lunchtime colloquium 2015-16 and other talks

September 2015

::: Credit for Scientific Discoveries
Nicholas Rescher
University of Pittsburgh, Dept. of Philosophy
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R CL

::: COI: From Common Origin Inferences to Common Origin Ideas
Michel Janssen, Visiting Fellow
University of Minnesota
Friday, Sept. 18, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R CL

::: Visual Epistemic Representations as Tools for Gaining Information
Agnes Bolinska, Postdoc Fellow
University of Toronto
Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R CL

::: Dynamics and Diversity in Epistemic Communities
Cailin O'Connor, Visiting Fellow
University of California, Irvine
Friday, Sept. 25, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R CL

::: Epistemology of the Imagination
Michael Stuart, Postdoc Fellow
University of Toronto
Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2014
12:05 pm, 817R CL

October 2015

::: Attribution, Prediction, and the Causal Interpretation Problem in Epidemiology
Alex Broadbent
University of Johannesburg, Dept. of Philosophy
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

::: On Stuff
James Weatherall, Visiting Fellow
University of California, Irvine
Dept. of Logic and Philosophy of Science
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

::: Managing Complexity: Challenges of Modeling in Integrative Systems Biology
Nancy J. Nersessian, Senior Visiting Fellow
Harvard University, Dept. of Psychology
Friday, October 16, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

::: Continuities and Discontinuities across Theory Change in Cassirer’s Relativized Conception of the A Priori
Francesca Biagioli, Visiting Fellow
University of Konstanz, Dept. of Philosophy
Friday, October 30, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

November & December 2015

::: Compositionality in Proof-theoretic Semantics
Heinrich Wansing
Ruhr University
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

::: G.E.M. Anscombe on the Analogical Unity of Intention in Perception and Action
Christopher Frey
University of South Carolina
Friday, November 20, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

::: Reasoning from Regularities: Science and Cognitive Science
Matthias Unterhuber, Visiting Fellow
University of Bern, Dept. of Philosophy
Friday, December 4, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

::: Homology Thinking: what is it and what are its implications?
Günter P. Wagner
Yale University
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

January 2016

::: How to Fix Inference to the Best Explanation
Nicholas Rescher
University of Pittsburgh, Dept. of Philosophy
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
12:05 pm
817R Cathedral of Learning

::: Demarcating Nature, Defining Ecology
Andrew Inkpen
Visiting Fellow, Harvard University
Friday, January 22, 2016
12:05 pm
817R Cathedral of Learning

::: Microbial Life on Earth: Tree or Forest?
Carol Cleland
Visiting Fellow, University of Colorado, Boulder
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
12:05 pm
817R Cathedral of Learning

February 2016

::: What is a Complex Problem?
Mael Pegny, Visiting Fellow
University of Paris
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
12:05 pm
817R Cathedral of Learning


::: Biological Organization and the Naturalization of Teleology
Leonardo Bich, Visiting Fellow
University of Chile, Biology of Cognition Lab
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
12:05 pm
817R Cathedral of Learning


::: Two Types of Ceteris Paribus Laws
Matthias Unterhuber, Visiting Fellow
University of Bern, Switzerland
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
12:05 pm
817R Cathedral of Learning


::: Meshed Control in Skilled Action
Wayne Christensen
Macquarie University
Friday, February 19, 2016
12:05 pm
817R Cathedral of Learning


::: Blur, Visual Consciousness, and Empirical Friction
Wayne Wu
Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
Carnegie Mellon University
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
12:05 pm
817R Cathedral of Learning

March 2016

::: How Einstein did not Discover
John D. Norton
University of Pittsburgh
Ctr. for Philosophy of Science/Dept. of HPS
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
12:05 pm
817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: I will present an intemperate survey of some myths.


::: Explanation, Conditions and Causes
Carsten Held
University of Erfurt
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
12:05 pm
817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: A theory of explanation I find promising assumes that an explanation offers a proposition that is a necessary and, given the circumstances, sufficient condition of the explanandum. I will sketch the theory in three steps. In the first step, I propose an account of conditionship, in general. In the second step, I show how this account can be put to work in the context of explanation. I focus on the classic counterexamples to Hempel’s deductive-nomological model of explanation and on problem cases having to do with causal explanation and, accordingly, causation (preemption cases). The claim, implied in the theory, that an acceptable explanation minimally presents a necessary condition of the explanandum, will be shown to handle both kinds of cases. Time permitting, I will in a third step take up Hempel’s idea that an ideal scientific explanation is a sound argument for the explanandum. A way to integrate this assumption into the present theory is to assume that an ideal explanation presents an argument such that one premise presents a necessary condition of the explanandum, while the second says that that condition, given the circumstances, is sufficient for the explanandum.

April 2016

::: Life Without Definitions
Carol Cleland, Visiting Fellow
U. Colorado-Boulder, Dept. of Philosophy
Tuesday, April 12
12:05 pm
817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: The question ‘what is life?’ is foundational to biology and especially important to astrobiologists, who may one day encounter utterly alien life. But how should we answer this question? The most popular strategy among both philosophers and scientists is to define ‘life’. I argue that this strategy is badly flawed on both logical and empirical grounds. What we need to answer the question is not a definition but an empirically adequate scientific theory of life. Yet we are in no position to formulate such a theory. Recent discoveries in molecular biology and biochemistry have revealed that familiar Earth life not only represents a single example but one that could have been at least modestly different in important ways at the molecular level. Moreover it is widely conceded by biochemists that we don’t know how different life could be given chemical and physical conditions very different from those on Earth. The upshot is that life on Earth today provides an empirically inadequate foundation for generalizing about life. The situation is not, however, as hopeless as it may seem. I sketch a strategy for procuring the needed additional examples of life without the guidance of a definition or theory of life, and close with an application to NASA’s fledgling search for extraterrestrial life.