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News

2021- 22 Fellows Announced!

Posted on March 17, 2021 by cheryl

The Center is pleased to announce our list of the Fellows who will be joining us for the 2021-22 academic year.  We’re especially happy to have some past visitors back with us in new roles.  Many more details will follow, but for now, here is the complete list:

Senior Visiting Fellow
Heather Douglas, Michigan State University

Fall Visiting Fellows
Brian McLoone, Higher School Economics (Moscow)
Anthony Beavers, University of Evansville
Matthew Parker, University of Western Ontario
Darrell Rowbottom, Lingnan University
Hyunduek Cheon, Seoul National University

Spring Visiting Fellows
Leonardo Bich, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
Laura Menatti Passages UMR 5319 CNRS (Bordeaux)
Eugen Fisher, University of East Anglia
Ruth Kastner, University of Maryland
Serife Tekin, UT at San Antonio

Postdocs
Ravit Dotan, UC Berkeley
Aydin Mohseni, UC Irvine

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Podcast With Riet Van Bork

Posted on March 12, 2021 by cheryl

One of this year’s post-doc Fellows, Riet Van Bork, sat down with two University of Amsterdam undergraduates for a podcast interview on how the current pandemic times influence different research areas, and other things.  Enjoy!

 

Podcast: Let’s Mingle #1 – The Rainbow

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New Fellows’ Publications

Posted on February 23, 2021 by cheryl

Congrats to our Visiting Fellows Hannah Rubin and Chris Weaver for their recent publications!

You can find Hannah Rubin’s new publication “Reintroducing Kin Selection to the Human Behavioral Sciences” in the Jan. 2021 issue of Philosophy of Science and Prof. Christopher Weaver’s paper “In Praise of Clausius Entropy: Reassessing the Foundations of Boltzmannian Statistical Mechanics” will be forthcoming in Foundations of Physics.

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Archival Fellowship

Posted on February 22, 2021 by cheryl

archives of scientific philosophy
Courtesy of the ULS

The Summer Archival Fellowship is open for applications.

This unique position will give the appointee the opportunity to work with the University of Pittsburgh Library System’s one-of-a-kind Archives of Scientific Philosophy.  Here you can find notes, drafts, personal papers, and more from Carnap, Hempel, Reichenbach, and others.

The Fellowship will be for one month in summer 2021.  For more details and to apply, see here.

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Cosmology Beyond Spacetime

Posted on January 6, 2021 by cheryl

Theories of quantum gravity suggest that classical spacetime may not be fundamental, but only arise as higher order phenomena. What implications does such a possibility have for cosmology, which generally assumes the classical framework of general relativity? Such implications are in part physical, as one expects new physics to play a role in Planckian scales, for instance in the early universe. But they are also conceptual and methodological. How does the physics of a whole universe relate to the physics of its parts? What reasoning is involved in drawing inferences for the early universe and the physics of the very small, from observation of the current universe? In regimes in which classical spacetime breaks down, how are observables, laws, or indeed dynamics to be understood — and what of the universe ‘before’ the Big Bang?

In the seminar, leading philosophers and physicists will address these questions from the point of view of a range of approaches to quantum gravity.

The seminar is a collaboration between The Center for Philosophy of Science, and the Cosmology Beyond Spacetime project funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

WEDNESDAYS 10:15 AM – 12:00 PM EST

Talks in this series will be held in Zoom webinar format and pre-registration is required.  You may register for all talks, or just a few.

REGISTER HERE:  https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BYAmu_RxTeCCSU7JXYk_Ig

Titles, abstracts, coming soon.

Speakers

Feb 3:  “Laws For Nowhere”  Nick Huggett, University of Illinois at Chicago, Senior Visiting Fellow at The Center

Abstract: The standard concept of law is, I suggest, significantly spatiotemporal, posing the question of how there can be laws in non-spatiotemporal theories, and most pointedly how laws could hold in non-spatiotemporal regions of spacetime. I describe a couple of quantum gravity models of the Big Bang (in string theory and group field theory), in a provisional attempt to demonstrate how such questions might arise.

Feb 10:  “Laws Beyond Spacetime”  Christian Wüthrich, University of Geneva

Abstract: Quantum gravity’s suggestion that spacetime may be emergent and so only exist contingently would force a radical reconception of extant analyses of laws of nature. Humeanism presupposes a spatiotemporal mosaic of particular matters of fact on which laws supervene. I will show how the Humean supervenience basis of non-modal facts can be reconceived, avoiding a reliance on fundamental spacetime. However, it is unclear that naturalistic forms of Humeanism can maintain their commitment to there being no necessary connections among distinct entities. This talk is based on a joint project with Vincent Lam.

Feb 17:  “Quantum Gravity in Practice”  Francesca Vidotto, Western University

Abstract: I present a recent concrete calculation in Spinfoam Cosmology -the application of the covariant LQG techniques to the cosmos- as an example to discuss a number of conceptual issues that are at the core of quantum gravity and cosmology. These include: What are the observables when localization does not rely on background space and time? What are the degrees of freedom? What is the role of quantum fluctuations of spacetime? What’s the interplay between the Planck scale and the cosmological scale? How should we think about time in this picture?

Feb 24:  “Temporal Naturalism”  Lee Smolin, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

I discuss the progress of a research program called temporal naturalism, whose aim is to reframe naturalism and relationalism based on the hypotheses that time is fundamental, while space is emergent.  By the fundamentality of time we mean that all that is real are causal processes that continually make definite facts out of previously indefinite possibilities, thereby producing novel events out of predecessor events.  Good be-ables to construct such a theory from are the views of events, which describe what properties an event was endowed with by its predecessor events, such as energy and momentum. Thus there is a single universe made up of partial views of itself.

In a relational setting and with no distance, coordinates, fields, or trajectories to draw from, the dynamics must be formulated in terms of views, and in particular in terms of differences amongst views. The change between the view of an event and its immediate predecessors provides a notion of kinetic energy while potential energy is related to the variety, which is the total diversity of present causally unrelated views. This is enough to derive a version of many body quantum theory; which lives in a space that we show emerges from the solutions of the theory.

Thus the program shows promise of reconciling both the problems of quantum foundations and quantum gravity, within a single completion.

The part of the program just described has been developed under the names of energetic causal sets and the causal theory of views.  Another key aspect is the view that the laws of physics cannot be fixed, but must evolve, in a way as to explain how the choices the universe has made of the fundamental forces and particles have come about through an evolutionary, dynamical process.  If there is time I will discuss three realizations of this idea: cosmological natural selection, the principle of precedence, and the hypothesis that the vacua of quantum fields can learn to navigate a landscape of possible laws, using the same mechanisms that allow a deep neural network to learn.

This work has appeared in six books and a number of papers; key collaborators have included Julian Barbour, Fotini Markopoulou, Stuart Kauffman, Joao Magueijo, Stephon Alexander, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Jaron Lanier, Marina Cortes, Andrew Liddle and Clelia Verde.

March 3:  “Decoupling from the Initial State?”  Christopher Smeenk, Western University

According to inflationary cosmology, the universe passed through a transient phase of exponential expansion that leaves several characteristic imprints in the universe’s post-inflationary state. This paradigm has enjoyed considerable phenomenological success, as a wide range of inflationary models are compatible with observations. The extent to which this success lends credibility to inflation has been a subject of ongoing debate. Here I will focus on whether the predictions of inflation are robust to changes in high-energy physics, or to features of the pre-inflationary initial state. The prospect of describing the early universe successfully without resolving the mysteries of quantum gravity has always been one of inflation’s appealing features. I will review arguments that inflation does not decouple from high energy physics in the same sense as other effective field theories in physics. Establishing how inflation can be implemented in a theory of quantum gravity is an ongoing challenge, and doing so is needed to address several long-standing foundational questions.

March 10:  “If Time Had No Beginning”  Fay Dowker, Imperial College London

Could the universe have had no beginning? I don’t mean, in raising this question, to deny or throw doubt on Big Bang cosmology and the existence in the past of a hot, dense state of Planckian curvature and temperature. But, in that case, how is the question to be interpreted given that—if we accept the standard cosmology— the Lorentzian manifold structure of spacetime breaks down at the Big Bang? Certainly,  the continuum concept of time in our cosmological epoch “begins” at the Big Bang. Can we even ask what happened “before” that?  The causal set approach to the problem of quantum gravity provides an arena in which to address the question of origins, in which it makes sense to ask what happened before the Big Bang and in which a clear distinction can be made between models of the universe which are “past infinite” and “past finite”. I will describe work with Stav Zalel and Bruno Bento in which we construct a framework for dynamics for causal sets which can result in past infinite universes.

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Holiday 2020

Posted on December 18, 2020 by cheryl

 

The Center will be closed for Holiday Break from Dec. 21 – Jan. 4.

Programs resume on Jan 19.  See you in 2021!

 

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The Center’s Pandemic Response, Spring Term 2021

Posted on November 20, 2020 by cheryl

As the University of Pittsburgh moves to the Spring semester, we are committed to providing the same challenging, stimulating programs for which the Center has been known for sixty years, albeit adapted to our new reality.
We will be fully complying with the University’s COVID-19 guidelines and operational postures as outlined here:
https://www.coronavirus.pitt.edu

 

As a result, we will be adopting the changes below for Spring 2021, beginning January 16:

 

Annual Lecture Series

All of the Annual Lecture Series talks scheduled in the Spring will be held online.
View the schedule here.

 

Lunchtime Talks

Lunchtime Talks will be online during the entirety of the Spring 2021 term.

 

Conferences

ANCESTRY: EVIDENCE, INFERENCE, AND IDENTITY (January 22, 2021 – January 23, 2021) will be held online.  Details here.

Nick Hugget’s Senior Visiting Fellow conference will be re-imagined as a series of online seminars. More details TBA.

 

Fellows

Our Fellows are the lifeblood of the Center and their wellbeing is of the utmost importance to us.

If the University of Pittsburgh adopts the guarded posture by early February, some Fellows’ activities will be moved to in-person on March 1. A decision will be made early in February.

If the University of Pittsburgh adopts the intermediate posture throughout the semester, all the Fellows’ activities will be online.

 

Staffing

In accordance with University guidelines, Center staff will continue to work remotely. If you need to contact any of our staff, you can find our email addresses here.

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PSP5

Posted on November 12, 2020 by cheryl

JULY 12 – 16, 2021

The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh is pleased to announce a call for applications for the 2021 PSP5: A Summer Program in Philosophy of Science for Underrepresented Groups, which will be held in the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh from July 12 to July 16, 2021 (arrival July 11).

We invite applications from undergraduate students who are highly motivated and show strong academic promise and interest in the philosophy of science, including but not limited to: women, LGBTQIA+, underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds, students with disabilities, first-generation undergraduates, and undergraduates from groups underrepresented in philosophy of science.

While one of the main aims of this program is to attract students traditionally underrepresented in philosophy of science, all qualified undergraduate applicants will be considered. Past coursework in philosophy of science is not a prerequisite for application to the Summer Program. The University of Pittsburgh, as an educational institution and as an employer, does not discriminate on the basis of disability, race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, genetic information, marital status, familial status, sex, age, sexual orientation, veteran status or gender identity and expression in its programs and activities.

The Summer Program will feature two daily graduate seminars about core issues and cutting-edge topics in general philosophy of science and philosophy of the special sciences (e.g., physics, biology, cognitive science and neuroscience, social sciences). The seminars and lectures will be given by internationally recognized faculty in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh as well as in the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. Housing, meals, and transportation (US travel only—the University will not provide transportation costs for travel into or outside of the US) costs will be covered, and all course materials provided. Applications are due March 1, 2021, and participants will be notified by April 15, 2021.

Click here For More Info/to Apply

 

 

 

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Welcome, Katie!

Posted on October 21, 2020 by cheryl

As we say ‘Goodbye’ to Carolyn this week, we are also welcoming our new Assistant Director, Kathleen “Katie” Labuda.

Katie will be a familiar face to many of you, as she comes to us from the Departments of Philosophy & HPS, where she was the Graduate Program Administrator.  We know she’ll be a great addition to the Center team!

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Farewell, Carolyn

Posted on October 19, 2020 by cheryl

Carolyn Oblak, the Center’s Assistant Director, has retired!

Carolyn joined the Center in late 2015 and has helped usher in many changes and programs that have greatly enriched the Center, including the Pittsburgh Summer Program for Underrepresented Groups, a new website and newsletter, the Grünbaum Memorial conference, and the move to the 11th floor, all while also managing the Visiting Fellows program and keeping us on budget.

Though her last official day was September 30, Carolyn will be with us for a few more weeks helping to train her replacement, Kathleen Labuda.

The Center staff will greatly miss Carolyn’s efficiency, can-do spirit, friendly greetings, handmade gifts, and endless array of healthy smoothie recipes.  Our best wishes for a healthy and fulfilling retirement!

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Sept. 22 LTT Cancelled

Posted on September 22, 2020 by cheryl

We regret that today’s (Sept.22) Lunchtime Talk with Subrena Smith has been cancelled.  Apologies for the inconvenience, and we hope you can join us for our next Lunchtime Talk!

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The Center Debates!

Posted on September 4, 2020 by cheryl

“The Center Debates” is a new initiative of the Center for Philosophy of Science. Our goal is to promote serious, but respectful and constructive exchanges about controversial topics of interest to historians and philosophers of science, scientists, and the lay public. Typically two speakers with a different perspective on a given topic are invited to debate; each gives a 20-minute presentation, followed by two 10-minute responses to the other’s speaker presentation. This exchange will then be followed by a 30 minute Q&A.

The first entry in the series will take place on October 6, when Cailin O’Connor will face off against Hugo Mercier on the topic of “Fake News.”

Learn More

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Call for Papers: Ancestry conference

Posted on August 28, 2020 by cheryl

Ancestry: Evidence, Inference, and Identity

January 22-23, 2021

The aim of this virtual conference is to bring together anthropologists, biologists, historians, and philosophers of science to address the concept of ancestry in relation to scientific inferences about the evolutionary history of humans. In the past 50 years, ancestry and the inference thereof have become molecularized, automated, and commodified. This shift has profound implications. The history and philosophy of molecular systematics raises important questions about the epistemic priority of competing sources of evidence, the scope and limitations of computational phylogenetics, the challenges of representing relationships among taxa in both the past and present, the social epistemological dimensions of big data acquisition and analysis, and the possibility of specific legitimate and responsible role(s) for political values in postgenomic inference. Participants in this workshop are invited to explore how such practices both inform and interact with both phylogenetic and popular notions of identity.

Keynote Speakers

Rob DeSalle (American Museum of Natural History and the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics)

Matt Haber (Philosophy Department, University of Utah)

Edna Suárez-Díaz (Science and Technology Studies, National University of Mexico)

 

Submission Guidelines

Please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words by November 30,2020. Notifications will be sent in December 2020.

Abstract submission is electronic, and must be made through Easy Chair at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ancestry2020

We encourage early career scholars and individuals working in range of disciplines to submit their proposals for this conference. We particularly welcome submissions from members of underrepresented groups.

 

Organizing Committee

Michael R. Dietrich (History and Philosophy of Science)

Marina R. DiMarco (History and Philosophy of Science)

Jeffrey H. Schwartz (Anthropology)

All questions about submissions should be emailed to Michael Dietrich mrd98@pitt.edu

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Announcing a New Journal: Philosophy of Medicine

Posted on August 26, 2020 by cheryl

NEW OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL: PHILOSOPHY OF MEDICINE

 

 

 

The mission of Philosophy of Medicine is to serve as the flagship journal for the field by advancing research in philosophy of medicine, by engaging widely with medicine, health sciences and the public, and by providing open-access content for all.

Website: https://philmed.pitt.edu

Sponsorship for the journal is provided by the Center for the Philosophy of Science.

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The Center’s Pandemic Response, Fall Term 2020

Posted on August 14, 2020 by cheryl

As the University of Pittsburgh reopens for the Fall semester, we are committed to providing the same challenging, stimulating programs for which the Center has been known for sixty years, albeit adapted to our new reality.
We will be fully complying with the University’s COVID-19 guidelines and operational postures as outlined here:
https://www.coronavirus.pitt.edu

 

As a result, we will be adopting the changes below for Fall 2020:

Updated Sept.11, 2020
All events moved online for the term.

 

Annual Lecture Series

All of the Annual Lecture Series talks scheduled between Sept – Dec, will be held online.
View the schedule here.

 

Lunchtime Talks

Lunchtime Talks will be online during the entirety of the Fall 2020 term.

 

Conferences

The Problems of Cognitive Ontology conference has been re-imagined as a series of online seminars. More details and registration here.

The Particle and High-Energy Physics Conference has been cancelled.

 

Fellows

Our Fellows are the lifeblood of the Center and their wellbeing is of the utmost importance to us. Fall Fellows will participate virtually.

 

Staffing

In accordance with University guidelines, Center staff will continue to work remotely. If you need to contact any of our staff, you can find our email addresses here.

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Register now for Lunchtime Talks!

Posted on August 5, 2020 by cheryl

Our classic Lunchtime Talks series will begin online this Fall.  We have an interesting slate of speakers this September, including Mark Wilson, Liam Bright, Yolonda Wilson, Mike Dietrich, and Subrena Smith.

 

Pre-registration to the Zoom webinars is required.  Please visit our October calendar for access to the links and more details on each talk.  We hope to “see” you there.

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Online Seminar Series: Problem of Cognitive Ontology

Posted on July 9, 2020 by cheryl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Functional brain imaging studies try to map patterns of activation to cognitive functions, and usually rely upon functional task decomposition based on hypotheses derived from intuition and cognitive psychology. The tasks we postulate constitute a cognitive ontology. What is the epistemic status of these functional commitments? Do we have reason to believe they accurately track the fundamental building blocks of cognition? Does the idea that cognition has fundamental building blocks have merit? Is there a way to bootstrap ourselves out of mistaken theories, or are the methods of neuroimaging ill-suited to alert us to mistaken views? Can other areas of neuroscience help constrain our ontologies? What is the upshot of the issues for gaining knowledge from neuroimaging studies and for theories of scientific realism more generally?

This interdisciplinary series will focus upon these questions and their philosophical implications, and will explore possible methods for addressing these philosophical concerns, such as data-driven discovery methods for cognitive functions.

Talks will be presented online throughout the fall 2020 semester, schedule is below.

Register

Register using this link: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KMNKu4fmQ9Wh5ZjvXJ3qQA

Please note, registration will be for the entire seminar series.

 

Mondays 1:30 – 3 pm Eastern Time Zone

Sept 21:  Russ Poldrack (Stanford University), Cognitive Ontologies, from Top to Bottom

ABSTRACT:  Cognitive ontologies have been primarily developed in a top-down manner on the basis of psychological theories that lean heavily upon folk psychological concepts.  I will first assess the degree to which these ontologies are effective in predicting brain activity using cognitive encoding models, showing that they are surprisingly effective but also highlighting some important shortcomings.  I will then ask whether we might develop better understanding of the organization of the mind through bottom-up, or “data driven” ontologies. I will present two examples of such data-driven ontologies, outlining their success but also detailing important limitations on this approach. 

Oct 5:
Uljana Feest (Leibniz Universität Hannover), “Cognitive Kinds and Investigative Practice”

ABSTRACT:  When psychologists investigate their objects of research, such as (kinds of) memory, they operationally define these “objects” in terms of particular experimental tests/tasks, assumed to provide epistemic access to the objects in question. For example, they might treat priming tests as allowing for the experimental investigation of implicit memory. In doing so, they take advantage of conceptual assumptions about their objects. But what is the ontological status of such objects? Are they cognitive kinds? And if so, what kinds of things are cognitive kinds? In my talk I will argue that cognitive kinds are cognitive-behavioral whole-organism capacities, which are comprised of multiple phenomena, including (but not limited to) behavioral phenomena. With this I depart from the assumption that the behavioral criteria by which cognitive kinds are empirically individuated are mere epistemic vehicles that aid in the investigation of cognitive kinds. Rather, they are part of what it is to be such a kind. While I take cognitive kinds to be sustained by the causal structure of the world, I argue that they are not uniquely determined by neural mechanisms. My account of cognitive kinds is relational in that I claim that cognitive kinds are constituted relative to our sensory-conceptual apparatus and maintained by our causal practices surrounding cognitive kinds. While this analysis is conventionalist, I will argue that this does not imply an antirealism about cognitive kinds.

Andrea Stocco (University of Washington),  “Testing and Refining Cognitive Ontologies: From Cognitive Architectures to Large Scale Analysis of the Human Connectome”
Co-Authors: John Laird (University of Michigan), Christian Lebiere (Carnegie Mellon University), Paul Rosenbloom (University of Southern California)

ABSTRACT:  Historically, the cognitive neurosciences have drawn from three approaches to define their ontologies: (1) constructs from cognitive psychology, which are usually derived from top-down intuitions about the overall organization of cognition; (2) computational models, which produce well-defined formal models of specific processes; and, more recently (3) large-scale neuroimaging data, which can be used to argue for the identification of large brain architectures from patterns of connectivity. These approaches have yet to converge towards a unified and agreed-upon set of constructs.

Here, we describe an integrative approach that leverages the strengths of all three. First, a consensus model was derived from an analysis of successfully developed cognitive architectures. Focusing on functioning architectures reduces the variability associated with cognitive constructs and provides a preliminary list of “tried and true” mechanisms for human-level cognition. This “Common Model of Cognition” (CMC) is based on a minimal list of five components (perception, action, working memory, declarative memory, and procedural memory) and their interconnections. To partially validate the CMC, we analyzed fMRI data from 200 participants from the Human Connectome Project, using tasks that cover a representative range of cognitive domains (language, mathematics, working memory, relational reasoning, social cognition, emotional inference, and decision-making). The CMC components were identified with functionally homologous brain regions using an iterative procedure that, starting with large-scale, a priori localization assumptions, (e.g., working memory is mapped to fronto-parietal regions), proceeded through the identification of task-specific and individual-specific regions of interest.

Their communication pathways between components were then translated into predicted patterns of effective connectivity. The resulting dynamic model was implemented and fitted using Dynamic Causal Modeling and compared against alternative architectures using a Bayesian approach. We suggest that a successful ontology should explain brain activity equally well across domains (generality) and better than any other model, even specialized ones (comparative superiority). In fact, our results show that, in all cases, the CMC outperforms all other network architectures, both within each domain and across all tasks.

Thus, we conclude that the CMC provides an existence proof of how cognitive, computational, and neuroscience approaches can be integrated and evidence that a minimal cognitive ontology might exist.

Oct 12:  Michael Anderson (Western University) and Paul Cisek (University of Montréal), “Two Approaches to Reforming the Taxonomy of Cognitive Neuroscience”

ABSTRACT:  In previous work (Anderson 2014; 2015) I have argued that the taxonomy of psychology (at least a neuroscientifically-relevant psychology) is in need of reform. This is for a host of reasons, not the least of which is that the taxonomy of cognitive neuroscience was borrowed wholesale from cognitive psychology, against which I have two main complaints: (1) it is explicitly rooted in a version of the computational theory of mind that is, I believe, demonstrably and deeply flawed and (2) it was formulated as an approach to the study of mind that would be autonomous from and unconstrained by the study of the brain. Both create problems for the project of understanding the neural underpinnings of cognition and behavior. 

To pursue the hoped-for reforms, I have been an advocate for a data-driven approach wherein large collections of neuroimaging results, which give us information about the patterns of neural activation observed in different experimental contexts, can be subjected to various forms of mathematical analysis. The motivating idea is that analyzing the observed patterns might reveal similarities and differences in neural activation across different contexts that could indicate heretofore unnoticed similarities and differences in psychological constructs, and potentially lead to a reform of the constructs in question. Importantly, the new constructs would be explicitly constrained by, because partly derived from, neuroscientific investigation. 

In the work mentioned above, I also raised the hope that additional insight into the best psychological categories might come from close attention to evolutionary biology. 

This is a suggestion I did not myself pursue. However, in recent work Paul Cisek (2019) has taken up this challenge by developing an approach to building a neuroscientifically- grounded psychology he calls “phylogenetic refinement”. The idea here is to closely examine what we know about the phylogentic origins of behavioral control systems, and see how these control systems were developed, exapted, and reused in evolutionary descendants. For instance, the evolutionary novelties that emerged some 600 myo in cephalates included lateralized eyes and neural circuitry allowing for oriented approach and escape behaviors. These circuits are known to have been preserved in modern animals (e.g. mice), presumably exist in many other species, and may be used not just the capture of food and avoidance of predators, but also may have been exapted for more complex social behaviors. (It is not clear if the mechanism of exaptation involves literal reuse of the same circuits or instead the deployment of a homologous structure; this is one issue to be explored). The psychology that results from this sort of analysis would be centered around constructs like approach, escape, explore, exploit, and evaluate for which the (original) neural circuitry is known. 

This talk will compare and contrast these two approaches, analyzing the promise and limitations of each.

Oct 19:
Vincent Bergeron (University of Ottawa), “Carving the Mind at its Homologous Joints”

ABSTRACT:  In this talk, I provide an analysis of the notion of cognitive homology. In contrast with the well-known concept of structural homology in biology—defined as the same structure in different animals regardless of form and function—the proposed notion of cognitive homology captures the idea that the basic cognitive contribution of a given homologous brain structure tends to remain stable over long evolutionary time scales. I then argue that this notion provides a powerful conceptual tool for the study of cognition. Since a cognitive homology will often consist of an evolutionarily conserved relationship between a homologous brain structure and its basic cognitive contribution, such structure-function mappings can be conceived as basic building blocks of animal and human cognition. These basic building blocks, in turn, can be used to construct cognitive ontologies that are well suited to the cognitive neurosciences. To illustrate the usefulness of this approach, I review recent anatomical and functional studies which indicate that the fundamental contribution of Broca’s region to the higher control of action has been conserved throughout primate evolution.

Javier Gomez-Lavin (University of Pennsylvania), “Productive Pessimism and New Ontologies of Cognition”

ABSTRACT:  The hope of an easy mapping of psychological function to neural structure has yielded to pessimism in the face of evidence demonstrating that no one region of the brain works in isolation. Focusing on the case study of working memory—our famed ability to keep information in mind—I show that there is no coherent mapping from this psychological construct to a univocal neural structure. The conspicuous lack of progress occasioned by privileging psychological constructs when crafting explanatory ontologies of cognition, forces us to entertain a productive pessimism about their guiding role and the project of mapping their neural realizers. Worries about the smooth mapping of fashionable psychological constructs to neural matter have shadowed the development of neuroscience, but what makes such caution productive? I argue that if we take seriously the possibility of mereological mismatches between agent-level, intuitive descriptions of cognition (e.g., attention, working memory, executive control) and their many, likely overlapping, neural realizers, we can begin to structure ontologies that respect the dynamic, noisy, and multifunctional operation of the brain. To put it in terms of working memory, there are many ways to keep something in mind.

 

Thursdays 10-11:30 am Eastern Time Zone

Oct 29:
Brian Bruya (Eastern Michigan University), “Diverse Origins of Cognitive Ontology”

ABSTRACT:  The current method of testing inherited notions of cognitive ontology through the instruments and methods of cognitive neuroscience is vulnerable to confirmation bias and resistant to contrasting alternatives.  This talk will discuss effortless attention as an example of challenging a dominant paradigm of cognitive ontology from the perspective of non-standard sources and will discuss some of the findings from very recent attempts to study effortless attention and introduce it as a legitimate element of cognitive ontology.   I will first introduce the notion of attention as effort, advocated by Daniel Kahneman (1973), a position that stands as the current paradigm of attention in the cognitive sciences. I will then problematize this position by introducing a notion of effortlessness from classical Daoism, then an allied notion from the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Finally, I will turn my focus to the concept of postvoluntary attention, first postulated by the Russian psychologist Nikolaj Dobrynin. I will introduce this idea and discuss its relevance to current research in attention and education.

Julia Haas (Rhodes College), “Computational Cognitive Ontology”

ABSTRACT: Much of the recent literature on cognitive ontology proposes a kind of cognitive ontological ‘splitting,’ e.g., when the neural reuse hypothesis proposes that activities of different brain regions recombine to support performance across many different task domains (Anderson 2010, 2014). This paper explores a new way of putting things back together (i.e., ‘lumping’), namely, by taxonomizing computational solutions in the brain rather than relying on traditional psychological capacities. Specifically, I argue that the brain consistently reuses computational solutions to solve certain types of problems, e.g., as when a small suite of reward functions guides selection between competing states of affairs in processes ranging from sensation to practical deliberation. Hence, whereas neural reuse suggests that a single neural structure can support several discrete psychological functions, so computational reuse proposes that seemingly discrete psychological functions are supported by a single computational solution. I then illustrate how we can leverage this notion of computational reuse to revise our extant cognitive ontologies, for example, contrasting the traditional categories of ‘desire’ and ‘motivation’ with the more computationally-informed notion of ‘valuation.’

Nov 5: Jackie Sullivan (Western University), “Cognitive Ontologies, Epistemic Communities and Coordinated Pluralism”

ABSTRACT:  Is there only one right cognitive ontology, i.e., the one that carves the mind at the brain’s joints? In this talk, appealing to case studies from areas of cognitive neuroscience that seek to link rodent and human data, I argue that cognitive ontology pluralism is a more realistic proposal. Given that different areas of cognitive neuroscience have different predictive and explanatory goals, experiments in these different areas will be subject to different kinds of epistemic constraints. Moreover, satisfying these constraints requires the formation of what I dub “epistemic communities” whose members collaboratively implement a number of knowledge-building strategies in an effort to achieve their shared predictive or explanatory goals. If this picture is correct, it is suggestive that there will be as many cognitive ontologies as there are epistemic communities in cognitive neuroscience. I contend that this is not a problem just so long as this plurality is used as a corrective to illuminate the limitations of each ontology and thus improve our overall understanding of the mind-brain.

Nov 12:
Yoed Kenett (University of Pennsylvania), “Developing a Neurally Informed Ontology of Creativity Measurement,”
Co-Authors: David J. M. Kraemer (Dartmouth College), Katherine L. Alfred (Dartmouth College), Griffin A. Colaizzi (Georgetown University), Robert A. Cortes (Georgetown University), & Adam E. Green (Georgetown University

ABSTRACT:  A central challenge for creativity research is to establish a mapping between constructs and measures. A related challenge is the lack of consistency of measures used by different researchers, which hinders progress toward shared understanding of cognitive and neural components of creativity. New resources for aggregating neuroimaging data, and the emergence of methods for identifying structure in multivariate data, present the potential for new approaches to address these challenges. Identifying meta-analytic structure (i.e., similarity) in neural activity associated with creativity tasks might enable identification of a set of tasks that best reflects the similarity among a set of creativity-relevant constructs. Here, we demonstrated initial proof-of-concept for such an approach. We surveyed creativity researchers to build a model of similarity between creativity-relevant constructs. Next, we used NeuroSynth meta-analytic software to generate maps of neural activity robustly associated with tasks intended to measure the same set of creativity-relevant constructs. A representational similarity analysis-based approach revealed that the fit between these models was stronger for some constructs and weaker for others. Critically, we identified particular constructs—and particular tasks measuring those constructs—that positively or negatively impacted the model fit.

Marco Viola (University of Turin), “A Neural-based Assessment of Basic Emotion Theory: Accept, Reject, or Revise and Resubmit?”

ABSTRACT:   After decades of disagreement on psychological grounds, the debate over the existence of Basic Emotions has moved to neuroscience. While it is generally agreed that Basic Emotions cannot be mapped on to dedicated neural regions, they do seem to correlate with sets of regions. Some researchers argue that this latter kind of mapping vindicates the existence of Basic Emotions, others (such as psychological constructionists) argue for their elimination from our mental ontology. 

In my talk, I propose that this disagreement is due to different attitudes towards how we should approach brain-based reforms of cognitive ontology: researchers friendly to Basic Emotions are ‘conservatives’, i.e. they use brain data to validate psychological categories we already have, while psychological constructionists advocate a ‘radical’ approach, where neural data are seen as a mean to refurnish the cognitive ontology. I discuss some shortcomings of both positions. 

With this diagnosis in place, I unpack the macro-question “does the neural evidence support Basic Emotions?” into two smaller questions, namely “is Basic Emotion Theory a viable research program?” and “are the six categories proposed by Ekman vindicated?”. By responding “yes” and “no”, respectively, I endorse a ‘moderate’ approach to revisions of our cognitive ontology of emotions.

Dec 3: Joe McCaffrey (University of Nebraska, Omaha), “Atlas of the Mind: Neural Degeneracy and Pluralistic Ontologies”

ABSTRACT:  The recent debate on “Cognitive Ontology” has at its core the assumption that there is a single, correct taxonomy of mental kinds. In this talk, I examine the assumption that there could be a single “map”–instantiated in a database or taxonomy–of mental kinds. I argue that this assumption is mistaken, and illustrate how neural degeneracy (i.e. different brain structures perform “the same” function at different times) in neurotypical individuals and patient populations creates a need for plural taxonomies of mental kinds. Thus, the development of cognitive ontologies is more like constructing an “atlas” or collection of maps rather than representing a unified taxonomy.

Dec 10:  Carl Craver (Washington University), “Remembering: Epistemic and Empirical”

ABSTRACT:  The effort to unify philosophical and scientific theories of remembering is hampered by the fact that “remember” is used in distinct intellectual contexts to describe altogether different sorts of phenomena. These senses of remembering are designed to serve different theoretical and instrumental objectives. They have apparently opposite commitments. Yet I’ll argue these senses of what remembering is are neither in competition nor in tension with one another; there is no intellectual requirement that the forces molding the contours of the concept in one domain must be responsive to the forces molding the contours of the concept in the other. If we give up the idea that these views—one empirical, describing bio-psychological capacities and their mechanisms; the other epistemic, declaring an achievement, a success, in the effort know the past— must either refer to the same thing (as the reductionist would have it) or be in competition with one another (as elminitavists hold), we might begin to sketch an alternative vision for how these two conceptions are related. The cost of failing to mark this intellectual divide is continued equivocation at the nexus of mind and matter.   In fact, the equivocation between the empirical and epistemic is not unique to discussions of remembering but infects a raft of terms at least doubly enlisted in distinct intellectual projects. Believe, explain, know, infer, represent, see, and understand, for example, all have empirical and epistemic senses of the sort described here. Viewed from the standpoint of empirical science and the mechanistic norms of theory development, it seems the intellectual choice we confront in each case is between reducing the epistemic notion to the empirical or, failing such reduction, jettisoning the epistemic construct as pretheoretic folk theory, or philosophy in the worst sense. 

Once the difference between these ways of using “remember” is acknowledged, however, it’s clear both that and why epistemic remembering is not even plausibly reductively explained by empirical remembering. The thought that such a reduction is desirable and, correlatively, that the impossibility of reduction is problematic for the epistemic conception, rests on the failure to see that they need not be brought into registration with one another to earn their conceptual keep. These are languages in parallel, and the drive to speak them with one voice only muddles the message about how the mind is situated in the causal structure of things. An adequate language would have to provide the resources for an impossible task: deriving a normatively significant distinction from a reductive base described explicitly so as to fail to mark that very distinction. The problem thus articulated shares key elements with other inference barriers discussed in philosophy, such as the projection of future patterns from the past and, perhaps more aptly, the derivation of what ought to be the case from what is, in fact, the case (Restall and Russell 2010; Pigden 2010).

 

PROGRAM COMMITTEE:
Adina Roskies, Dartmouth College
Trey Boone, University of Pittsburgh
Mazviita Chirimuuta, University of Pittsburgh
Edouard Machery, University of Pittsburgh
Zina Ward, University of Pittsburgh

 

SPONSOR:
The Center for Philosophy of Science

Further inquiries may be addressed to Alex Magee (amm279@pitt.edu).

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PHEP2020 Cancelled

Posted on June 16, 2020 by cheryl

PHEP2020: Early Career Conference in Philosophy of Particle & High Energy Physics has been cancelled

In light of the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, with regrets, we have decided to cancel this year’s planned conference, PHEP2020: Early Career Conference in Philosophy of Particle & High Energy Physics.
 
Marian Gilton, David Wallace, co-Chairs, Program committee
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PSP4

Posted on May 5, 2020 by cheryl

JULY 13-17, 2020

This year’s Pittsburgh Summer Program in Philosophy of Science for Underrepresented Groups will take place on schedule, but will be 100% online due to COVID-19 restrictions.  While this is not optimal, it breaks new ground for the program and we are confident that our students and faculty will rise to the challenge and create an engaging and meaningful experience

 

The PSP Class of 2020

We’re pleased to announce our students for this year’s program.

Vlada Asadulaeva
University of British Columbia
Aaron Bonner
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville
Polyphony Bruna
Vassar College
Sebastian Dasso
Pontificia Universidad Catalica del Peru
Patricia Fofie
Williams College
Yuanshan (Tom) Li
Univ. of California, Berkeley
Zhitong Liu
Wellesley College
Colleen Malley
Virginia Tech
Ivan Manriques
San Francisco State University
Claire Moore
Agnes Scott College
Itsue Nakaya Perez
National Autonomous Univ. of Mexico
Jake Stewart
Simon Fraser University
Noelle Stroud
Ohio University
Annabelle Tao
Harvard University
Phillip (Wonjun) Yoon
Johns Hopkins University

 

 

Our Faculty

Colin Allen, Distinguished Professor
University of Pittsburgh Dept. of History & Philosophy of Science

Robert Batterman, Distinguished Professor
University of Pittsburgh Dept. of Philosophy

David Danks, Department Head & L.L. Thurstone Professor of Philosophy and Psychology
Carnegie Mellon University Dept. of Philosophy

Jonathan Fuller, Assistant Professor
University of Pittsburgh Dept. of History & Philosophy of Science

Marian Gilton, Assistant Professor
University of Pittsburgh Dept. of History & Philosophy of Science

Edouard Machery, Distinguished Professor, Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science
University of Pittsburgh Dept. of History & Philosophy of Science

Sandra D. Mitchell, Distinguished Professor
University of Pittsburgh Dept. of History & Philosophy of Science

John D. Norton, Distinguished Professor
University of Pittsburgh Dept. of History & Philosophy of Science

Lisa S. Parker, Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote Professor of Bioethics
University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics & Health Law

Danielle Wenner, Assistant Professor
Carnegie Mellon University Dept. of Philosophy

Kevin Zollman, Associate Professor
Carnegie Mellon University Dept. of Philosophy

 

Course Descriptions

View/Download this year’s course descriptions and reading list.
PSP4 Course Descriptions

 

Class Schedule

View/Download the 2020 class schedule
Program PSP4 2020

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Tsinghua Summer School Cancelled

Posted on May 4, 2020 by cheryl

The annual Pitt-Tsinghua summer school scheduled for August 2020 has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Cognitive Ontology Conference Rescheduled

Posted on April 6, 2020 by cheryl

NEW DATES!

Senior Visiting Fellow Conference The Problem of Cognitive Ontology:Implications for Scientific Knowledge has been rescheduled for October 17-18, 2020.  More details to follow.

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COVID-19 Update

Posted on March 12, 2020 by cheryl

Due to concerns about the spread of coronavirus, the Center for Philosophy of Science along with the University of Pittsburgh, will be enacting changes to limit face-to-face group settings.

To this end, we are cancelling all Center events for the remainder of Spring term.  This includes:

  • The “Problems of Cognitive Ontology” conference
  • Annual Lecture Series talk scheduled for March 20
  • Lunchtime Talks

Please continue to check back here for any updates or notices of virtual programs, and continue to engage with us on social media.

For further information, here is the University of Pittsburgh Chancellor’s official statement on COVID-19 changes.

 

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Andrew Buskell’s 5-Minute Fellows

Posted on March 4, 2020 by cheryl

Andrew Buskell joins us to talk about models of cultural evolution, the evolution of human cognition, and decision-making at the population level.
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Call for Papers: PHEP2020

Posted on March 4, 2020 by cheryl

We’re accepting talk proposals now for PHEP2020: Early Career Conference in Philosophy of Particle & High Energy Physics.

Visit the conference page for all the details!

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Sam Fletcher’s 5-Minute Fellows

Posted on February 25, 2020 by cheryl

Samuel Fletcher, a spring Visiting Fellow from the University of Minnesota, shares his lifelong interest in physics and how it has shaped his work on the examination of statistics and modeling.

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Jean Baccelli’s 5-Minute Fellows

Posted on February 18, 2020 by cheryl

Meet Jean Baccelli, one of our 2019-20 Post-Doc Fellows. Jean works in decision theory and philosophy of economics, but at the Center he’s particularly focused on topics in the foundations of social choice theory, such as interpersonal comparisons of welfare.  For more 5-Minute Fellows, visit our YouTube channel.

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New! Summer Archival Fellowship

Posted on February 11, 2020 by cheryl

We invite applications for a new month-long Summer Archival Fellowship supporting a visit in the Center and research at the Archives of Scientific Philosophy.

The Summer Archival Fellowship is available for June or July 2020.

The Summer Archival Fellow will be given an office at the Center and will receive a $1,500 stipend.

Please send by March 15, 2020 the following materials to Carolyn Oblak (cjo13@pitt.edu):

(1) A cover letter that indicates a Summer Archival Fellowship is sought and describes: the month of proposed residence in the Center; note previous fellowships at the Center.
(2) A description of the research to be undertaken at the Archives of Scientific Philosophy during residence (1500 words).
(3) A curriculum vitae.

We particularly welcome submissions from members of underrepresented groups in philosophy of science.

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Welcome Alex!

Posted on February 11, 2020 by cheryl

We would like to welcome Alexandra Magee to the Center staff!  Alex will be taking over Joyce McDonald’s (many) roles and responsibilities, including planning our Lunchtime Talks and Annual Lecture Series.

Alex came to the Center after working in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Office of Student Records.  She is pursuing a Master of Education in Higher Education Management at the University of Pittsburgh.  In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends.

Stop by and say “Hello!”

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Cognitive Ontology Conference

Posted on February 4, 2020 by cheryl

Registration is now open for “The Problem of Cognitive Ontology” conference March 27-28.

Learn more here!

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Farewell Joyce

Posted on January 21, 2020 by cheryl

Joyce McDonald is retiring in February 2020.
Joyce has served the University of Pittsburgh, and the Center for Philosophy of Science for 25 years, having worked with four Center Directors (Jerry Massey, James Lennox, John D. Norton, and Edouard Machery), supported hundreds of Fellows, and been the organizing force behind countless Lunchtime Talks and Annual Lecture Series events.  Her warm and personal style has helped to make the Center a “home away from home” for our Fellows and many guests.
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