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    Marius Backmann (Konstanz): “Necessarily the Old Riddle – Necessary Connections, Laws of Nature, and the Problem of Induction”

Marius Backmann (Konstanz): “Necessarily the Old Riddle – Necessary Connections, Laws of Nature, and the Problem of Induction”

20 May 2019|

Marius Backmann (Konstanz): “Necessarily the Old Riddle – Necessary Connections, Laws of Nature, and the Problem of Induction”

In my talk, I will criticise recent attempts to solve the problem of induction by invoking a notion of necessary connections, as provided by necessitarian accounts of laws of nature or recent neo-Aristotelian powers accounts.

The basic model of the […]

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    Jonathan Livengood (University of Illinois): “Back to the Rubbish Bin: Experimental Philosophy and the Metaphysics of Causation”

Jonathan Livengood (University of Illinois): “Back to the Rubbish Bin: Experimental Philosophy and the Metaphysics of Causation”

12 March 2019|

 

Jonathan Livengood (University of Illinois): “Back to the Rubbish Bin: Experimental Philosophy and the Metaphysics of Causation”
For at least the last fifty years, philosophical research on causation has relied heavily on judgments about cases. We are asked to consider cases such as when Billy and Suzy throw rocks—one right after another—at a window and the window breaks, […]

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    Paul Menzel (Pacific Lutheran): “The Subjective Value of Life: What Is It?”

Paul Menzel (Pacific Lutheran): “The Subjective Value of Life: What Is It?”

27 February 2019|

 
Paul Menzel (Pacific Lutheran): “The Subjective Value of Life: What Is It?”
 
One kind of value that a person’s life has is subjective – the value of life to the person whose life it is. This value plays an important role in certain moral philosophies, in health economics and health policy, and in a wide range of normative […]

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W E B Du Bois (the Forum for Philosophy)

21 January 2019|

 

W E B Du Bois (the Forum for Philosophy)

W. E. B. Du Bois is usually remembered as a sociologist and civil rights campaigner, and his analysis of race and racism continues to shape the way social scientists think about these issues today. But a genuine polymath, he was also a skilled philosopher and in this event […]

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War (the Forum for Philosophy)

15 January 2019|

 

War (the Forum for Philosophy)

War scars human history and continues to mar lives across the globe. Is war part of human nature? Is it ever morally justified? And with the development of advanced weapon technologies, will future wars be more destructive than ever before? We bring together philosophers, a historian, and a cultural evolutionist to discuss […]

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    Liam Kofi Bright (LSE): “The Scientists Qua Scientist Makes No Assertion”

Liam Kofi Bright (LSE): “The Scientists Qua Scientist Makes No Assertion”

15 January 2019|

Liam Kofi Bright (LSE): “The Scientists Qua Scientist Makes No Assertion”

 

Assertions are, speaking roughly, descriptive statements which purport to describe some fact about the world. Philosophers have given a lot of attention to the idea that assertions come with special norms governing their behaviour. Frequently, in fact, philosophers claim that for something to count as an […]

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    Catrin Campbell Moore (Bristol): “Imprecise probabilities and undermining scenarios”

Catrin Campbell Moore (Bristol): “Imprecise probabilities and undermining scenarios”

6 November 2018|

 

Catrin Campbell Moore (Bristol): “Imprecise probabilities and undermining scenarios”

Sometimes one ends up in an unfortunate situation when you cannot come to a stable opinion: whatever belief you adopt makes you want to change your mind. I suggest that in such scenarios you should adopt imprecise probabilities.

Catrin Campbell […]

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    Sabina Leonelli (Exeter): “Understanding Science from the Data Up”

Sabina Leonelli (Exeter): “Understanding Science from the Data Up”

26 October 2018|

 

Sabina Leonelli (Exeter): “Understanding Science from the Data Up”

We live in a data-rich world, and yet diverse views on what constitutes reliable knowledge are proliferating and science is losing credibility as a source of verifiable, empirically grounded understanding of the world. I argue that both the overriding importance attributed to big data and the increasing contestation of […]

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    Craig Callender (UC, San Diego): “The Flow of Time: Stitching the World Together”

Craig Callender (UC, San Diego): “The Flow of Time: Stitching the World Together”

26 October 2018|

 

Craig Callender (UC, San Diego): “The Flow of Time: Stitching the World Together”

As we navigate through life, we employ a model of time as flowing. Despite its importance to us, physics suggests that this conception of time is fundamentally flawed, dismissing it as an illusion. Before we can dismiss the flow, however, we need to explain the […]

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Imagination in Science (the Forum for Philosophy)

24 October 2018|

 

Imagination in Science (the Forum for Philosophy)

Science is often mistakenly thought to involved nothing but cold reason. In reality, very human acts of creativity appear everywhere. We explore the role of imaginative thinking in science. Are thought experiments sources of knowledge or just hypotheses? Can a story or narrative also be a scientific explanation? And how should a scientist balance […]

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