Philosophy of Science

The Euclidean Programme

31 January 2024|

Mathematical knowledge has puzzled philosophers for millennia. The LSE’s own Imre Lakatos coined the term “Euclidean Programme” for the historically dominant way of thinking about this phenomenon. In a new volume published in the Elements in the Philosophy of Mathematics series by Cambridge University Press, Alexander Paseau (Oxford) and Wesley Wrigley (LSE) trace the history of the Euclidean […]

What Ought to Be Our Response to Moral Uncertainty?

21 August 2023|

Rational agents can be uncertain about what is objectively valuable. Former CPNSS visitor Luca Zanetti shows how the debate on model uncertainty in science is relevant to the debate on moral uncertainty in normative ethics. This offers new ways of managing moral uncertainty.

We can be uncertain not only about natural and social phenomena, or because our […]

AI, invertebrates, and the risk of living absurdly

27 March 2023|

In our latest blog article Jonathan Birch talks about his life as a researcher and reflects on the questions: What can we do to reduce the risk of living absurdly? And should we want to?

I. Absurdity

Imagine you’re the UK Health Secretary during the worst pandemic in a century, signing your name under the most restrictive public health rules […]

What else is ending and what is beginning?

16 March 2022|

What does the future hold for analytic and experimental philosophy? Petr Jedlička looks at current research methods and asks where the next generation of philosophers might lead us.

How to respond to Omicron: lessons from Alpha

7 December 2021|

When advisors warned of “significant concerns” about the Alpha variant, the UK government acted quickly. But suspicions about Alpha’s greater transmissibility were first noted a week earlier. Jonathan Birch suggests that when the stakes are so high, even low confidence in a particular outcome can be enough to justify policy interventions.

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    Statins and CVD (Cardio-Vascular Disease): Now It’s Personal!

Statins and CVD (Cardio-Vascular Disease): Now It’s Personal!

29 June 2021|

What does the evidence say about the effectiveness of statins and about the balance between effectiveness and possible adverse side-effects? John Worrall – a long-time analyst of evidence in medicine – has recently had personal reason to reconsider these questions.

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    How studying the history and philosophy of RNA can help us understand COVID-19

How studying the history and philosophy of RNA can help us understand COVID-19

25 May 2021|

How can the philosophy of science help inform our response to COVID-19? Stephan Guttinger looks at the history and philosophy of ribonucleic acid (RNA), a central but often overlooked molecule in the story of the pandemic.

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    Science and policy in extremis, part 2: the limits of SAGE’s neutrality and independence

Science and policy in extremis, part 2: the limits of SAGE’s neutrality and independence

20 April 2021|

Scientific advice cannot be completely neutral or independent, says Jonathan Birch. But records from autumn 2020 suggest that the Cabinet Office leant on SAGE to build in optimistic assumptions about the government’s ability to control the pandemic.

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    What are “scientific models”, and how much confidence can we place in them?

What are “scientific models”, and how much confidence can we place in them?

16 February 2021|

Modelling is vital if we are to control COVID-19, but it is not infallible. In this post, Roman Frigg and James Nguyen explain how epidemiological models work and consider the uncertainty inherent in their predictions.

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    Bad data and flawed models? Fact-checking Winsberg et al.’s case against lockdowns

Bad data and flawed models? Fact-checking Winsberg et al.’s case against lockdowns

26 January 2021|

Can the justification for current COVID restrictions be challenged on scientific grounds? Philippe van Basshuysen and Lucie White look at the evidence used by Winsberg et al. in their case against lockdowns.