Metaphysics in the Philosophy of Science Conference

May 13-15, 2011

University of Toronto

 

Presented by the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto and the Fishbein Center for the History of Science and Medicine, University of Chicago 

The philosophy of science has an illustrious history of attraction and antipathy towards metaphysics. The latter was famously exemplified in the Logical Positivist contention that metaphysical questions are meaningless, but in the wake of the demise of Positivism, metaphysics has found its way back into the philosophy of science. Increasingly, questions about the nature of natural laws, kinds, dispositions, and so on have taken a metaphysical cast. The metaphysics of science commands significant attention in contemporary philosophy.
While many philosophers embrace the increased contact between metaphysics and the philosophy of science, others are wary. Should science (and its philosophical study) lead us into doing metaphysics? If so, which metaphysical issues are genuine and which are illusory, and how might we tell? Interestingly, these questions dovetail with similar soul-searching in metaphysics proper (sometimes under the banner of "meta-metaphysics", sometimes simply as methodology).
This conference will examine ground-level debates about metaphysics within the philosophy of physics and the philosophy of biology, and broader methodological questions about the role of metaphysics in the philosophy of science. Participation is open and welcome from all parties to these questions: from those who hold that metaphysics must have a place within the philosophy of science, to those who hold it should not.

 

Call for Papers:

DATES	13–15 May 2011
LOCATION	The University of Toronto
PLENARY SPEAKERS	Craig Callender (University of California, San Diego) Anjan Chakravartty (University of Toronto) Katherine Hawley (University of St. Andrews) Jenann Ismael (University of Arizona) James Ladyman (University of Bristol) Kyle Stanford (University of California, Irvine) Michael Strevens (New York University) Robert Wilson (University of Alberta)
SUBMISSIONS	Essays of 4,000-5,000 words (30 minutes allotted for presentations) concerning any aspect of metaphysics and the natural or social sciences will be accepted for review until January 10, 2011. Please include a short abstract (200 words or so), a few keywords, prepare your essayfor blind review (do not include your name or other identifying references in the document), and submit it in PDF format here.
NOTIFICATION	By early February 2011.
CHAIRS	If you would like to act as a session chair, please contact <mpsc2011@gmail.com> with your areas of competence.
ORGANIZERS	Chris Haufe (University of Chicago)  Matthew H. Slater (Bucknell University) Zanja Yudell (California State University, Chico) Please direct general conference inquiries to mpsc2011@gmail.com Additional information about this conference will be posted here shortly.

Putting Powers to Work: A Conference on Causal Powers in Metaphysics

April 28-30, 2011
Saint Louis University

Description

This conference aims to build on the existing literature concerning what causal powers (or dispositions or capacities) are by asking what causal powers can do. Many contemporary metaphysicians think that accepting irreducible causal powers enables one to give accounts of, say, laws of nature, causation, and modality that are preferable to other contemporary accounts. But is that right? What should those accounts look like? Are there other areas in metaphysics—metaphysics of mind and agency, or metaphysics of science—that can be accounted for at least in part in terms of irreducible causal powers? In other words, supposing for the sake of argument that you accepted irreducible causal powers or dispositions, what good might they do for us in metaphysics?

Speakers include Nancy Cartwright, Alexander Bird, Anjan Chakravartty, John Heil, Max Kistler, Stephen Mumford, Timothy O'Connor, David Robb, and Neil Williams. Funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation and by the Department of Philosophy at Saint Louis University.

Workshop Call for Papers

A workshop will follow the conference on the afternoon of April 30. The workshop will be a roundtable discussion of papers on the theme and questions of the conference. Presentations will be 20-30 minutes. A committee may select papers from the workshop for inclusion in the conference edited collection. We invite submissions for the workshop program. Email an abstract to jonathandjacobs@gmail.com. If the committee cannot reach a decision on the basis of the abstract, it may ask for the full paper. Deadline for submission is December 1, 2010.

For more information, see the conference website, or email Jonathan D. Jacobs at jonathandjacobs@gmail.com. Registration is free.

Metaphysics of Science Conference, August 3-5, 2010, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, South Korea

The Korean Society for Analytic Philosophy and Metaphysics Research
Group at Kyung Hee University (Seoul, Korea) will jointly host an
international conference on the metaphysics of science from Tuesday
3rd August to Thursday 5th August, 2010. The conference venue will be
the Seoul campus of Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea. The conference
aims to identify and explore fundamental metaphysical issues in
connection with the recent development of sciences. Another important
goal of this conference is to give a valuable opportunity for analytic
philosophers around the world (especially in the East-Asia region) to
come together and exchange their views, interests, and ideas. This is
hoped to promote future interactions among analytic philosophers in
the East-Asia region, and possibly contribute to the formation of
international research teams for collaborations.

Keynote speakers
Alexander Bird (Bristol University, UK), Huw Price (University of
Sydney, Australia ), Helen Beebee (University of Birmingham, UK)

Program highlights
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
[KEYNOTE SPEECH]
•  Huw Price (University of Sydney , Australia) Time's arrow and
Eddington's challenge 11:10 am - 12:00 pm

[GENERAL PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE SESSION]
•  In-Rae Cho (Seoul National Univ, Korea) The task-relative
rationality of human reasoning 1:30 pm - 2:20 pm
•  Masahiro Yamada (Claremont Graduate University, USA) Ruling out
that pigs speak fluent French when nobody's looking 2:20 pm - 3:10 pm
•  Hsi-Heng Cheng (National Tsin-Hua University, Taiwan) On Peirce ' s
conception of laws of nature 3:30 pm - 4:20 pm
•  Szu-Ting Chen (National Tsin-Hua University, Taiwan) Causal
structure as a guiding idea in the practice of economic theorizing
4:20 pm - 5:10 pm

[PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS SESSION]
•  Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen (UCLA, USA) Mathematical
scepticism and entitlement 1:30 pm - 2:20 pm
•  Hsing-Chien Tsai (National Chung-Cheng University , Taiwan) A
modest mathematical Platonism 2:20 pm - 3:10 pm
•  Jung Il Park (Sookmyung Women's Univ, Korea) Wittgenstein on
Godel's incompleteness theorem 3:30 pm - 4:20 pm
•  Woosuk Park (KAIST, Korea) Was Hilbert ' s foundation of physics
(too) metaphysical 4:20 pm - 5:10 pm

Wednesday, August 4, 2010
[KEYNOTE SPEECH]
•  Alexander Bird (Bristol University, UK) The ontology of natural
kinds 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

[METAPHYSICS SESSION]
•  Eline Busck Gundersen (University of Oslo, Norway) The metaphysical
modesty of conditional accounts of dispositions 10:00 am - 10:50 am
•  Lars Bo Gundersen (Aarhus University, Denmark ) Knowledge,
cognitive dispositions and conditionals 10:50 am - 11:40 am
•  Chunghyoung Lee (POSTECH, Korea) Before-effect, Zeno causality or
no (Known) cause 2:40 pm - 3:30 pm
•  Toby Handfield (Monash University, Australia) The concept of chance
3:30 pm - 4:20 pm
•  Simon Langford (Hannam University, Korea) The no persistence
conditions thesis 4:40 pm - 5:30 pm
•  Tora Koyama (Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka
University, Japan) Fundamentality and ideology 5:30 pm - 6:20 pm

[PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE SESSION]
•  Jinho Kang (Seoul National Univ, Korea) Chomsky and Wittgenstein
against referential semantics 10:00 am - 10:50 am
•  Kai-Yuan Cheng (National Chung-Cheng University, Taiwan) The
meaning of disposition ascriptions: a Wittgensteinian approach 10:50
am - 11:40 am

[REALISM AND ANTI-REALISM SESSION]
•  Takahiro Yamada (Kyoto University, Japan) The "truth-value links"
problem for anti-realism about the Past 2:40 pm - 3:30 pm
•  Reuy-Lin Chen (National Chung-Cheng University, Taiwan)
Experimental realism and realization 3:30 pm - 4:20 pm
•  Yasuo Nakayama (Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka
University, Japan) A nominalistic theory of multiple languages and its
application to debates on scientific realism 4:40 pm - 5:30 pm
•  Shin Kim (Hankuk Univ of Foreign Studies, Korea) Abstract entities
and the inference to the best explanation 5:30 pm - 6:20 pm

Thursday, August 5, 2010
[KEYNOTE SPEECH]
•  Helen Beebee (University of Birmingham, UK) Is causation scalar?
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

[PHILOSOPHY OF MIND SESSION]
•  Itay Shani (Kyung Hee University, Korea) Mind stuffed with red
herrings: on aggregates, unities, and James ' argument against the “
Self-compounding of mental facts 10:00 am - 10:50 am
•  Young E Rhee (Kangwon National Univ, Korea) How can functionalism
support the extended mind hypothesis? 10:50 am - 11:40 am
•  Youngjin Kiem (Kyonggi Univ, Korea) Consciousness and the
background of intentional states 2:40 pm - 3:30 pm
•  Masaki Ichinose (Tokyo University, Japan) Degrees of freedom and
life science 3:30 pm - 4:20 pm

[PHILOSOPHY OF PHYSICS SESSION]
•  Huw Price (University of Sydney, Australia) Human incapacities and
their metaphysical significance 10:00 am - 10:50 am
•  Takeshi Sakon (Osaka University, Japan) Why are there no time-
travellers?: from a presentist point of view 10:50 am - 11:40 am
•  Chuang Liu (University of Florida, USA) On a quantum model of
decision that supports libertarian free will 2:40 pm - 3:30 pm

For more information about the conference (aims, program, registration
fees, accommodations, restaurants, maps and so on), view the website
at http://choise80.khu.ac.kr/metaphysics%20of%20science%20conference.htm.

CFP: "Reduction, Emergence, and Essence"

(ISN Summer Conference 2009)
June 19-20, 2009, Cambridge, MA

Complete information: http://isnature.org/Events/2009/Summer/Conference.htm

Immediately following the four days of study at the Summer Seminar,
the ISN will hold its third annual conference for the benefit of the
Summer Fellows and interested scholars.

What: A one and one-half day academic conference with one or two
keynote addresses, and the presentation of academic papers. This
year’s conference will center on scientific and philosophical
strategies for understanding the natural world. Papers are welcome on
topics ranging from anti-reductionism/holism in science to self-
organization, systems theory, and complexity, to papers in natural
philosophy in the neo-Aristotelian or phenomenological traditions. See
the ISN “articles, essays, and books” page to get a sense of the range
of relevant topics.

Who: Scholars interested in giving papers are welcome to submit their proposals along with a CV by Monday, March 2nd. Those whose papers are selected will have their lodging paid for, Conference fee waived, and travel expenses reimbursed—fully for travel from within the U.S. and half for travel from without. The keynote speaker or speakers will be announced by April 6th. Any interested scholar may attend, but please notify us by May 15th that you plan to come.

Summer Fellows from the immediately preceding Summer Seminar are
expected to remain to participate in this conference, which has been
specially scheduled for them. Please consider nominating your own
students for our Summer Fellowship Program, particularly if they might qualify for one of our competitive Honor Scholarships.

When: The Summer Conference begins on Friday afternoon, June 19th, at 3:30pm, and ends on Saturday evening. A block of hotel rooms will be reserved at a special Conference rate, and those whose papers are accepted will have their lodging paid for. Further scheduling information will be posted on the ISN website: www.isnature.org.

Where: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Limited information about travel and other logistics is
available on the conference logistics page. More specific information
will be sent to those who let us know they are coming.

How: Please contact ISN Director John Keck by May 15th if you plan to attend. The $50 fee for the Summer Conference includes a group dinner on Saturday evening. The fee can be reduced or waived on a showing of need. Attendees not presenting are expected to cover their own travel expenses, but exceptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Paper proposals and accompanying CVs must be received by Monday, March 2nd, 2009; decisions will be announced by Tuesday, March 31st. Electronic submission is strongly encouraged.

Complete information: http://isnature.org/Events/2009/Summer/Conference.htm

Ethical and Philosophical Relevance of Neuroscience

The project group "Neuroscience in Context: Critical Perspectives,
Neuroethics, and Anthropology" kindly invites you to attend their
international meeting on neuroethics and neurophilosophy:

On the Ethical and Philosophical Relevance of Neuroscience

held at the University of Bonn, Germany, October 4 2008.

Influenced by the scientific success of cognitive neuroscience, many
take it for granted that its findings are relevant to other disciplines
such as anthropology and philosophy. We want to analyze their relevance,
considering the empirical state of the art as well as theoretical and
normative issues as presented by experts in science and philosophy.

Speakers:
Jorge Moll (Rio de Janeiro): Bridging Moral Sentiments, Values and
Neuroscience: New Perspectives
Guy Kahane (Oxford): The Neuroscience of Morality: Methodological
Considerations and Normative Implications
Neil Levy (Melbourne & Oxford): How the Sciences of the Mind Threaten
Autonomy, and How They Can Enhance It
Elisabeth Hildt (Tuebingen): Anthropological and Ethical Key Issues of
the Neurosciences
Dieter Birnbacher (Duesseldorf): Chair of the adjacent plenary discussion

Admission is free but registration is required due to limited capacity;
please visit the project's website at www.nic-online.eu for more
information.

--
Stephan Schleim, M.A.

Department of Psychiatry
Division of Medical Psychology
University of Bonn
Sigmund-Freud-Straße 25
53105 Bonn
Germany

Tel: +49(0)228 287 19705
Fax: +49(0)228 287 19125
Web: www.meb.uni-bonn.de/psychiatrie/mp/
Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html. Prolonged discussions should be moved to chora: enrol via http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html. Other philosophical resources on the Web can be found at http://www.liv.ac.uk/pal.

European Society for Philosophy and Psychology

16th ANNUAL MEETING: Utrecht, Netherlands, June 26, 27, 28th 2008



CALL FOR PAPERS: Deadline 29^th February 2008.

www.eurospp.org

Invited speakers:

- Marina Nespor, University of Milan, Italy: Mechanisms in Early language acquisition.
- Radu Bogdan, Dept of Philosophy, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey: Why development matters to cognitive science: The case for mental assembly.
- Nicky Clayton, Dept of Exptl. Psychology, Cambridge University, UK: The development and evolution of mental time travel.
- Yosef Grodzinsky, McGill University, Canada: A brain map for syntax and semantics.


Invited symposium organizers

- Asher Koriat, Dept of Psychology, University of Haifa, Israel: Metacognition
- Peter Hagoort, FC Donders Institute/ Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen: Downward causation
- Mike Martin, Dept of Philosophy, University College London, UK: Joint action
- Corrado Sinigaglia, University of Milan, Italy: Embodied language

The Society invites submitted papers, posters and symposia for this meeting.

Previous topics covered at ESPP include spatial concepts, emotion, perception, simulation theory, attention, reference, problems of consciousness, early numerical cognition, infants' understanding of intentionality, memory and time, motor imagery, causal understanding, counterfactuals, the semantics/pragmatics distinction, reasoning, vagueness, mental causation, action and agency, thought without language, externalism, connectionism, hypnosis, and the interpretation of neuropsychological results.

See http://www.eurospp.org/2008/submission.html for full details of electronic submission requirements. Submissions are refereed and selected on the basis of quality and relevance to psychologists, philosophers and linguists. All submissions must include an abstract of 250 words maximum, in addition to a 750 word summary (psychology and linguistics) or a short paper (philosophy). Potential convenors of symposium submissions should email the description and list of speakers directly to one of the programme chairs by 1 February 2008.

We particularly welcome POSTER submissions. Posters will be displayed throughout the conference as well as at designated poster sessions. The first author of each accepted poster (and who does not also present a paper) will get free ESPP membership for 2008.

Programme chairs:

Psychology: Liz Robinson, U. Warwick, UK. e.j.robinson@warwick.ac.uk
Philosophy: Matt Nudds, U. Edinburgh, UK. matthew.nudds@ed.ac.uk
Linguistics: Alessandro Zucchi, U. Milan, Italy. alessandro.zucchi@unimi.it

Metaphysics of Science conference: 3-5 July 2009

This is a preliminary announcement of a conference on the Metaphysics of Science, which will be held at the University of Melbourne 3-5 July 2009.

Purpose

The purpose of the conference will be to promote discussion of current research in the metaphysics of science. The field of the metaphysics of science is one that barely existed a decade or two ago. But it has now become one of the most active areas of current research in philosophy of science and closely related areas of philosophy. Our aim will be to bring together a significant group of philosophers who are currently working on the metaphysics of science for concentrated discussion of their current research, as well as to explore new directions that are opening up in the field. It is anticipated that at least one major volume of published essays will emerge from papers presented at the conference.

For a general overview of the relevant issues, please see the text on the Metaphysics of Science by Brian Ellis.

Topics

We anticipate that topics will range over a variety of areas of interest in the metaphysics of science. Such potential topics for discussion may include topics in the ontology of science, such as causation, laws of nature, natural kinds, universals, essences, dispositions and powers. Issues relating to scientific realism and anti-realism, as well as the implications of the realist/anti-realist debate for topics in the metaphysics of science will also be on the agenda. Other topics to be explored are likely to include the nature of possibility and necessity, as well as truth-makers, especially as these topics relate to the metaphysics of science.

International focus

Research in the metaphysics of science is being undertaken throughout the philosophical world. We therefore expect the conference to be international in character. Philosophers in the Australasian region have been active contributors to this new field of research. So we expect a significant presence of Australasian philosophers working in the area. However, we hope to attract significant participation by philosophers from North America, Great Britain and continental Europe, as well as other parts of the world. As details of invited speakers emerge, we will announce a list of invited speakers.

Further details

Further details will be announced on this website, as information becomes available. In particular, we plan in the near future to make announcements of a list of invited speakers, a call for papers, as well as details of the conference venue, registration details and accommodation.

Conference organization

The conference is a joint initiative that is sponsored on a collective basis by the Philosophy programs of La Trobe, Melbourne and Monash Universities. The Centre for Time of the University of Sydney will co-sponsor a symposium which will be held at the conference.

Organizational Committee: David Armstrong, John Bigelow, Andrew Brennan, Brian Ellis, Graham Oppy, Toby Handfield, Huw Price, Graham Priest, Howard Sankey.

For further information, please visit the conference web site here or contact the conference organizer, Howard Sankey: chs@unimelb.edu.au.

Because Conference

CALL FOR PAPERS

BECAUSE
http://www.philosophie.ch/eidos/because.shtml

University of Geneva, Switzerland
15-17 February 2008

Deadline December 1st, 2007

Invited Speakers:

Kit Fine (NYU)
Carrie Jenkins (University of Nottingham)
E. J. Lowe (Durham University)
Gonzalo Rodríguez-Pereyra (University of Oxford)
Zoltán Szabó (Yale University)

Topic of the conference:

The use of explanatory concepts, as expressed by means of locutions like 'because' or 'in virtue of', pervades all philosophical disciplines. In many cases what is at stake are causal links, but in many other cases causation is not involved. A currently hotly debated example is provided by the topic of truth-making. A truth-maker is something which makes a truth-bearer (a sentence, or a proposition, etc.) true, and the truth-making relation is commonly spelt out in terms of a non-causal explanatory relationship: for a truth-bearer to be made true by an entity is for it to be true in virtue of that entity, or in virtue of the existence of that entity. Other examples can be found in discussions about ontological dependence, supervenience, substances, essence, reduction, the realism vs. anti-realism debate, or again knowledge. The papers presented at the conference will deal with topics where non-causal explanatory links are crucially involved, as used in order to treat certain philosophical issues, or as the proper topic of philosophical inquiry.

Submissions:

We welcome submissions on the topic of the conference for 60 minute talks followed by a 30 minute discussion. The language of the conference is English. Abstracts of approx. 1000 words should be sent to fabricecorreia@gmail.com by December 1st, 2007. Notification of acceptance will be sent by December 15th.

Travel and accommodation:

The speakers' travel and accommodation expenses will be reimbursed.

Volume:

A volume on the topic of the conference will be edited, in which a selection of contributions is expected to be included.

Organization:

The conference is organized under the auspices of the newly created Genevan center of metaphysics EIDOS (http://www.philosophie.ch/eidos/) by:

Fabrice Correia (University of Geneva, EIDOS)
Philipp Keller (University of Geneva, EIDOS)
Kevin Mulligan (University of Geneva, EIDOS)
Benjamin Schnieder (University of Hamburg, Humboldt-University of Berlin)

Contact:

For any information please contact Fabrice Correia at fabricecorreia@gmail.com. Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html. Prolonged discussions should be moved to chora: enrol via http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html. Other philosophical resources on the Web can be found at http://www.liv.ac.uk/pal.