Annual Lecture Series (in-person)
Lunchtime Talks (in-person)
Conferences (in-person)
Online-Only Events
Konrad Werner, University of Warsaw, Poland Defining Institutions: A Shared Objective of the Social and Cognitive Sciences ABSTRACT: There is consensus in the field of economics (economic history) and the social sciences more generally that institutions matter significantly when it comes to why certain nations, societies or states prosper while others don’t. However, there is […]
Heather Douglas, Michigan State, Center Senior Fellow Rethinking the Social Contract for Science ABSTRACT: The dominant way of thinking about the relationship between science and society has been a “social contract” that grew out of the debates about science funding in the post-WWII US. This social contract presumed that the most public good would come […]
Hyundeuk Cheon, Seoul National University, Center Visiting Fellow Explicating the Principle of Explicability ABSTRACT: In this talk, I attempt to explicate the principle of explicability for artificial intelligence (AI). While there is widespread consensus that AI needs to be explicable (expressed by different terms such as explainability, interpretability, transparency, or accountability), there are unresolved issues […]
Featured Former Fellow Lunchtime Talk: Yann Benetreau-Dupin, University of Western Ontario This will be an online event. Is Reading Peer Review a Good Idea? ABSTRACT: After a few years as a full-time staff editor for the large, multidisciplinary, open-access journal PLOS ONE (Public Library of Science), I wonder if leaving academic philosophy to read peer-review […]
Brian McLoone, Higher School Economics, Center Visiting Fellow How Should We Think about Models with Impossible Assumptions? ABSTRACT: This talk will be about complications that emerge when one renders a scientific model with an impossible assumption as a counterfactual. The talk will touch on a variety of topics, such as the nature of (im)possibility, the […]
Somogy Varga, Aarhus University, Center Visiting Scholar The Aim of Medicine ABSTRACT: Recent debates about the scope and societal role of medicine raise fundamental questions about its aim. The main task of the talk is to contribute to clarifying this issue. I start by outlining the idea medicine deploys a particular kind of understanding. Then, […]
Nick Huggett, LAS Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago Quantum Gravity on a Tabletop? ABSTRACT: The characteristic – Planck – energy scale of quantum gravity is utterly beyond current technology, making experimental access to the relevant physics apparently impossible. Nevertheless, low energy experiments linking gravity and the quantum have been undertaken: the […]
Matthew Parker, University of Western Ontario, Center Visiting Fellow What Counts as Evidence in a Vast Universe? ABSTRACT: Ziv has a psychological theory and claims that an experiment has confirmed it. Nick says this is irrelevant; the universe is so big that someone was bound to make the same observation even if the theory is […]
Simon DeDeo, Carnegie Mellon/Santa Fe Institute Consilience and Epistemic Values in the Royal Society ABSTRACT: Consilience, the idea that scientific knowledge should draw together disparate phenomena into common frameworks, is a widely accepted value in contemporary science. Little is known, however, about how and when this value first appeared in practice. Using the full-text archives […]
This talk has been moved to online-only. Anthony Beavers, University of Evansville, Center Visiting Fellow Concerning a Machine Command Theory of Ethics ABSTRACT: In this presentation on meta-ethics, I will consider the possibility of a Machine Command Theory (MCT) of ethics that may allow an artificial intelligence to outperform conventional moral theories in determining and […]
Featured Former Fellow Lunchtime Talk: Erik Curiel, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy This will be an online event. Math Does Not Represent ABSTRACT: On the standard---almost universally (albeit often only implicitly) accepted---picture of the relation of mathematics in a physical theory to the world, mathematical entities represent physical entities, mathematical structures represent physical structures, and […]
Ravit Dotan, University of California Berkeley, Center Postdoc Fellow Participatory AI Ethics Governance ABSTRACT: I am designing a new approach for AI ethics governance, based on meaningful stakeholder participation. Currently, the prominent approach in AI ethics governance focuses on articulating AI ethics principles on topics such as transparency, fairness, and privacy. A minority of organizations […]
Edouard Machery, Distinguished Professor of HPS, University of Pittsburgh Formal Modeling in Philosophy of Science - Let’s be realistic! ABSTRACT: In recent years, formal models have become increasingly important in philosophy of science, particularly among social epistemologists. They have also become an important component of metascience. This talk will argue that formal modelers in philosophy […]
Caspar Jacobs, Dept. of HPS, University of Pittsburgh Are Mass Scalings Symmetries of Newtonian Mechanics? ABSTRACT: There has been some recent debate over whether mass scalings - uniform scalings of all particle masses - are symmetries of Newtonian mechanics. The brief answer is that this depends on whether one also inversely scales G, the gravitational […]
Featured Former Fellow Lunchtime Talk: Naftali Weinberger, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy Signal Manipulation and the Causal Analysis of Racial Discrimination ABSTRACT: Discrimination is, in part, a causal concept. To say that an individual was discriminated against based on race entails that her race made a difference to how she was treated. Yet demographic variables […]
Nicholas Rescher, Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh A Fallen Branch from the Tree of Knowledge: The Failure of Futurology. ABSTRACT: The talk will examine the futurology bubble of the 1950-1980 era, and considers the reasons for its rise and demise. Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must […]
Robert Batterman, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh Mesoscale Models and Many-Body Physics ABSTRACT: What is the best way to study the bulk behavior of many-body systems? A natural, common sentiment among philosophers and physicists is to take a foundational perspective. Examine the theory that characterizes the interactions among the components of such many-body systems […]
Robert Pennock, Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, Michigan State University Curiosity Systematized: Virtue Philosophy of Science and the Philosophy of Mind ABSTRACT: I have argued for a virtue philosophy of science as a normative reconstruction of the mindset and characteristic practices of scientists—a peculiarly curious population of knowledge-seekers. Arising in relation to the scientific task […]
Eugen Fischer, University of East Anglia, Center Visiting Fellow Experimental Argument Analysis: How Stereotypes Shape Arguments ABSTRACT: The analysis of philosophical arguments is commonly regarded as model of an armchair activity. The talk explains when and why experimental methods need to complement familiar armchair methods of argument analysis; it reviews methods from psycholinguistics that can […]
John D. Norton, Distinguished University Professor of HPS, University of Pittsburgh How Analogy Helped Create the New Science of Thermodynamics ABSTRACT: In 1824, Sadi Carnot’s “On the Motive Power of Fire” laid out the general framework of thermodynamics. The work seems to burst unexpected and fully formed into science, brimming with extraordinary, novel ideas. He […]
Gayle Rogers, University of Pittsburgh The Science of Speculation: A Revolution in Experimentation and Moneymaking Abstract: This talk will trace the development of speculation as a twin phenomenon in the scientific and financial revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Initially doubted as a mode of airy, conjectural thought inferior to demonstrable experimentation, speculation came […]
Laura Menatti, University of the Basque Country, Center Visiting Fellow Health and environment: A Relational Account Abstract In this talk I propose a situated and relational framework to address the relationship between health and environment. This research has been developed at the crossroad of environmental philosophy and philosophy of medicine. Historically, the environment has received little attention in the definitions […]
Ruth Kastner, University of Maryland, Center Visiting Fellow Curing Several Diseases of Physics with One Simple Remedy Abstract: Modern physics presents us with a number of stubborn problems and challenges, chief among them the measurement problem of quantum theory. I suggest that many of these problems arise from an underlying, unduly classical metaphysical picture of […]
Heather Douglas, Michigan State University, Center Senior Visiting Fellow Rethinking Public Funding for Science Abstract: Public funding for science increased dramatically after WWII. The initial justifications for public funding for science centered on the idea that basic research needed public funding because private funding would not be forthcoming for research so far removed from practical […]
Leonardo Bich, University of the Basque Country, Center Visiting Fellow An Operational Approach to Defining Life Abstract: Despite numerous and increasing attempts to define what life is, there is no consensus on necessary and sufficient conditions for life. Accordingly, some scholars have questioned the value of definitions of life and encouraged scientists and philosophers alike […]
Featured Former Fellow Lunchtime Talk: Maria Serban, University of East Anglia The trouble with construct validity Abstract: An important part in the methodological discourse of psychology focuses on establishing the field as a hard science. The longstanding operationalist tradition emphasised the commitment to experimentalism, to identifying and individuating measurable variables, and to developing local […]
Serife Tekin, University of Texas, San Antonio Unmuting Patients in Psychiatric Epistemologies: Insights from the Opioid Crisis One of the central aims of psychiatry is to identify the properties of mental disorders to enable their diagnosis and treatment. As a branch of both science and medicine, psychiatry draws on a variety of scientific and medical […]
Ravit Dotan, University of California Berkeley AI Ethics and Investors Abstract: Should investors integrate AI ethics into investment strategies? If so, how? The goal of my talk is to lead a conversation about this topic. To that end, I will go over what AI is, what AI ethics is, how AI ethics can impact companies' […]
Pamela Reinagel The limited role of null hypothesis testing in Biology: A practicing biologist's perspective on the Reproducibility Crisis Abstract: In recent years there has been much discussion of rigor, reliability and reproducibility in science. Some metascience analyses, reproducibility projects, and proposed science reforms appear to make naive assumptions about the goals, methods, and products of […]
Join us for a lunch time talk by Aydin Mohseni, University of California, Irvine. Title: Modeling Interventions in the Replication Crisis Scientific studies vary in their methodological soundness. Interventions in evidentiary standards and research practices can differentially affect studies as a function of their soundness. The conjunction of these facts has unrecognized implications for proposed […]