Annual Lecture Series (in-person)
Lunchtime Talks (in-person)
Conferences (in-person)
Online-Only Events
Part of our ongoing online seminar series. See the full list of talks here. Register using this link: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KMNKu4fmQ9Wh5ZjvXJ3qQA Please note, registration will be for the entire seminar series. Uljana Feest (Leibniz Universität Hannover), “Cognitive Kinds and Investigative Practice” ABSTRACT: When psychologists investigate their objects of research, such as […]
Mike Anderson (Western University) & Paul Cisek (University of Montréal), Two Approaches to Reforming the Taxonomy of Cognitive Neuroscience Part of our ongoing online seminar series. See the full list of talks here. Register using this link: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KMNKu4fmQ9Wh5ZjvXJ3qQA Please note, registration will be for the entire seminar series. ABSTRACT: In […]
Part of our ongoing online seminar series. See the full list of talks here. Register using this link: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KMNKu4fmQ9Wh5ZjvXJ3qQA Please note, registration will be for the entire seminar series. Vincent Bergeron (University of Ottawa), “Carving the Mind at its Homologous Joints” ABSTRACT: In this talk, I provide an analysis of the […]
Part of our ongoing online seminar series. See the full list of talks here. Register using this link: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KMNKu4fmQ9Wh5ZjvXJ3qQA Please note, registration will be for the entire seminar series. Brian Bruya (Eastern Michigan University), “Diverse Origins of Cognitive Ontology” ABSTRACT: The current method of testing inherited notions of cognitive ontology through […]
Jackie Sullivan (Western University), “Cognitive Ontologies, Epistemic Communities and Coordinated Pluralism” Part of our ongoing online seminar series. See the full list of talks here. Register using this link: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KMNKu4fmQ9Wh5ZjvXJ3qQA Please note, registration will be for the entire seminar series. ABSTRACT: Is there only one right cognitive ontology, i.e., the […]
Part of our ongoing online seminar series. See the full list of talks here. Register using this link: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KMNKu4fmQ9Wh5ZjvXJ3qQA Please note, registration will be for the entire seminar series. Yoed Kenett (University of Pennsylvania), “Developing a Neurally Informed Ontology of Creativity Measurement” Co-Authors: David J. M. Kraemer (Dartmouth College), […]
Joe McCaffrey (University of Nebraska, Omaha), Atlas of the Mind: Neural Degeneracy and Pluralistic Ontologies Part of our ongoing online seminar series. See the full list of talks here. Register using this link: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KMNKu4fmQ9Wh5ZjvXJ3qQA Please note, registration will be for the entire seminar series. ABSTRACT: The recent debate on "Cognitive […]
Carl Craver (Washington University), “Remembering: Epistemic and Empirical” Part of our ongoing online seminar series. See the full list of talks here. Register using this link: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KMNKu4fmQ9Wh5ZjvXJ3qQA Please note, registration will be for the entire seminar series. ABSTRACT: The effort to unify philosophical and scientific theories of remembering is hampered […]
Art courtesy of Lynn Fellman* 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. […]
Laws for Nowhere 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 […]
Laws Beyond Spacetime 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 […]
Quantum Gravity in Practice 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 […]
Temporal Naturalism ABSTRACT: 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 […]
Decoupling from the Initial State? ABSTRACT: 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 […]
If Time Had No Beginning ABSTRACT: 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 […]
The New Modern Medicine Description: In this local online workshop, guests will respond to themes and work-in-progress from Jonathan Fuller’s current book project, titled The New Modern Medicine. This monograph explores characteristic philosophical problems that arise in the medicine that emerged by the late twentieth century, especially around contemporary epidemics (cancers, chronic diseases, and emerging infectious diseases), […]
Register to attend in person Register to attend on Zoom PHEP2022: Early Career Conference in Philosophy of Particle & High Energy Physics Particle physics is at a critical juncture: recent monumental experimental work at the Large Hadron Collider led to the Higgs discovery, but has not produced further experimental evidence of new physics. Current searches […]
Senior Visiting Fellow Conference Which scientific research gets pursued, and the details of how it gets pursued, is greatly influenced by the institutional structures which support science. By institutions, we mean those established social structures that direct resources (of various kinds, from money to intellectual property to ethical approval to jobs) for science. Key institutions […]
THIS WORKSHOP HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO APRIL 29th An Author Meets Critics Symposium on Jim Woodward’s new book, Causation With a Human Face. "Provides one of the first extended integrated treatments of both the philosophical and psychological literatures on normative and descriptive accounts of causal reasoning." James Woodward is Distinguished Professor of History & Philosophy […]
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are becoming ever more prevalent in daily life, and are being used in impactful decisions in fields as diverse as finance and criminal law. Given the multifaceted and complex nature of these technologies, it is crucial that researchers and theorists from fields such as philosophy, psychology, computer science, engineering, policy, […]
Formal and Experimental Philosophy Workshop In recent years there has been an explosion of work in both formal and experimental philosophy, as well as a growing number of researchers who are working at their intersection. This includes a broad tent of topics: the psychology of decision and moral judgment; the rationality of reasoning under uncertainty; the role of […]
GPP Final Conference KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM, AND UNDERSTANDING OCTOBER 13-15, 2022 The Geography of Philosophy Project (GPP) celebrates the conclusion of its investigation into the themes of Knowledge, Wisdom, and Understanding with a final conference discussing its themes. research, and impact. For the GPP Final Conference, the project PIs Edouard Machery, Stephen Stich, and Clark Barrett […]
The Center for the Philosophy of Science is organizing a workshop to celebrate the distinguished career of Professor James W. Woodward on November 4th and 5th 2022. This is the weekend before PSA2022 being held in Pittsburgh as well. Jim Woodward was Professor at Cal Tech for many years and moved to Pittsburgh in 2010. […]
Talk titles and schedule to follow.
An Author Meets Critics Symposium on Bob Batterman's new book, A Middle Way: A Non-Fundamental Approach to Many-Body Physics. "Robert W. Batterman's monograph examines a ubiquitous methodology in physics and the science of materials that has virtually been ignored in the philosophical literature. This method focuses on mesoscale structures as a means for investigating complex […]
Spacetime Functionalism Conference Cathedral of Learning 1008, April 1st-2nd Spacetime Functionalism holds that spacetime is spacetime by virtue of the role it plays with respect to other physics. It promises to help with certain interpretational puzzles, including some of those arising in quantum gravity. But the exact kind of functionalism involved, the extent to which […]
The 2023 meeting of SPP will be held at the University of Pittsburgh on June 20-23. Registration for the conference is here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/society-for-philosophy-and-psychology-annual-meeting-2023-registration-616545753947 Registration includes an option to add a pre-conference, a banquet, sign up to be a diversity mentor/mentee. The conference will begin with a pre-conference on Memory (organized by Sarah Robins & Felipe De Brigard) on […]
Organizing Committee Members: Michael R. Dietrich, (University of Pittsburgh, History and Philosophy of Science) John Norton (University of Pittsburgh, History and Philosophy of Science) Carol Cleland (University of Colorado Boulder) Please be aware we have limited room, so we will only be able to accept those that registered by 10/23. If you have any questions, […]
Prediction and Punishment: Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Carceral AI Co-Sponsored by The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh and the Center for Ethics and Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, Embedded EthiCS at Harvard University, with the generous financial support of Gayle Rogers (Mellon Professor and Chair, Department of English), Ronald Brand (Nordenberg […]
Revitalizing Science and Values April 5-7, 2024 Arnon Levy, Senior Visiting Fellow The arena of science and values has grown in size and prominence in recent philosophy of science. But debates about the role of science remain fairly limited in terms of both the scope of topics discussed and in the range of views expressed. […]