Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science

The Center Discussion Group will meet this Friday, October 11 to discuss "Causation with a Human Face: Normative Theory and Descriptive Psychology", 2021, by J. F. Woodward, New York: Oxford University Press.
This week's reading: Chapter 2 (pp 61-114)

The Biological Interest Group will meet, Friday, October 11, 10:15am in 737 Heller Hall and online to discuss Ross, L.N. "Cascade versus Mechanism: The Diversity of Causal Structure in Science". British Journal for Philosophy of Science. https://doi.org/10.1086/723623
Author Lauren Ross, UC Irvine, will be visiting.

Cascade versus Mechanism: The Diversity of Causal Structure in Science | The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science: Vol 0, No ja The British Journal for the Philosophy of ScienceJust Accepted Previous articleNext article FreeCascade versus Mechanism: The Diversity of Causal Structure in ScienceLauren N. RossLauren N. Ross Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermi...

MCPS Colloquium
Friday, October 11, 2024, 3:35 pm
216 Pillsbury Drive, room 125 (formerly Nicholson Hall)

Types of Causation in the Life Sciences

Lauren Ross
Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of California, Irvine

All welcome

This semester, EMIG is reading Catherine Wilson’s Kant and the Naturalistic Turn of 18th Century Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022) The meeting on Friday October 4, 1:30pm CDT will focus on Chapters 3 and 4 (pp. 68–109).
For more information:

Research Groups What are we reading? Find out by exploring our research groups on conceptual aspects of different sciences.

The Biological Interest Group will meet, Friday, October 4, 10:15am in 737 Heller Hall and online to discussSchneider, T. 2024. The Microbiome Function in a Host Organism: A Medical Puzzle or an Essential Ecological Environment? Biological Theory 19:44–55

cla.umn.edu

New semester, first meeting this Friday.
The Biological Interest Group will meet, Friday, September 6, 10:15am in 737 Heller Hall and online to discuss Robinson, D.G., et al. 2024. "Mother trees, altruistic fungi, and the perils of plant personification." Trends in Plant Science 29:20-31.
For more details: https://cla.umn.edu/.../researc.../biological-interest-group

This Physics Interests Group will meet online and in parson this Friday, April 19, at 1:30pm to discuss the Oxford Handbook of the History of Quantum Interpretations. 2022. Chapter 35. The reception of the Forman thesis in modernity and postmodernity, Paul Forman
For more details see

cla.umn.edu

EMIG will conclude reading Spinoza’s "Principles of Cartesian Philosophy" 1998. Baruch Spinoza, Translated by Samuel Shirley. Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing pp. 86–91 (Part 3) at its meeting on Friday April 19, 1:30pm CDT.
For more information: http://mcps.umn.edu/groups/earlyModern.html

The Biological Interest Group will meet, Friday, April 19, 10:15am in 737 Heller Hall and online to discuss Henri Chastain's work in progress "The Multiple Decision Making Systems Confronts the Construct of Utility"

For more details: https://cla.umn.edu/mcps/research-programs/research-groups/biological-interest-group

The Center Discussion Group will meet this Friday, April 12 to discuss Chapter 8: The inferentialist view of natural kinds (pp. 249-272) in "Perspectival Realism" 2022. by Michela Massimi, New York: Oxford University Press.
More:

Center Discussion Group Information about the Center Discussion Group

The Biological Interest Group will discuss
Benning, J.W., J. Carlson, R.G. Shaw, and A. Harpak (manuscript) Confounding Fuels Hereditarian Fallacies.
at this week's meeting, Friday, April 12, 10:15am in 737 Heller Hall and online.

For more details:

Biological Interest Group Information about the Biological Interest Group

EMIG will continue reading Spinoza’s "Principles of Cartesian Philosophy" 1998. Baruch Spinoza, Translated by Samuel Shirley. Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing pp. 45–69 (Part 2, through proposition 18) at its meeting on Friday March 29, 1:30pm CDT. This will be an online meeting.
For more information: http://mcps.umn.edu/groups/earlyModern.html

This Physics Interests Group will meet online this Friday, March 29, at 1:30pm. Ray Pedersen will present their current research. Jeffrey Barrett (UC, Irvine) will be attending.
More details:
https://cla.umn.edu/.../research.../physics-interest-group

Jeffrey Barrett (UC Irvine)will be visiting the Biological Interest Group this week, Friday, March 29, 10:15am in 737 Heller Hall and online. We will discuss his upcoming paper with C Torsell "Learning how to Learn by Self-tuning Reinforcement."
More:

Biological Interest Group Information about the Biological Interest Group

March 21, 4pm in 737 Heller Hall. The FOundations Interest Group will be discussing: Maureen Eckert and Charlie Donahue (manuscript) "Towards a feminist logic: Val Plumwood’s legacy and beyond."

cla.umn.edu

The Biological Interest Group will discuss Kovaka, K. (draft manuscript) What is Meta-Analysis Good For?
Karen Kovaka (Philosophy, University of California San Diego) will be attending.
at this week's meeting, Friday, March 22, 10:15am in 737 Heller Hall and online.

Biological Interest Group Information about the Biological Interest Group

Colloquium, Friday, March 22, 3:35 pm 125 Nicholson Hall

Social Scientific Tools for Identifying Democratic Values

Karen Kovaka
Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego
Philosophers are paying more and more attention to the role that democratic values (the values of the public) can and should play in science. In particular, there is debate about the extent to which democratic values should inform scientific value judgments. This debate raises the question: What are the capabilities and limits of social scientific techniques for identifying democratic values in the first place? In this talk, I evaluate a variety of social scientific techniques, discuss their strengths and weaknesses with respect to the project of identifying democratic values, and consider how these considerations affect normative philosophical claims about the role of democratic values in science.