Annual Lecture Series (in-person)
Lunchtime Talks (in-person)
Conferences (in-person)
Online-Only Events
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 […]
Carole Lee, Department of Philosophy, University of Washington Institutional Racism in Science: Black-White Disparities in NIH Grant Review Abstract: In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and disproportionately deadly impact of COVID-19 on communities of color, researchers have called for an end to institutional racism in scientific education, publishing, and funding. In this […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 an online lecture by Alison Fernandes (Trinity College) Naturalism, Agency and the Metaphysics of Science Abstract: Methodological naturalism is a plausible approach to the metaphysics of science: we should use the methods of science when giving accounts of what science says there is and what it is like. Methodological naturalism is particularly […]
Cameron Buckner, Department of Philosophy, University of Houston The new DoGMA of Empiricism: Deep Learning and Domain-General Faculties Abstract: Deep learning is a research area in computer science that has over the last ten years produced a series of transformative breakthroughs in artificial intelligence—creating systems that can recognize complex objects in natural photographs as well […]
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 […]
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, […]
Title: TBA Abstract: TBA This talk will also be available live streamed on You Tube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.
This Talk has been postponed, date TBA. Title: "The Concept of Control" Abstract: The talk will argue that control is a complex and inherently unclear inception ill suited to the significant work that philosophers--especially ethicists--have envisioned for it. This talk will also be available live streamed on You Tube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.
Pitt Philosophy is hosting a conference in honor of the career of Thomas Ricketts. For more information, please visit: https://www.philosophy.pitt.edu/tom-ricketts
Title: Gender and values at the intersection of molecular biology and psychiatry Abstract: This talk points to socio-political values that call for more integration between molecular and social-environmental approaches to human cognition and neuropsychiatry, such as improving human mental health and reducing societal inequities. My general perspective on the overall landscape of human behavior research […]
Title: “The field framework in physics (and beyond)” Abstract: Over the past century, analogies between particle physics and condensed matter physics have successfully guided theoretical developments in both domains. Prominent examples include the construction of the Higgs model in particle physics and the development of renormalization group methods. Unlike prior historical uses of analogies in […]
Title: Aphantasia, unsymbolized thinking and conscious thoughts Abstract: According to a common view, conscious thoughts necessarily involve mental images. This is alleged to be the case not only when one entertains conscious thoughts about perceptible things like cats or waterfalls, but also when one thinks about more abstract things, like the nature of concepts. In […]
Title: Pattern Finding and Pattern Making Abstract: Human beings are proficient pattern finders (e.g., scientific laws), and pattern makers (e.g., art, architecture, political systems). According to philosophical tradition, going back at least to Aristotle, these different capacities are made possible by fundamentally distinct cognitive competencies: theoretical vs. practical reason. But some of our most effective […]
Title: The Bearable Thinness of Being: A Pragmatist Metaphysics of Affordances Abstract: Taking a pragmatist stance toward the practices and products of science shapes our answers to central philosophical questions. I will explicate how scientists’ conceptual and representational practices work in concert with their observational and experimental ones to stabilize acceptance of claims of scientific […]
Title: A Metaphysical Mapping Problem for Race Theorists and Human Population Geneticists Abstract. In this talk, I identify and clarify a mapping phenomenon that’s almost twenty years old. The phenomenon is that the populations at a fivefold subdivision of humans into biological populations—the so-called human continental populations—correspond one-to-one with the five official races of the […]
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 […]
Title: Essentially Dynamic Concepts Abstract: Important biological concepts often display unruly behavior: there is consensus that they designate something important, but not how that 'something' should be defined, identified, or theorized—and the set of options changes over time. My talk will present an ongoing effort to make sense of this general phenomenon. First I sketch a […]
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 […]
Rules Made to be Broken: Calibrating Climate Proxies Abstract: Philosophical analysis of measurement in scientific practice often focuses on the development and use of measurement standards. However, when it comes to proxy measurements in climate science---e.g. indicators such as tree rings that are used to reconstruct past climate variables like temperature---scientists develop measurement standards only […]
Title: Heterodox scientists: A sliver of hope for our increasingly conformist times? Abstract: Nowadays we all face tremendous pressures to conform to domineering narratives. This holds for science as much as for politics. Recent exposés of the silencing of scientific ideas—alternative public health policies during the COVID-19 pandemic and alternatives to the amyloid plaque explanation […]
Title: Discovery in Synthetic Biology: A Call for Doing Philosophy in Science Abstract: The work of synthetic biologists strikes some as strange and foreign (Keller 2009). Synthetic biologists are in the business of exploring a range of biological possibilities rarely sampled by the nature world – or the world outside the lab (Malaterre 2013). In this talk, I’ll argue that a common logical structure characterizes the mode of discovery adopted by many research […]