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.

2010 Central Division APA Meeting

GI-7. Society for the Metaphysics of Science
Thursday, February 18, 9:00 a.m.-Noon

Topic: Degrees of Freedom and Inter-theoretic Relations
Chair: Carl Gillett (Northern Illinois University)

Speakers: Jessica Wilson (University of Toronto)
“The Metaphysical Basis of Emergent Non-linear Phenomena”

Jeffrey Yoshimi (University of California–Merced)
“The Geometry of Inter-theoretic Relations”

Mariam Thalos (University of Utah)
“Nonreductive Materialism without Hierarchies”

2010 Pacific Division APA Meeting

GVIII-G. Society for the Metaphysics of Science, Session 1
Thursday, April 1, 6:00-9:00 p.m.

Topic: Decomposing the Mind: From Functional Analysis to Mechanistic Explanation
Chair: Cory Wright (California State University–Long Beach)

Speakers: David M. Kaplan (Washington University in St. Louis)
“Decomposition, Description, and Explanation in Visual Neuroscience”

Gualtiero Piccinini (University of Missouri–St. Louis)
“Functional Analyses as Mechanism Sketches”

Mark B. Couch (Seton Hall University)
“Mechanisms and Explanatory Relevance”

Daniel Weiskopf (Georgia State University)
“Mechanisms and Models in Psychological Explanation”

Carrie Figdor (University of Iowa)
“What Is a Piece of Mind?”

= = =

GXI-L. Society for the Metaphysics of Science, Session 2
Friday, April 2, 7:00-10:00 p.m.

Topic: The Role of Abstraction in Causal-Mechanical Explanation
Chair: Gualtiero Piccinini (University of Missouri–St. Louis)

Speakers: Stuart Glennan (Butler University)
“Building and Explaining Mechanisms: Some Lessons on the Role of Abstraction”

James Tabery (University of Utah)
“Mechanisms and Difference Mechanisms”

Cory Wright (California State University–Long Beach)
“The Role of Abstraction in Generalizations about Mechanistic Phenomena”

Michael Strevens (New York University)
“Toward a Quantitative Theory of Idealization”

Workshop on Reduction and Emergence: CfP

Emergence and Reduction in the Sciences (Second Pittsburgh-Paris Workshop)

Friday, December 11- Saturday, December 12, 2009 at the Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh

Center for Philosophy of Science and Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh / Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, Paris. 

The theme of the conference, emergence and reduction in the sciences, reflects the interest that these dual notions continue to attract in philosophy of science, most notably in philosophy of physics, of biology and of cognitive science. The organizers invite papers that address these dual notions in any science. Papers that connect the notions in several sciences are encouraged.

Contributors are asked to send: Paper title, abstract (500 words) and a short CV in a single pdf file to the EasyChair conference page at http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=pp2 by the submission deadline. (If you are not already a registered user of www.easychair.org, you will need to create a free account as part of the submission process.) Deadline for submission: August 15; Notification of acceptance: September 15. For general inquiries,cweber23@pitt.edu. Supplementary funding may be available to provide partial support for speakers contributing papers. 

Invited speakers:

Jacques Dubucs, Philippe Huneman; IHPST, Paris

Peter Machamer, Sandra Mitchell, Kenneth Schaffner; HPS, Pittsburgh

Michael Silberstein, Philosophy, Elizabethtown College

Jessica Wilson, Philosophy, University of Toronto

Pacific APA 2009 Events

GV-G. Society for the Metaphysics of Science, Session 1

6:00-9:00 p.m.

THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL 9

Topic: New Waves in Metaphysics I

Chair: Allan Hazlett (Fordham University)

Speakers:

Thomas Hofweber (University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill)

“Against Esoteric Metaphysics”

Alyssa Ney (University of Rochester)

“Are There Fundamental Intrinsic Properties?”

Rae Langton (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and

Chris Robichaud (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

“Intrinsicality and Ignorance”

Ross Cameron (University of Leeds)

“Quantification, Naturalness, and Ontology”

Douglas N. Kutach (Brown University)

“Real and Ordinary Language Metaphysics”

Carolina Sartorio (University of Wisconsin–Madison)

“The Prince of Wales Problem for Counterfactual Theories of Causation”

GX-J. Society for the Metaphysics of Science, Session 2

SATURDAY EVENING, APRIL 11

6:00-9:00 p.m.

Topic: New Waves in Metaphysics II

Chair: Alyssa Ney (University of Rochester)

Speakers:

Joshua Glasgow (Victoria University of Wellington)

“Another Look at the Reality of Race, By Which I Mean Race(F)”

Neal Judisch (University of Oklahoma)

“Bringing Things About”

Uriah Kriegel (University of Arizona)

“Interpretivism: It’s Scope and Limits”

Mari Mikkola (University of Lancaster)

“Is Everything Relative? Anti-realism, Truth, and Feminism”

Allan Hazlett (Fordham University)

“Post-essentialism”

Sara Rachel Chant (University of Missouri)

“The Metaphysics of Collective Action”

Upcoming SMS Events at the Chicago APA

Thursday, February 19, 5:15-7:15 PM

Group Session: Society for the Metaphysics of Science

Topic: Reduction in the Sciences
Chair: Carl Gillett, Northern Illinois University

Title: "Abstraction and the Shape of Reduction"
Speaker: Colin Klein, University of Illinois, Chicago

Title: "Reductionism Meets Complexity"
Speaker: Robert Bishop, Wheaton College

= = = =

Friday, February 20, 5:15-7:15 PM

Group Session: Society for the Metaphysics of Science

Topic: Author Meets Critics: James Ladyman & Don Ross's Every Thing Must Go

Chair: TBA
Critic 1: Andrew Melnyk, University of Missouri, Columbia
Critic 2: D. Gene Witmer, University of Florida

Author: Don Ross, University of Alabama at Birmingham & University of Cape Town)

Check your program for further details.