently received the Lakatos Award, which is traditionally awarded to philosophers of science, so it is a big statement to the interdisciplinary nature of your work and your general approach to philosophy. Were you already drawn to this kind of interdisciplinarity before arriving, or was it something that emerged and developed through the ILLC environment itself?
Answer 1
So first of all, when I was a high school student, I was interested in everything. So in that sense, this already comes from that time. And, in high school, except for physics, I liked everything. I loved mathematics, but I also really like biology, history, and I even liked chemistry. I did two years of my high school in France, and there I had much more advanced mathematics than I had gotten in Brazil. And this is where my love for mathematics first emerged. And so in that sense, I’ve always been interdisciplinary in the broader sense of the term.
I then went to study philosophy In Brazil. But while I was studying philosophy, I also took courses in mathematics. Most of my elective courses were in mathematics. Although in Brazil we don’t have the major minor system, I usually say I have a major in philosophy and a minor in mathematics. So I already liked this combination of philosophy and mathematics. And then I went to the ILLC because I wanted to study and do research in philosophy of logic, but I felt that I didn’t know enough knowledge in logic because when I was in Brazil, I only did a few courses in logic. Then I decided, well, you know, if I really want to be a philosopher of logic, I have to know more logic, and going to the ILLC was the ideal option for me.
First of all, during my time, it was only a one year program, so it was very concentrated. And when I started there, I said, you know what, I want to do the mathematical logic track, since I was there to learn more logic, right? More mathematics and more logic. But then of course, it was very, very hard, very hard. So I did not have the ideal background for it. So I really had to work very hard and I actually even failed one course, which had never happened to me in my life! So it was a very interesting and sobering experience. So I realized, you know, how little I actually knew. So I worked really hard on catching up. And one of the people who helped me a lot was Dick de Jongh, who was my mentor at the time. We had weekly tutorial sessions where he was helping me catch up with my courses. Towards the end of the year, I figured, you know, I really need to do something more related to philosophy because that’s what I’m good at. Just then I started taking philosophy courses. One course in particular that was very formative for me was a course by Martin Stokhof in Philosophy of Language. During one of the first sessions I was like, yes, I know how to do this. This is much easier for me. Martin has become one of my main mentors throughout my career. So that course was. So for me it was very good to be in this interdisciplinary environment and to be able to develop both my mathematical skills, which was what I mostly had hoped to develop, and also the more philosophical side of logic.
When it was time to choose the topic for my thesis I decided to dedicate myself fully to philosophy. I did my thesis actually on Medieval Logic. But back in the day nobody at the ILLC knew anything about medieval logic, and when I proposed the topic to Dick de Jongh and Frank Veltman, who was also involved in supervising me, they accepted just because they were curious to see where it would go. And then later I went on to write my PhD also on medieval logic. The fact that I could do this for my masters had a lot of influence also in my career. You know, that was this thing I was interested in back then and my interests have change now of course, but it’s really a combination of all these different experiences that I had that result in this fascinating mix of topics.
Question 2
Now when you apply for the MoL you can find a myriad of information about it. Student experiences, program structure, research opportunities etc. As one of the very first MoL students, you entered the program at a time when it was still new and perhaps a bit mysterious. Did being part of those early cohorts give the experience a special sense of novelty or experimentation? What did you expect the program to be like back then?
Answer 2
Even the Internet was a new thing, right? Even the idea that there was information on the Internet for you to find was a relatively new thing, right? But the thing is that I, so my grandparents were Dutch, they were from the Netherlands and they moved to Brazil and my mother was born in Brazil and I was born in Brazil, but we always had a connection with the Netherlands. So I, you know, in a way it was kind of already looking at, for something in the Netherlands, right? And I mean, at the time the MoL was the only Masters of logic available probably in the whole world. So in that sense for me, right, it was a no brainer. To be honest, I don’t think I really even consider other options at all. I was just like, okay, this is it! I didn’t know much, so it could have gone very, very wrong as well. And I remember that I went to talk to Dick De Jongh, who was the MoL coordinator at the time, to see if he would admit me. In some sense the MoL at that point wasn’t very selective because of course it was a new program and they really had to, you know, attract as many interested students as possible. And I think now it’s probably much, much more selective. But I mean, I can say that I think looking back, right, it was just one year which is completely insane, right? Because we were writing our thesis during the summer, right? You had courses from September until June and then July, August, you were writing the thesis. Whereas now it’s a two year program, so there’s more time to mature, and to really develop as a researcher.
Question 3
If you were to enroll in the MoL program today, which courses would you be most excited, or terrified, to take?
Answer 3
Yeah, it’s a good question. I mean I would have take a look. For example, some of the people who were my professor back then are still professors now. So one of them I remember was Alexandru Baltag who I thought modal logic, And that was a really difficult course. But I did like half of it, so maybe I would finish that course, right. And the other course I would retake, which was very difficult is proof theory. At the time it was thought by Anne Troelstra who’s of course a very iconic figure, but he was not very nice to me, to be honest. I mean he generally he had kind of like tough love approach. And also he didn’t understand what I was doing there. I mean first of all I was a woman, and second, I wasn’t even a mathematician! I did the course, and I passed proof theory. But he was always kind of a little mean to me during the course. However, I must say many years later, when I was awarded a grant, he wrote an email to personally congratulate me. Maybe he thought then that actually his tough love approach had actually helped me. That could be.
Question 4
So with every new MoL cohort every year there are more and more women. And many of them were interested in knowing how was it back in the day, because we now that logic, and academia in general, has been overrepresented by males. So I wanted to ask you if you feel there has been a positive change over the years.
Answer 4
This is a great question. One thing is that when I was studying, I was not particularly aware of gender issues. So basically back then, I was not a feminist in the conscious way. And one of the reasons for that was that when I was growing up in Brazil, I had many really great female role models in academia. My mom was an academic. Many of my professors were women. So it never even occurred to me before that, you know, that this was a thing. You know, that’s how naive I was. And I only really started like becoming consciously a feminist much, much later. Actually, when I was at the ILLC as a postdoc was when I really started, like, seeing a lot of things that were obviously there, but I wasn’t seeing them. But I believe that there’s been, of course, over the last 25 years, a huge change in how much this is discussed, right? And how much deserved attention this topic gets. And, I mean, not only in academia, but also, of course, with the MeToo movement and many other societal developments. I mean, of course, feminism had been around for many, many decades, but it was, you know, to some extent, kind of a fringe movement, as it were. And I think one thing that has happened in the last 25 years is that feminism, certainly in philosophy, has become a much more central perspective, which is a good thing.
One of the implications, of course, is us thinking much more about the subtle ways in which academia discourages women from pursuing academic careers and the importance of role models and the role that the academic environment play. If you’re the only woman in your cohort, of course that’s not definitive, maybe you’re fine with that, but most likely it’s going to be difficult. And for many, many years in my career, when I was working primarily philosophy of logic, I was very often the only woman in the room. At some point it really started bothering me, maybe because I started seeing it more.
In fact, one thing I did was, I think it was 2009, I started a list of women working in Logic just to be put online because I at the time there was this blog called Feminist Philosophers and they were often talking about how, like, in many conferences and all speakers are male which sends a very problematic signal. One of the arguments used by organizers was like, ``yeah, but there are no women working on my topic. That’s why I’m not inviting them." So I thought, well, what if we compile a list of women working in Logic so that whenever this argument comes up, we can just send the list. But more importantly, people who are organizing conferences can have a resource that they can look at, you know, to see, like to look for ideas for women they could invite. These things, I think, have really changed for the better.
And I also want to say that while gender, of course, a very important dimension, it’s not the only category of exclusion. There are all kinds of other categories that are relevant. We also need to think about race, we need to think about class, we need to think about people with disabilities, about sexual orientation. I’m just bringing this kind of what we call this intersectional perspective.
Question 5
Because of the longevity of the program, and perhaps the diversity of students and faculty, I feel like the ILLC accumulated some ``legends" over the years. Do you remember any early ILLC folklore professors, courses, or events that became part of the institute’s mythology?
Answer 5
I mean, all these people that I’ve already mentioned. Also more on the philosophy side of things, Martin Stokhof, who I mentioned, Frank Veltman, Jeroen Groenendijk and Michiel van Lambalgen. And well, Alexandru was already around, you know, who’s very iconic, has always been and will always be. One person I want to mention, who was very important to me back then was Carlos Areces, who’s an Argentinian logician and was a PhD candidate at the ILLC. He was always super helpful and really supportive and he helped me with a lot of stuff.
Question 6
If you put ten MoL students in a room and ask them to define ‘logic’, how many definitions do you expect, and which one would you pick to escape the room?
Answer 6
Twenty. Twenty different definitions. Yes, at least. Because some of them will have more than like three. So I mean, it’s gonna be more definitions than people.
Question 7
To finalize, I wanted to ask you whats the most Illogical thing you’ve done while studying in the MoL?
Answer 7
Yeah. Well, I mean, you could say that it was very illogical for me to sign up for the mathematical logic track. I could have done the easier route, which would be to go for the philosophical logic track. So that was, in some sense, quite illogical. But on the other hand, well, it was not illogical in the sense that I learned precisely what, I wanted to learn. So it depends on how you look at it. One very illogical thing that I’ve done was to bike on top of the tram track and of course, slip and fall. Like, you know, if you think about it, obviously it’s not a good idea. It was my first year in Amsterdam. There were many such things that I had to learn the hard way.