What are laws of nature? The predominant view in contemporary philosophy of science is the Humean `best system account’ which holds that the laws of nature are merely descriptive, an efficient summary of contingent regularities that we find in the world. Using the concept of typicality, I will spell out a common anti-Humean intuition into a precise argument: A typical Humean world wouldn’t have any law-like regularities to begin with. Thus (I will argue), Humean metaphysics do not fit the objective order that we find in our universe.
There will be dinner after the talk. If you are interested, please send an email with `Dinner’ in the heading to nyphilsci@gmail.com (please note that all are welcome, but only the speaker’s dinner will be covered). If you have any other questions, please email isaac.wilhelm@rutgers.edu.
In her paper, “The Non-Governing Conception of Laws,” Helen Beebee argues that it is not a conceptual truth that laws of nature govern their instances, and that this fact insulates Humeans about laws of nature from some of the most pressing objections against their view. I agree with the first claim, but not the second. For although it is not a conceptual truth that laws govern, the view that laws govern follows straightforwardly from an important, though under-appreciated, principle that constrains scientific theory choice, and the principles that constrain scientific theory choice ought to constrain theory choice in metaphysics as well. I then show how the specific understanding of governance that plays a role in this argument raises serious concerns for Humeans about laws of nature.
There will be dinner after the talk. If you are interested, please send an email with `Dinner’ in the heading to nyphilsci@gmail.com (please note that all are welcome, but only the speaker’s dinner will be covered). If you have any other questions, please email isaac.wilhelm@rutgers.edu.
Presented by Metro Area Philosophers of Science
Over the last decades, the humanities have come under pressure from the scientific worldview. To many, it seems as if the humanities provide us at best with less-than-objective knowledge claims. Arguably, there are at least two overall reasons for this. On the one hand, the scientific worldview tends to associate objectivity with the kind of knowledge-acquisition, explanation, and justification characteristic of the natural sciences. On the other hand, the humanities themselves have contributed to the impression that they might be less relevant than the natural sciences to epistemic progress due to internal problems having to do with the very concept(s) of knowledge, reality and objectivity.
New Realism is a term for a whole series of current trends in philosophy that has important consequences for our understanding of knowledge in general. In particular, it reshapes our account of the human being qua source and object of knowledge claims. In this context, New Realism draws on a crucial indispensability thesis: we simply cannot eliminate the standpoint from which humans gather information about human and non-human reality alike from our account of reality itself. In light of this thesis, it turns out that the humanities are fully-fledged contributions to objective knowledge about reality – a fact we cannot ignore without succumbing to illusion. Against this background, the talk concludes that the so-called “scientific worldview” is untenable: it is built upon a denial of knowledge we actually possess, and so, by not being scientific enough, it fails to respect its own premises.
About the speaker:
Markus Gabriel holds the chair in epistemology, modern and contemporary philosophy at the University of Bonn. He is the director of the International Center for Philosophy and the multidisciplinary Center for Science and Thought. With Jocelyn Benoist he also directs Bonn-Paris Center for Research on New Realisms. His work focuses on contemporary philosophy, in particular epistemology and ontology, in an attempt to spell out the consequences of various trends in philosophy in a conversation with the humanities. Currently, he is working on a book called Fictions which deals with topics at the intersection of philosophy, literary studies and sociology.
The NYU Department of German and Deutsches Haus at NYU present “Objectivity and the Humanities – Prospects for a New Realism,” a talk by Professor Markus Gabriel.
Attendance information:
Events at Deutsches Haus are free of charge. If you would like to attend this event, please send us an email to deutscheshaus.rsvp@nyu.edu. Space at Deutsches Haus is limited; please arrive ten minutes prior to the event. Thank you!
“Objectivity and the Humanities – Prospects for a New Realism” is a DAAD-supported event.
Presented by Metro Area Philosophers of Science
Spring 2020 Schedule:
Anthony Aguirre (UCSC) – “Entropy in long-lived genuinely closed quantum systems”
6:30-8:30pm Tuesday Feb 4; NYU Philosophy Department (5 Washington Place), 3rd floor seminar room.
David Papineau (King’s College London & CUNY) – “The Nature of Representation”
4:30-6:30pm Tuesday March 3; CUNY Graduate Center (365 5th Ave, NYC), room 5307.
Jim Holt (Author of Why Does the World Exist?) – “Here, Now, Photon: Why Newton was closer to EM than Maudlin is”
4:30-6:30pm Tuesday April 7; CUNY Graduate Center (365 5th Ave, NYC), room 5307.
Deborah Mayo (Virginia Tech)
4:30-6:30pm Tuesday April 28; CUNY Graduate Center (365 5th Ave, NYC), room 5307.
Presented by Metro Area Philosophers of Science
Seen from a distance, competing views of laws of nature attend to different aspects of their target concept. The Best System Analysis (‘BSA’) focuses on the role of laws in systematizing our thoughts about particular facts, while non-Humean (‘realist’) views focus on whatever it is – N-relations among universals, powers – that pushes the universe from one state to another. Nothing stops us from combining these views: with the BSA, we can restrict the laws of science to summarizing particulars, while at the same time, with our preferred realism, positing a ‘driver’ that makes those particulars as they are.
So far, there have been only a few attempts to hybridize the BSA with some form of realism, and then only with the powers view. I argue that there is a deep assumption woven into the fabric of realism from Descartes’s time on: that the laws of a science report on facts, which in turn either are or involve the realist’s chosen driver. I argue that the best-known attempt to hybridize the BSA with a power’s view – Heather Demarest’s potency-BSA – still makes this Cartesian assumption, and faces significant objections as a result. The lesson is that anyone attempting to create hybrids should abandon that assumption entirely. After formulating what I take to be a more defensible powers-BSA hybrid, I go on to show how one might cross-breed the BSA with primitivism and with the universals view. By abandoning the Cartesian assumption, we can create hybrids that are considerably more defensible than their realist parents.
Location: Plaza View Room, 12th Floor, Lowenstein Building of Fordham Lincoln Center (113 W 60th St).
Directions: Enter at the corner of 60th and Columbus, and have a university ID ready. Please tell the security that you are attending an event hosted by the philosophy department. To get the Plaza View Room, take the escalators one floor up to find the elevators. Only some elevators go up to the 12th floor; for those that only go to the 11th floor, go to 11 and turn to the center of the main hallway to see a stairway to 12. Upon arriving at the 12th floor, take a right and walk all the way to the end through the doors. Please email Peter Tan (ptan8@fordham.edu) for any issues.
Due to technical limitations, the talk will be in-person only.
We are excited to announce the upcoming MAPS Symposium on the Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics, taking place at NYU on April 25th from 3pm-7pm. The event will feature talks from Eddy Chen, Emily Adlam, and Tim Maudlin. Further details can be found below.
Talks:
- Eddy Chen (UCSD): “The Wentaculus”
- Emily Adlam (Rotman Institute UWO): “The Temporal Asymmetry of Influence is Not Statistical.”
- Tim Maudlin (NYU): “Nonlocality”
Please note that while all are welcome to attend, non-NYU attendees must RSVP by emailing Diego Arana (da689@rutgers.edu) and Barry Loewer (loewer@philosophy.rutgers.edu) to ensure their names are added to the entry list for the NYU building. For any further information, please contact us through the emails just provided.
Presented by Metro Area Philosophers of Science
Directions: Enter the Philosophy building at 5 Washington Place, and have a university ID and vaccination card ready. For any questions, please contact Diego Arana (da689@rutgers.edu), Barry Loewer (loewer@philosophy.rutgers.edu) and Jack Mikuszewski (jhm378@nyu.edu).
Metro Area Philosophers of Science is pleased to announce the following confirmed talks this semester:
Heinrich Päs (TU Dortmund University)
4:00 p.m. EST, Sept 6th
Location: 6th-floor lounge, Philosophy Department, NYU, 5 Washington Place
Title: TBA
Eric Y Ling (University of Copenhagen)
4:00 p.m. EST, Sept 26th *
Location: TBA
Title: Spacetime extensions of the big bang
Lev Vaidman (Tel Aviv University)
Title: TBA
Further details to be announced.
Isaac Willhelm (National University of Singapore)
Title: TBA
Further details to be announced.