In case anyone out there still doesn't know, the New York Times is publishing a five-part series by film-maker Errol Morris about his days as a grad student at Princeton supervised by Thomas Kuhn.
I must confess I'm having a hard time believing the ashtray anecdote related in Part One (if only because the ashtray-throwing Kuhn reminds me a bit too much of the poker-brandishing Wittgenstein) but at least it makes for an entertaining reading.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
CFP: PSX2—2nd International Workshop on the Philosophy of Scientific Experimentation (Konstanz, October 2011)
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PSX2—2nd International Workshop on the Philosophy of Scientific Experimentation
University of Konstanz, 21 – 22 October 2011
http://tinyurl.com/philexp2
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Experiments play an essential part in science. Not only are they used to test theories but they are also key to exploring new phenomenological realms, discovering new effects and phenomena. Nevertheless, experiments are still an underrepresented topic in main stream philosophy of science. The PSX workshop series therefore wants to give a home to philosophical interests in and concerns about experiment. Among the questions we want to discuss are the following: How is experimental practice organized, around theories or around something else? How independent is experimentation from theories? Does it have a life of its own? Can experiments undermine the threat posed to the objectivity of science by the thesis of theory-ladenness, underdetermination, or the Duhem-Quine thesis? What are the important similarities and differences between experiments in different sciences? What are the experimental strategies scientists use for making sure that their experiments work correctly? How are phenomena discovered or created in the laboratory? Is experimental knowledge epistemically more secure than observational knowledge? Can experiments give us good reasons for belief in theoretical entities? What role do computer simulations play in the assessment of experimental background noise? How trustworthy are they? Do they warrant the same kind of inferences as experimental knowledge?
Keynote speakers:
Deborah Mayo, Virginia Tech
Wendy Parker, Ohio University
We invite submissions of extended abstracts (1000 words) of papers of approximately 30 minutes presentation time. Please include your name, the title of the paper, your academic affiliation and your e-mail address in the submission. The deadline for submissions is June 1, 2011. Please direct your submissions to http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=psx2 . The decisions will be announced by July 15, 2011.
Organizing Committee: Samuel Schindler (chair), Allan Franklin, Deborah Mayo, John D. Norton, Wendy Parker, Slobodan Perovic, Marcel Weber.
Questions can be directed to samuel.schindler@uni-konstanz.de .
PSX2—2nd International Workshop on the Philosophy of Scientific Experimentation
University of Konstanz, 21 – 22 October 2011
http://tinyurl.com/philexp2
**********
Experiments play an essential part in science. Not only are they used to test theories but they are also key to exploring new phenomenological realms, discovering new effects and phenomena. Nevertheless, experiments are still an underrepresented topic in main stream philosophy of science. The PSX workshop series therefore wants to give a home to philosophical interests in and concerns about experiment. Among the questions we want to discuss are the following: How is experimental practice organized, around theories or around something else? How independent is experimentation from theories? Does it have a life of its own? Can experiments undermine the threat posed to the objectivity of science by the thesis of theory-ladenness, underdetermination, or the Duhem-Quine thesis? What are the important similarities and differences between experiments in different sciences? What are the experimental strategies scientists use for making sure that their experiments work correctly? How are phenomena discovered or created in the laboratory? Is experimental knowledge epistemically more secure than observational knowledge? Can experiments give us good reasons for belief in theoretical entities? What role do computer simulations play in the assessment of experimental background noise? How trustworthy are they? Do they warrant the same kind of inferences as experimental knowledge?
Keynote speakers:
Deborah Mayo, Virginia Tech
Wendy Parker, Ohio University
We invite submissions of extended abstracts (1000 words) of papers of approximately 30 minutes presentation time. Please include your name, the title of the paper, your academic affiliation and your e-mail address in the submission. The deadline for submissions is June 1, 2011. Please direct your submissions to http://www.easychair.org/
Organizing Committee: Samuel Schindler (chair), Allan Franklin, Deborah Mayo, John D. Norton, Wendy Parker, Slobodan Perovic, Marcel Weber.
Questions can be directed to samuel.schindler@uni-konstanz.
UWO Speaker Series Live-Streamed
The Rotman Institute of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario is now live-streaming (some of?) their Speaker Series talks. Videos of Philip Kitcher's talk from last October is on their website. The next speaker in the Series is Kyle Stanford (UC Irvine). His lecture, 'The Difference Between Ice Cream and Nazis', will be live-streamed here on March 4 at 3:30pm EST.
This sounds like a wonderful idea. It would be great if more departments and research centers were able to do the same.
This sounds like a wonderful idea. It would be great if more departments and research centers were able to do the same.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
CfP: Formal Epistemology Meets Experimental Philosophy (Tilburg, 29 - 30 September 2011)
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First Pittsburgh -Tilburg workshop on Formal Epistemology Meets Experimental Philosophy
Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science
29-30 September 2011
http://www.uvt.nl/tilps/FEMEP2011/
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Over the years, the methodological toolbox of philosophers of science has widened considerably. Today, formal and experimental methods importantly complement more traditional methods such as conceptual analysis and case studies. So far, however, there has not been much interaction between the corresponding communities. Formal work is all too often conducted in an a priori fashion, drawing on intuitions to substantiate various assumptions and to test their consequences. Experimental work, on the other hand, is often limited to testing various assumptions and intuitions, and often does not identify or create new phenomena that can subsequently be integrated into a formal framework. The working assumption of this workshop is that philosophy of science can gain a lot from combining formal and experimental studies. By doing so, philosophy of science will become increasingly scientific as a crucial aspect of the scientific endeavor lies in the combination of formal theories and experimental insights.
This workshop aims to explore the relation between formal and experimental approaches to the philosophy of science. We invite meta-theoretical papers, but especially papers that fruitfully combine both methods to problems from the philosophy of science. This first Pittsburgh-Tilburg workshop will pay special attention to the philosophy of the social sciences, but a focus on other subfields of philosophy of science is also welcome.
We invite submissions of both a short abstract (max. 100 words) and an extended abstract (1000-1500 words) by 1 May 2011. Decisions will be made by 15 May 2011. Submission details here.
Keynote Speakers
Christina Bicchieri, Philadelphia
Mark Colyvan, Sydney
Ralph Hertwig, Basel
Publication
Selected papers will be published in a special issue of Synthese (subject to the usual refereeing process). The submission deadline is 31 December 2011. The maximal paper length is 7000 words.
Organizers
Stephan Hartmann, Tilburg
Chiara Lisciandra, Tilburg
Edouard Machery, Pittsburgh
Program Committee
Jason Alexander, London School of Economics and Political Science
Horacio Arlo-Costa, Carnegie Mellon University
David Chalmers, Australian National University and New York University
Branden Fitelson, Rutgers University
Clark Glymour, Carnegie Mellon University
Thomas Grundmann, University of Cologne
Christopher Hitchcock, California Institute of Technology
Joshua Knobe, Yale University
Shaun Nichols, University of Arizona
Mike Oaksford, Birkbeck College London
Erik Olsson, University of Lund
David Papineau, King's College London
Wolfgang Spohn, University of Konstanz
Jesús Zamora, UNED Madrid
Sunday, February 6, 2011
CFP: Society for Exact Philosophy Annual Conference
The 39th annual meeting of the Society for Exact Philosophy will be held at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. May 26-28, 2011. Conference organizers: Chris Tillman and Esa Diaz-Leon.
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Society for Exact Philosophy invites submissions for its 2011 meeting. Paper submissions in all areas of analytic philosophy are welcomed. A selection of papers from the conference will be published in a special volume of Synthese, guest edited by Marc Moffett. Keynote speakers to be announced.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 8th, 2011.
Submission Instructions
Authors are requested to submit their papers according to the following guidelines: 1) Papers should be prepared for blind refereeing, 2) put into PDF file format, and 3) sent as an email attachment to the address given below -- where 4) the subject line of the submission email should include the key-phrase "SEP submission", and 5) the body text of the email message should constitute a cover page for the submission by including i) return email address, ii) author's name, iii) affiliation, iv) paper title, and v) short abstract.
Electronic submissions should be sent to societyexactphilosophy2011@yahoo.ca
Nota Bene: All submissions will receive email confirmation of receipt. If your submission does not soon result in such an email confirmation, please send an inquiry either to the above address or to the local organizer.
More Information--
For more information on the conference, please visit the conference web site at: http://www.phil.ufl.edu/SEP/meeting/2011/
Or contact the conference organizers:
Chris Tillman chris.tillman@gmail.com
Esa Diaz-Leon esadiazleon@gmail.com
Information on the Society and its previous meetings is on the web at http://www.phil.ufl.edu/SEP.
"The SEP is dedicated to providing sustained discussion among researchers who believe that rigorous methods have a place in philosophical investigations."
Join us in Winnipeg.
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Society for Exact Philosophy invites submissions for its 2011 meeting. Paper submissions in all areas of analytic philosophy are welcomed. A selection of papers from the conference will be published in a special volume of Synthese, guest edited by Marc Moffett. Keynote speakers to be announced.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 8th, 2011.
Submission Instructions
Authors are requested to submit their papers according to the following guidelines: 1) Papers should be prepared for blind refereeing, 2) put into PDF file format, and 3) sent as an email attachment to the address given below -- where 4) the subject line of the submission email should include the key-phrase "SEP submission", and 5) the body text of the email message should constitute a cover page for the submission by including i) return email address, ii) author's name, iii) affiliation, iv) paper title, and v) short abstract.
Electronic submissions should be sent to societyexactphilosophy2011@yahoo.ca
Nota Bene: All submissions will receive email confirmation of receipt. If your submission does not soon result in such an email confirmation, please send an inquiry either to the above address or to the local organizer.
More Information--
For more information on the conference, please visit the conference web site at: http://www.phil.ufl.edu/SEP/meeting/2011/
Or contact the conference organizers:
Chris Tillman chris.tillman@gmail.com
Esa Diaz-Leon esadiazleon@gmail.com
Information on the Society and its previous meetings is on the web at http://www.phil.ufl.edu/SEP.
"The SEP is dedicated to providing sustained discussion among researchers who believe that rigorous methods have a place in philosophical investigations."
Join us in Winnipeg.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Call for Book Proposals: Studies in Brain and Mind
Studies in Brain and Mind is a book series published by Springer. It covers all areas in which philosophy and neuroscience intersect: philosophy of mind, philosophy of neuroscience, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of psychiatry, neurophilosophy, and neuroethics.
Under the previous editor, John Bickle, the series published several high quality books (see: http://www.springer.com/series/6540 for a list, but the series was inactive in recent years. The series is now being relaunched with a new Editor-in-Chief (yours truly) and Editorial Board:
Berit Brogaard (UM St Louis)
Carl Craver (Wash U)
Eduoard Machery (Pitt)
Oron Shagrir (Hebrew University in Jerusalem)
Mark Sprevak (Edimburgh U)
We aim to publish technical books for an academic audience of graduate students and up. We see the series as a great opportunity for the field, providing a venue for specialists as well as junior authors. Some high quality book projects are too specialized or their authors are too junior for other publishers. Studies in Mind and Brain fills this gap. We hope to make Studies in Brain and Mind an excellent addition to the development of interdisciplinary research in philosophy and neuroscience.
Every book published in the series will be available simultaneously in print and as e-book in SpringerLink. If a library has purchased the Springer e-book package, visitors of the library are able to download these PDF’s for free or order a paperback for Euro: 24.95 / USD 24,95.
The series aims for a high level of clarity, rigor, novelty, and scientific competence. Book proposals and complete manuscripts of 200 or more pages are welcome. Initial proposals can be sent to me at piccininig@umsl.edu.
For more information, see the Series website or contact me.
Please help spread the news if you have a chance (e.g., on other pertinent blogs).
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Papineau on the Rise of Physicalism
I just read David Papineau's excellent and provocative 2001 article, "The Rise of Physicalism ". He argues that physicalism is supported by the principle of the completeness of physics (sometimes known as the causal closure of the physical), and that theoretical and empirical evidence for such a principle slowly built up over the centuries but became overwhelming only in the middle of the 20th century, when — not coincidentally, if Papineau is right — contemporary physicalism replaced phemomenalism, vitalism, and other previously popular views and became a dominant view in metaphysics (especially with respect to the mind).
Papineau's paper is by necessity quick and occasionally explicitly speculative on how the history went. Does anyone know whether Papineau's story is correct? Is there any more detailed and recent historical literature on the topics covered by Papineau (conservation laws in physics, vitalism and its demise, physicalism about the mind) that supports (or undermine, as the case may be) Papineau's account?
(cross-posted at Brains.)
Papineau's paper is by necessity quick and occasionally explicitly speculative on how the history went. Does anyone know whether Papineau's story is correct? Is there any more detailed and recent historical literature on the topics covered by Papineau (conservation laws in physics, vitalism and its demise, physicalism about the mind) that supports (or undermine, as the case may be) Papineau's account?
(cross-posted at Brains.)
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