January 2018 Lunchtime Abstracts & Details

Distant Posterity
Nicholas Rescher, University of Pittsburgh
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: The human future and its correlative socio-economic circumstances have received surprisingly little attention from philosophers of science and philosophical theoreticians at large. The paper will survey some of the key issue involved.

Metaphysics of Science without an Eschatology of Science
Porter Williams, University of Pittsburgh
Friday, January 19, 2018
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: The appropriate strategy for charting the borderlands between science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics -- a topic of recurring debate throughout the 20th century -- has once again become a topic of active controversy. A number of philosophers have recently challenged the epistemic credentials of certain strategies for metaphysical investigation and advocated a "naturalized" metaphysics, arguing that only closer engagement with the sciences can yield epistemically warranted answers to questions in metaphysics. However, it has been almost entirely overlooked by these critics that our best physical theories -- quantum field theories -- are not up to the task of answering questions about the fundamental structure of the world that are of interest to many metaphysicians. What, then, is a naturalized metaphysician to do? In this talk, I will suggest one in which metaphysical theorizing about the fundamental structure of reality can profitably inform physics: we can translate these metaphysical proposals into methodological proposals for modeling speculative domains of physics. I conclude with an example: a metaphysically-motivated notion of "pointlessness" which has interesting consequences for quantum field theory.

Ecological Theory and the Niche
James Justus, Florida State University, Center Visiting Fellow
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: At least until Hubbell’s neutral theory emerged, no concept was thought more important to ecological theorizing than the niche. Without it––and its highly abstract definition by Hutchinson in particular––technically sophisticated and well-regarded theories of character displacement, community assembly, limiting similarity, and many others would seemingly never have been developed. The niche concept is also the centerpiece of perhaps the best candidate for a distinctively ecological law, the competitive exclusion principle. But the incongruous array of proposed definitions of the concept squares poorly with its apparent scientific centrality. I argue this definitional diversity reflects a problematic conceptual imprecision that challenges its putative indispensability in ecological theory. Recent attempts to integrate these disparate definitions into a unified characterization fail to resolve the imprecision.

Motivation for Non-standard Precise and Imprecise Probability
Teddy Seidenfeld, Carnegie Mellon University
Friday, January 26, 2018
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: (This is joint work with Jay Kadane, Mark Scherivsh, and Rafael Stern)
This presentation begins with motivation for a theory of non-standard probability in the setting where probabilities are precise. Using two old challenges — involving (A) symmetry of probabilistic relevance and (B) respect for weak dominance — I contrast the following three approaches to conditional probability given a (non-empty) “null” event and their three associated decision theories.

Approach #1 – Full Conditional Probability Distributions (Dubins, 1975) conjoined with Expected Utility.
Approach #2 – Lexicographic Probability conjoined with Lexicographic Expected Value (e.g., Blume et al., 1991)
Approach #3 – Non-standard Probability and Expected Utility based on Non-Archimedean Extensive Measurement (Narens, 1974).
The presentation ends with a progress-report on using Approach #3 within a context of Imprecise Probability.

The Microstructure of Scientific Revolutions
Simon DeDeo, Carnegie Mellon University/Santa Fe Inst.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: Large-scale shifts in the nature or subject of scientific inquiry are topics of perennial interest and historical analysis tells us a great deal about the sources of change in intellectual life. Much less is known about the smaller revolutions that might occur during what appears in between, leading us to undervalue the creativity and dynamism hidden in "normal science". Drawing on recent tools used for the analysis of political debate, I present a large scale analysis of the text of papers on the arXiv preprint server. This information theoretic study enables us to compare and contrast the development of empirical sciences, such as observational astrophysics, with largely theoretical endeavors such as string theory. And it reveals a continuum of microrevolutions in a range of subjects that can also form the basis for more qualitative and conceptual analysis.