Deniz Sarikaya

Biography

I am Deniz Sarikaya — a philosopher of the formal sciences (AI, mathematics & logic) working at the intersections of epistemology, philosophy of language, ethics and cognition. I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Ethical Innovation Hub of the Universität zu Lübeck (Chair C. Herzog).

My current work connects (hinge) epistemology with the ethics of the formal sciences esp. AI in particular in contexts of diversity and education. I furthermore study mathematical practice drawing from frame semantics. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher within the FWO project “The Epistemology of Big Data: Mathematics and the Critical Research Agenda on Data Practices” (PIs P. Allo and K. Franҫois, both Vrije Universiteit Brussel) as well as a DAAD-funded postdoc on theoretical virtues of conjectures and open questions in mathematical practice (hosts at the Unviersity of Copenhagen and at the Technical University of Denmark). I also spend short research stays at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Universitat de les Illes Balears, the Ethics in IT Group of the University of Hamburg, as an academic guest at the ETH Zurich.

I earned my PhD in Philosophy (and the Moral Sciences) at the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, supervised by Ulrich Gähde (Hamburg) and Bart van Kerkhove (Brussels). My dissertation on the philosophy of mathematical practice was awarded the dissertation prize of the Deutsche Vereinigung für Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Exakten Wissenschaften (DVMLG), ie. a talk at their PhD Colloqium. I was elected a Young Academy Fellow of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg in 2024.

I studied philosophy (MA 2016, BA 2012) and mathematics (MSc 2019, BSc 2015) at the University of Hamburg, with stays at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (Amsterdam), the Universitat de Barcelona, as a visiting student researcher at UC Berkeley, and in a research internship at the University of British Columbia.

• I am from 01.10.23 – 30.09.2026 Coordinator of the UNESCO World Logic Day (see also UNESCO’s Homepage); Assistant Coordinator from 10/2020–09/2023.
• Moderator of the [LOGIC] mailing list.
• Co‑founder of the Young Network for Wittgensteinian Philosophy.
• Guest of the Bereich Mathematische Logik und interdisziplinäre Anwendungen der Logik, chair: Benedikt Löwe, at the Department of Mathematics, University of Hamburg (UHH).
• Zweiter Vorsitzender of the William‑Stern‑Gesellschaft e.V., organizing enrichment classes for mathematically gifted youth.
• Young Academy Fellow of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg.
• Member of the Council (Vorstand) of the Mathematische Gesellschaft in Hamburg, since February 2024.
• Member of the Respect Research Group.
• External member of the Arbeitsgruppe of Benjamin Rott at the Institut für Mathematikdidaktik, University of Cologne.
• DMRCP Fellow.
• Part of the Frame branch of Naproche.

Further interests of mine inlcude: (general) Philosophy of Science: Science and Society (Wertedebatte, Wissenschaft und Demokratie), Structuralism and ​Mathematics from all perspectives: I am working in Philosophy of Mathematics (esp. Philosophy of Mathematical Practice), think about Mathematics from a linguistic perspective, work in Mathematics Didactics, i.e. promoting mathematically gifted youth and I like doing mathematics when I have some spare time (esp. to think about extremal combinatorics), Artificial Intelligence (AI Safety, Machine Learning and its bounds, ethical questions, …), Mathematical logic (all kinds but esp. Proof Theory and (Models of) Set Theory), Formal Sciences and Agents (Social Choice Theory, Decision Theory, Game Theory), Philosophy of Physics, ….

For me Philosophy is a cooperative endeavor, that is why I am trying to write with co-authors and always looking for people to organize, write, debate, analyze, … something with. Same holds for social projects, esp. concerning promoting gifted youth and science communication.

Awards