Eran Tal

I am an Associate Professor of Philosophy at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in Data Ethics. I specialize in philosophy of science, philosophy of measurement, and the ethics of big data and artificial intelligence.

Until 2016 I was a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, and before that an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at Bielefeld University in Germany.

Email: eran.tal@mcgill.ca (see my full contact details)

Here you can find my CV, find out about my current research projects or read my recent papers.

You can also find me on Twitter (@erantal).

News

  • I will deliver a keynote lecture at the 5th Workshop on Scientific Understanding and Representation (SURe) at the University of Toronto in May 2023.

  • My paper “Models and Measurement” is forthcoming in the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Scientific Modeling

  • I am co-authoring a clinical guidebook on measurement of youth mental health with Skye Barbic (UBC). The guidebook summarizes our insights from the project "Psychiatric Illness in Canadian Youth: Mobilizing Measurement to Improve Clinical Care", which ran from 2019 to 2021 with funding from the Healthy Brains for Healthy Lives initiative. See our project website for more details.

  • I am a member of a research team led by CAMH that recently received $5.13M in funding from the Brain Canada Foundation to develop a platform for improving youth mental health across Canada. See news release.

  • I am developing principles for the ethical collection and use of scientific and medical data, based on the concept of responsible measurement. See my research page for additional details.

  • My paper "Two Myths of Representational Measurement" has been published in Perspectives on Science.

  • An updated version of my entry "Measurement in Science" is now published in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

  • I am collaborating with a group of health outcomes researchers led by Nancy Mayo in developing a new measure of health-related quality of life for older people. Our project has been awarded $1.1M from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

  • I'm a founding member of the Montreal Philosophy of Science Network, dedicated to research collaboration across the city's four universities. Among our past speakers are Peter Galison, Elliott Sober, Margaret Morrison, Leah McClimans, Bernhard Nickel, Philip Kitcher, Mike Thicke, Helen Longino, and Melissa Jacquart.

Upcoming talks