Annual Lecture Series (in-person)
Lunchtime Talks (in-person)
Conferences (in-person)
Online-Only Events
Did Leibniz Anticipate Gödel’s Incompleteness Proof? Nicholas Rescher, U. of Pittsburgh Abstract: Kurt Gödel felt sure that Leibniz had anticipated his monumental demonstration of the provability-incompleteness of axiomatic arithmetic. The paper seeks to clarify to what extent Gödel’s suspicions were correct.
What can Neuroimaging do for Psychology? Adina Roskies, Sr. Visiting Fellow Dartmouth University Abstract: The colorful brain maps produced by neuroimaging have captured the popular imagination with the promise of yielding up the secrets of the mind. Some critics claim that the attention is misplaced: neuroimages cannot tell us anything of interest about our psychology. […]
The Emergence of the Covering Law Model and What We Might Learn from It Fons Dewulf, Visiting Fellow Ghent University Abstract: Until 1948 scientific explanation was not a topic of interest in logical empiricist philosophy. After the publication of Hempel’s and Oppenheim’s “Studies in the Logic of Explanation” in 1948 it gradually became a major […]
Epistemology of Science aims to encourage collaboration between the disciplines of epistemology and philosophy of science. Participants from both disciplines will engage in both first-order discussion of issues at the intersection of epistemology and philosophy of science and meta-level discussion of how the two fields can productively interact. The workshop will feature keynote addresses by […]
Epistemology of Science aims to encourage collaboration between the disciplines of epistemology and philosophy of science. Participants from both disciplines will engage in both first-order discussion of issues at the intersection of epistemology and philosophy of science and meta-level discussion of how the two fields can productively interact. The workshop will feature keynote addresses by […]
Unifying the Scientific Concept of Self-Control: Self-Control as Task Hacking Juan Pablo Bermudez, Visiting Fellow U. Externado Colombia Abstract: There are two apparently irreconcilable aspects of the scientific concept of self-control: the moment-to-moment state self-control and the stable trait of self-control. Deploying state self-control requires exerting cognitive effort, whereas the latter is linked with long-term wellbeing benefits but seems […]
Being Human, Being Homo Sapiens Denis Walsh, University of Toronto ABSTRACT: Neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism attempts to characterise human moral goodness as a natural phenomenon. It posits a substantive, essentialist, normative concept of human nature as an explanatory primitive. Human nature, according to neo-Aristotelianism, is an instance of a generalised organismal nature. Opponents object that no […]
On Dynamical Laws as Guides to What is Fundamental Vera Matarese, Center Visiting Fellow Abstract: Are we entitled to read off our fundamental ontology from our dynamical laws? Normally two different replies can be found in the literature. North (2013), for instance, answers in the affirmative. According to her, dynamical laws relate what is […]
The Aspectuality of Perceptual Experience: Learning / Knowing How to See Arnon Cahen Center Visiting Fellow, Bar-Ilan U. in Israel Abstract: In this talk, I will be concerned with the aspectuality of conscious perceptual experience. Aspectuality is a property of perceptual experience that can colloquially be expressed by noting that (conscious) perception is not merely of something or […]
A Deflationary Account of Representation in Cognitive Science Frances Egan, Rutgers University ABSTRACT: Much of cognitive neuroscience construes cognitive capacities as involving representation in some way. Computational theories of vision, for example, typically posit structures that represent edges in the world. Neurons are often said to represent elements of their receptive fields. Despite the widespread […]
On Robustness in Cosmological Simulations Marie Gueguen, Center Postdoctoral Fellow U. of Western Ontario, Rotman Institute Abstract: While the Cold Dark Matter model is well supported by evidence on large scales, it does not fare well on small scales, where simulations do not reproduce the observed abundance and demographics of dark matter halos. Since these […]
What is Health? Allostasis and the Evolution of Human Design (some conclusions) Peter Sterling, Professor of Neuroscience U. of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine Abstract: Many claim that the conditions of human life began improving with the Enlightenment (1700-1800 CE), and now we are better off by every measure––food, health, lifespan, and so on. But recently […]
New Tools Drive New Concepts into Neuroscience Luis Favela, Center Visiting Fellow U. of Central Florida Abstract: Increases in the spatial and temporal resolution of data obtained from neuronal activity are largely enabled by technological innovations, for example, single neurons integrating inputs from thousands of other neurons and then distributing energy back to the network. […]
Title TBA Jean Baccelli, Post-Doc Fellow Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy
Squaring the Extrapolator’s Circle Jonathan Fuller, HPS University of Pittsburgh Abstract: To explain or predict the effect of some exposure in a human target population, health scientists and social scientists often extrapolate from a study done on some other human or non-human population. This procedure is used frequently in toxicology and epidemiology, where the exposure is a potential toxin or carcinogen, the outcome is a disease […]
Thoroughly Modern Zeno: The Arrow, Quantum Mechanically Laura Ruetsche, Univ. of Michigan Nov.8, 2019 1008 CL, 3:30PM co-sponsored by the departments of HPS and Philosophy Abstract: In the 5th century BCE, Zeno of Elea devised dozens of arguments against the possibilities of motion, change, and plurality. The loveliest of these, the Arrow Paradox, is briefly stated: […]
Workshop on Mark Wilson’s Physics Avoidance November 9, 2019 Center for Philosophy of Science 1008 Cathedral of Learning University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA USA Wilson’s new collection of essays represents his mature thoughts on such philosophical issues as conceptual change, the use of models, and the role of scales in scientific contexts. It presents a […]
Baroque Mathematics Paolo Palmieri, HPS University of Pittsburgh Abstract: In this talk I conjure, or evoke by supernatural power, or jugglery, the emergence of early modern calculus, the geometry of indivisibles, in confrontation with the ghost of Archimedes, the wonders of Baroque aesthetics, rhetoric, and the estranging creative power of extenuated metaphor.
Title TBA Marian Gilton, HPS University of Pittsburgh
Indirect Causation Michael Strevens, New York University ABSTRACT: If scientists are to think intelligently and fruitfully about causation, then they need a vocabulary that directly represents causal relations. I will argue that they also need to represent what I call “indirect causal generalizations”, which mix causal relations with what I call relations of “entanglement”. […]
Title TBA David Wallace, Phil/HPS University of Pittsburgh Abstract TBA
Does Anyone Know What Attention Is? Wayne Wu, Carnegie Mellon University Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition ABSTRACT: Despite debate and confusion in the empirical and philosophical literature, we have always known the answer: attention is selection for the guidance of behavior. I situate this proposal in light of a venerable schema for […]
Relevance and its Problems Nicholas Rescher U. Pittsburgh, Philosophy Abstract: Relevance to significant questions is one of the main evaluative factors with respect to scientific findings, along with originality and reproducibility. The talk will elucidate some aspects of how this conception actually works.
Abductive Epistemic Engineering Christian Feldbacher-Escamilla, Center Visiting Fellow U. Duesseldorf Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science (DCLPS) Abstract: We investigate virtues of creative abductive concept formation (cf. Schurz 2008) and their application in epistemic engineering (cf. Brun 2017, Cappelen 2018). It will be shown that abductive virtues allow for an explication of traditional conditions […]
Cheating, Deceiving, and Corruption. Reshaping the Empirical Data Paola Hernández-Chávez, Center Visiting Fellow U. Juárez del Estado de Durango, Cognitive Sci. Research Ctr. Abstract: Characterizations of corruption convolute in conceptualizing it as a violation of a social norm in order to obtain a particular benefit, as in political corruption, defined as the use of public […]
DAY 1: Mellon Institute, Room 348, CMU, 4400 Fifth Ave. Pittsburgh PA 15213 DAY 2: Cathedral of Learning, Room 1008, U. of Pitt, 4200 Fifth Ave. Pittsburgh PA 15213 Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Danielle Bassett (University of Pennsylvania, Department of Bioengineering) Sarah Robins (University of Kansas, Department of Philosophy) Carl Craver (Washington University in St. […]
The American Reception of Logical Positivism Sander Verhaegh, Center Visiting Fellow Tilburg U. ABSTRACT: In the late-1930s, a small number of European logicians and philosophers of science sought refuge in the United States, escaping the quickly deteriorating political situation on the continent. Within a few years, these logical positivists significantly reshaped the American philosophical landscape. […]
Severe Testing Samuel Fletcher, Ctr. Visiting Fellow U. of Minnesota Abstract: The methods of classical statistics have tilled the experimental soil from which twentieth-century science has grown. Philosophers of science, meanwhile, have showered those methods mostly with withering epistemological criticism. One of its few steadfast philosophical defenders, Deborah G. Mayo, has over decades developed her own approach […]
A Generalized Patchwork Approach to Scientific Concepts Philipp Haueis Bielefeld University, Dept. of Philosophy Abstract: Patchwork approaches hold that scientists implicitly subdivide their concepts into several, partially overlapping segments or “patches” to describe, classify and explain the investigated part of reality appropriately. For example: based on the measurement technique, different patches of the concept “hardness” […]