Organisers: Gerhard Schurz, Ludwig Fahrbach and Ioannis Votsis
Invited Speakers: Martin Carrier (Bielefeld), Deborah Mayo (Virginia
Tech), Cornelis Menke (Bielefeld), Stathis Psillos (Athens), Roger White
(MIT) and John Worrall (LSE).
The aim of the conference is to explore new and fruitful answers to
three central questions: What are novel predictions? Ought novel
predictions have more epistemic weight than mere accommodations? Can
novel predictions help us make headway in the scientific realism debate?
We expect that the talks will cover one or more of the following related
topics, simplicity, unification, curve-fitting, approximate truth,
inference to the best explanation, the no-miracles argument and
scientific theory change.
We invite abstracts of up to 500 words on any of the above or closely
related topics. Please e-mail contributions to Ioannis Votsis (
votsis@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de ). Make sure to include your full
name, institutional affiliation and e-mail address.
Submission Deadline: 15 OCTOBER 2010
Acceptance Notification: 15 NOVEMBER 2010
We hope to publish the proceedings of the conference in a reputable
scientific journal. Upon completion of the conference, we will invite
participants to submit written-up versions of their talks. Submitted
papers will then be subjected to a peer-review process.
Speakers – Provisional Talk Titles:
Martin Carrier (Bielefeld) 'Prediction in Context: On the Comparative
Epistemic Merit of Predictive Success'
Deborah Mayo (Virginia Tech) 'Some Surprising Facts About (the problem
of) Surprising Facts'
Ludwig Fahrbach (Duesseldorf) 'Novel Predictions: In Search of the
Wow-Factor'
Cornelis Menke (Bielefeld) 'On the Vagueness of "Novelty" and Chance as
an Explanation of Predictive Success'
Stathis Psillos (Athens) 'Novelty-in-Use: On Perrin's Argument for
Molecules'
Gerhard Schurz (Duesseldorf) 'Theoretical Parameters and Use-Novelty
Criterion of Confirmation'
Ioannis Votsis (Duesseldorf) 'Novel Predictions: The Few Miracles
Argument for Scientific Realism'
Roger White (MIT) 'Testing'
John Worrall (LSE) 'Prediction and Accommodation: A Comparison of Rival
Views'
Attendance is open to all. If you plan to attend please contact Ioannis
Votsis ( votsis@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de ).
Thanks for your comments on the Otago project Eric. I must disagree with you, however, that our framework will run into trouble in 18th century. In fact, the terminology of the experimental philosophy is more prevalent in the 18th century and our research shows that the experimental philosophy was extended beyond natural philosophy into moral philosophy and even aesthetics. See, for example, the works of George Turnbull which are a good example of experimental moral philosophy. Furthermore, rather than the approach of Galileo, Huygens and Newton providing an exception, we argue that their mathematical natural philosophical method came to be seen as the preferred method of experimental philosophy. Boyle, Hooke and the early Royal Society practised experimental philosophy according to the method of Baconian natural history. But this only lasted until the 1690s when it began to be replaced by the Newtonian method. This is, in fact, the explanation of Newton’s common refrain ‘Natural philosophy is not natural history’. He himself had a large hand in the demise of the Baconian approach to experimental philosophy both through criticism and through his own positive alternative. Far from providing an exception to our framework, Newton is one of the central players!
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