I’m giving a talk entitled ‘Natural Kind Essentialism Revisited’ at the Departmental Research Seminar at Helsinki on November 1, 4-6pm. The talk takes place at Room A110, Metsätalo, 1st floor, Unioninkatu 40A. The basement is rather difficult to get to, so if you’re interested in coming but don’t know where the venue is, do get in touch with me. A full draft of the paper is available here, the abstract is below — any comments are welcome!

Recent work on natural kind essentialism has taken a deflationary turn: biological and chemical kinds in particular have come under scrutiny. The assumptions about the grounds of essentialist truths concerning natural kinds familiar from the Kripke-Putnam framework are now considered questionable. The source of the problem, however, has not been sufficiently explicated. I will focus on the Twin Earth scenarios and demonstrate that the essentialist principle at its core (which I call IDENT), namely that necessarily, chemical substance A is identical with chemical substance B if and only if A and B have the same molecular composition, must be re-evaluated. The Twin Earth scenarios also assume the falsity of another essentialist principle (which I call INST): necessarily, only the actual molecular composition of any chemical substance can produce the chemical properties of that substance. I will call this assumption into question and argue that, in fact, the best strategy for defending IDENT is to establish INST. I will then assess the prospects for natural kind essentialism and microstructural essentialism regarding chemical substances, with reference to some recent work in the philosophy of chemistry.

Funnily enough, I don’t think I’ve ever attended a conference in Helsinki, even though it’s my home town. The 4th EPSA conference might very well change that. I haven’t participated in strict philosophy of science conferences for a while, but I’ve been to several before, including the second EPSA where I organized a symposium. This time I might consider submitting a normal paper. Plenty of time until the deadline though. Helsinki should still be nice towards the end of August (it is at the moment), so this is certainly worth recommending!

4th Conference of the EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE ASSOCIATION

EPSA13

Helsinki, Finland, 28-31 August 2013

http://www.helsinki.fi/epsa13/

Submission deadline: 15 January 2013

The Fourth Conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA) will be organized and hosted by the Finnish Centre of Excellence in the Philosophy of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, Finland, 28-31 August 2013.

EPSA invites contributed papers and proposals for symposia.

The conference has eight sections:

1. General philosophy of science
2. Philosophy of the physical sciences
3. Philosophy of the life sciences
4. Philosophy of the cognitive sciences
5. Philosophy of the social sciences
6. Philosophy of technology and applied research
7. Formal philosophy of science
8. Historical, social and cultural studies in philosophy of science

INVITED SPEAKERS: Alison Wylie (University of Washington), Martin Kusch (University of Vienna), Hannes Leitgeb (University of Munich)

CONTRIBUTED PAPERS: Please submit an abstract of 1000 words prepared for blind review. Abstracts should start with the number and title of the relevant section. The allocated time for delivering contributed papers at the conference will be 30 minutes, including discussion.

SYMPOSIUM PROPOSALS: Please submit a full proposal that includes the number and title of the relevant section, the title of the proposed symposium, a general description of the topic and its significance (up to 1500 words), and titles and abstracts of all papers (up to 300 words for each paper). The symposium proposals should be prepared for blind review, but make sure that you provide separately a list of all participants (including the chair) and their contact information (institutional affiliation and e-mail addresses), and indicate the organizer(s) of the symposium proposal (who may or may not be a proposed speaker). Accepted symposia will be allocated 120 minutes, including discussion. They can have any format but the maximum number of speakers is 5. Symposium proposals that explore connections between different areas or research programs in philosophy of science or between philosophy of science and sciences are encouraged.

Please note that no one will be permitted to present more than one paper (either a symposium paper or a contributed paper including papers jointly authored with others) on the EPSA 13 program. All submissions will be reviewed, but in case both a symposium paper and a contributed paper by the same author(s) are under consideration for the program, the priority will be given to the symposium paper. Symposium participants are kindly asked to inform their symposium organizers if they are involved in more than one symposium proposal. Similarly, co-authors of papers are kindly asked to inform their co-authors if they are authors in other papers.

All questions about submissions should be directed to the co-chairs of the Program Committee for EPSA 13: Stéphanie Ruphy (stephanie.ruphy@wanadoo.fr) and Gerhard Schurz (gerhard.schurz@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de). Members of the Program Committee and Local Organizing Committee for EPSA 13 are listed at

http://www.helsinki.fi/epsa13/

All submissions have to be made electronically through the EasyChair system at

https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=epsa13

Please notice that first time users have to register as users of the EasyChair conference system.

IMPORTANT DATES

15 January 2013: Submission deadline (contributed papers and symposia)
15 April 2013: Notification of acceptance
15 June 2013: Early registration deadline
28-31 August 2013: Conference

This looks quite interesting, nice set of plenary speakers too. Ladyman is generally a great addition to these types of conference, dealing with the interface between philosophy of science and metaphysics and/or the rest of philosophy. Note that they accept proposals for symposia as well. I’m almost tempted; I successfully organised a symposium at the European Philosophy of Science Association conference in 2009, featuring Alexander Bird, Robin Hendry, and Paul Winstanley. If I were to organise one, it would probably be something on philosophy of physics, as I’ve been recently thinking about the relevance of scientific discovery for philosophy and most interesting cases come from particle physics. I dealt with this with my popular post on the Higgs ‘discovery’. I’m thinking of following up on this with a post on the philosophical relevance of Standard Model more generally, and the ‘discovery’ of particles which the SM regards as fundamental in particular. Anyway, it’s always a bit of work to plan something like this, and I’m rather busy at the moment (but if you’re reading this and think you’d have something great to contribute to such a symposium, do let me know).

GWP.2013 Call for Papers – Call for Symposia

First International Conference of the German Society for Philosophy of Science

“How Much Philosophy in the Philosophy of Science?”

Leibniz University Hannover, Germany

March 11–14, 2013

In September 2011 the German Society for Philosophy of Science (Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftsphilosophie – GWP) was founded with the aim to better integrate the community of philosophers of science and scientists interested in philosophy of science in Germany and thereby to promote the field at a local as well as an international level. The GWP aims to organize an international conference every three years. The first conference will take place in Hannover with the overarching theme “How much philosophy in the philosophy of science?” (See www.wissphil.de/gwp2013 for aims and scope of the conference.)

The conference is open for contributions on any topic within the philosophy of science, construed broadly, and contributed papers will be clustered into parallel sessions focusing on a particular theme or special science. The overarching theme of the conference will explicitly be addressed in the plenary lectures as well as a number of parallel sessions. Contributed papers that address the conference theme are therefore particularly encouraged. Plenary lectures will be given by:
Peter Godfrey-Smith (New York)
Stephan Hartmann (Tilburg)
James Ladyman (Bristol)
Chrysostomos Mantzavinos (Athens)
Sandra D. Mitchell (Pittsburgh)
Margaret Morrison (Toronto)
Wolfgang Spohn (Konstanz)

We welcome proposals for individual papers (30 min plus 15 min discussion) or symposia (3 speakers in a total 2-hour session). Graduate students are especially encouraged to submit proposals for either individual papers or symposia. All submissions will be subjected to a blind refereeing procedure. Proposals for papers should include the title and abstract (up to 500 words), but no personal information. Please attach a second file with your name, affiliation, contact details, and the title of the submitted paper. Symposia proposals should include the symposium title, a description of the symposium’s rationale (up to 500 words) and for each of the 3 speakers the title and abstract (up to 500 words), but no names. Please attach a second file with names, affiliations, contact details of the symposium organizers and speakers, and the title of the proposed symposium. If your paper/symposium addresses the overarching conference theme, please indicate this in the attached file where names etc. are specified. If you or (one or more of) the speakers in your symposium are graduate students, please indicate this, too.

For submission via EasyChair see: www.wissphil.de/gwp2013

The deadline for all submissions is: 30 September 2012.

Organization: Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Dietmar Hübner, Meinard Kuhlmann, Holger Lyre, Thomas Reydon, Torsten Wilholt

www.wissphil.de

This workshop in Cologne might be of interest to some readers.

L A W S & C H A N C E S
Workshop in Cologne
March 5, 2012

DFG Research Group Causation | Laws | Dispositions | Explanation

SPEAKERS

Claus Beisbart (University of Dortmund)
Barry Loewer (Rutgers University)
Alexander Reutlinger (University of Cologne)
John T. Roberts (University of North Carolina)
Markus Schrenk (University of Cologne)

TALKS

Loewer: “Two Accounts of Laws and Time”

Schrenk: “Do Better Best Systems Accounts deliver the Metaphysics, Epistemology or Pragmatics of Laws?

Beisbart: “Big or Bug? A Skeptical Guide to Humean Chances”

Reutlinger: “Ceteris Paribus Law = Statistical Law?”

Roberts: “Counterfactuals, Norms, and Natural Modality”

REGISTRATION
Please register by sending an email to Arno Göbel: arno.goebel@gmx.de. We can offer only a limited number of places. The Deadline for registration is February 26, 2012.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact the organizer:
Alexander.Reutlinger@uni-koeln.de

FURTHER INFORMATION ON THE RESEARCH GROUP
http://www.clde.uni-koeln.de/

Not really in my area, but I guess I should advertise stuff happening in Finland, and Helsinki in particular. So, make a note of this if you work in philosophy of science, or more specifically on methodological issues concerning models and simulations. I won’t be in the country anyway…

Call for papers

MODELS AND SIMULATIONS 5

Helsinki, 14-16 June 2012

The Finnish Centre of Excellence in the Philosophy of the Social
Sciences is delighted to host the 5th Models and Simulations (MS5)
conference in Helsinki.

Conference website: http://www.helsinki.fi/ms5

The previous MS meetings have taken place in Paris, Tilburg,
Charlottesville, and Toronto. As before, the overall theme of the
conference will be the philosophical and methodological issues of
simulations and models, broadly construed.

Papers on any aspect of this theme are welcome from both philosophers
and practicing scientists. One focus of the 5th meeting will be on
models and simulations within and across the social sciences. Of
course, submissions of papers related to the natural sciences in
particular and modeling and simulating in general are also welcome.
Possible topics include the following: Models, simulations, and
scientific representation. Models, simulations, and scientific
explanation. Fictions vs. idealizations. The role of simplicity,
generality, robustness, unifying power, and other non-empirical
epistemic virtues in modeling. Styles and conventions of modeling in
different disciplines. Transfer of model templates and modelling
methods across disciplinary boundaries. What kinds of inherent biases
do model-based research heuristics involve? What standards should be
used in assessing model-based expertise in policy applications? How to
combine different sources of evidence within a model? How to render
model-based evidence commensurable with other evidence?

Keynote speakers

• Rosaria Conte (ISTC-CNR, Rome)
• Mary Morgan (LSE)
• Tim Benton (Leeds)

SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS

Abstracts of 100 words and extended abstracts of 800-1000 words

The deadline for submission is 5 February 2012

Abstract submission is electronic. To submit, please prepare a PDF
file of your extended abstract. Make sure that the extended abstract
is prepared for blind review. Then follow this link:

https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=ms5

If you do not already have an EasyChair account, you first need to
create one when you enter the site. When logged in, click on the new
submission link. Include your 100 words abstract and upload the PDF
file of your extended abstract. You will be able to revise your
submission any number of times before the deadline.

For further information and inquiries, please contact
jaakko.kuorikoski@helsinki.fi