Carnegie Mellon University
Laboratory for Symbolic and Educational Computing

Laboratory for Symbolic and Educational Computing

The Laboratory for Symbolic and Educational Computing (LSEC) is part of the Philosophy Department at Carnegie Mellon University. It was founded in 1996 by Wilfried Sieg, who co-directed it with Richard Scheines until June 30, 2005. Teddy Seidenfeld and Sieg are the current co-directors; Joseph Ramsey, the Department's Director of Computing, has been providing direction and supervision for LSEC computational projects since 1998.

The Department's research orientation is heavily interdisciplinary. The disciplines, which are important for LSEC range from mathematical logic through the philosophy of science to decision and game theory. Modern philosophy has formulated many of the foundational questions germane to mathematics and the sciences and has answered several of them. Decision theory, game theory, logic, statistical causal inference and the theory of computation have all advanced significantly as a result of recent philosophical research.

Within this broad interdisciplinary context, the mission of LSEC is threefold:

  • To advance research by the implementation and examination of central algorithms;
  • To turn such advances into useful computational tools that will support researchers;
  • To use the tools as part of computer taught courses that are highly interactive and completely web-based.