David Papineau (King’s College London) will be giving our first talk of the semester, entitled “Physicalism without Causal Closure” on Monday, March 2nd. The talk will be held from 4:00-6:00pm in Room B01, Goddard Hall (NYU). The abstract for his talk is below. Hope to see you all there!
“Physicalism without Causal Closure“
David Papineau, Kings College London
The standard argument for physicalism assumes the causal closure of the physical. But if causation is a macroscopic phenomenon, in the thermodynamic sense, then it cannot be taken for granted that the physical realm is causally closed. I argue that there remain strong reasons for embracing physicalism, but that the case needs to carefully constructed. We need to make sure that we do not beg the question, and that we introduce causal notions at the right place in the argument.
There will be a dinner after the talk. If you are interested, please email nyphilsci@gmail.com as soon as possible so that I can make the reservation for the appropriate number of people (please note that all faculty and grad students are welcome, but only the speaker’s dinner will be covered). If you have any other questions, please email nyphilsci@gmail.com.
Relativity, Causality and Natural Selection
In this talk I’ll present an alternative causal structure for biological evolution. First the causalist and statisticalist perspectives on evolutionary fitness are analyzed, finding them to implicitly depend on each other, and hence cannot be individually fundamental. I argue that this can be seen as an instance of a relativistic perspective over evolutionary phenomena and, therefore, insoluble. New accounts of fitness, the struggle for life, and Natural Selection are developed under this interpretation. This biological relativism is unique in that it draws from General Relativity in physics, unlike previous theories that drew upon statistical mechanics or Newtonian dynamics. Some consequences of this relativism, like a mathematical law of evolutionary change, as well as new theoretical biological concepts to underpin it, are discussed. The law and theory are then applied to give examples of how cannon and problems within evolutionary theory and biology can be understood using these new methods.
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People from outside NYU: if this is your *first* time coming to the seminar, let them know so we can make sure you will have access to the building.
*~*~* Beer is $2. Bring CHANGE *~*~*
The Philosophy of Statistics: Bayesianism, Frequentism and the Nature of Inference,
2015 APS Annual Convention
Saturday, May 23 2:00 PM- 3:50 PM in Wilder
(Marriott Marquis 1535 B’way)
Presenters:
Andrew Gelman, Professor of Statistics & Political Science, Columbia University
Stephen Senn, Head of Competence Center for Methodology and Statistics (CCMS) Luxembourg Institute of Health
D.G. Mayo, Professor of Philosophy, Virginia Tech
Richard Morey, Session Chair & Discussant, Senior Lecturer School of Psychology, Cardiff University
Our world is changing. Rising seas, spiking temperatures, and extreme weather imperil global infrastructure, crops, and water supplies. Our greatest enemy, it turns out, is ourselves. The warmer, wetter, more chaotic world we now live in—the Anthropocene—demands an intensive rethinking of the project of our species-being.
Might the various traditions of critical theory be a resource for thinking the Anthropocene? This is the topic that Roy Scranton, Stephanie Wakefield and McKenzie Wark will attempt to broach in this event.
Author, journalist, Iraq war veteran, and Princeton Ph.D candidate, Roy Scranton‘s journalism, essays, and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Boston Review, Contemporary Literature, and elsewhere. His book, Learning to Die in the Anthropocene has just been published by City Lights.
Stephanie Wakefield is co-founder of Woodbine, in Ridgewood, Queens, and a geographer at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is currently finishing a book on oysters and the ‘becoming infrastructure of nature/becoming nature of infrastructure,’ and teaching Urban Environmental Studies at Queens College.
McKenzie Wark is the author, most recently, of Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene (Verso Books), and teaches in Liberal Studies at the New School for Social Research
This event is sponsored by The New School for Social Research.
Shamik Dasgupta (Princeton University). Topic: TBA.
Michael Strevens (NYU). Topic:
Title: The Mathematical Route to Causal Understanding
Abstract: Causal explanation is a matter of isolating the elements of the causal web that make a difference to the explanandum event or regularity (so I and others have argued). Causal understanding is a matter of grasping a causal explanation (so says what I have elsewhere called the “simple theory” of understanding). It follows that causal understanding is a matter of grasping the facts about difference-making, and in particular grasping the reasons why some properties of the web are difference-makers and some are not. Mathematical reasoning frequently plays a role in our coming to grasp these reasons, and in some causal explanations, deep mathematical theorems may do almost all the work. In these cases — such as the explanation why a person cannot complete a traverse of the bridges of Königsberg without crossing at least one bridge twice — our understanding seems to hinge more on our appreciation of mathematical than of physical facts. We have the sense that mathematics gives us physical understanding. But this is quite compatible with the explanation in question being causal in exactly the same sense as more unremarkable causal explanations.
Laura Franklin-Hall (NYU). Topic: TBA.
Kathryn Tabb (Columbia University)
Topic: (joint work with Ken Schaffner, Pittsburgh HPS) “Random Walks and Torturous Paths: Moving from the Descriptive to the Etiological in Psychiatry”
Metro Area Philosophy of Science Presents:
Elizabeth Miller (Yale),
Title: TBA.
Jonathan Bain (NYU)
What Explains the Spin-Statistics Connection?
The spin-statistics connection plays an essential role in explanations of non-relativistic phenomena associated with both field-theoretic and non-field-theoretic systems (for instance, it explains the electronic structure of solids and the behavior of Einstein-Bose condensates and superconductors). However, it is only derivable within the context of relativistic quantum field theory (RQFT) in the form of the Spin-Statistics Theorem; and moreover, there are multiple, mutually incompatible ways of deriving it. This essay attempts to determine the sense in which the spin-statistics connection can be said to be an essential property in RQFT, and how it is that an essential property of one type of theory can figure into fundamental explanations offered by other, inherently distinct theories.
The Causality in the Sciences conference series brings together philosophers and scientists to explore various aspects of causality. This 12th conference in the series will focus on the relationship between time and causality.
The conference will explore all facets of the relationship between time and causality across philosophy, computation, and specific scientific disciplines. Some key themes include: arrow of time * causal inference from time series data * role of time in causal perception and judgment * time and causal metaphysics * applications to longitudinal datasets
Abstracts should be no more than 500 words, submitted via easychair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tacits2017
Important dates:
March 15 – Submission
April 15 – Notification of acceptance
Organizers: Samantha Kleinberg (Stevens), Michael Strevens (NYU)
Steering Committee: Phyllis Illari (UCL), Bert Leuridan (University of Antwerp), Julian Reiss, (Durham), Federica Russo (UvA), Erik Weber (Ghent) Jon Williamson (Kent)
In light of the chaos and fear caused for travel to the US by the possible immigration ban, and resulting calls to boycott US conferences, we have discussed whether we should go ahead with TaCits NY in June http://tacits.stevens.edu/. Given the work already put in by local organisers, and the fact that US academics would also appreciate support just now, we have decided to continue.
We are, however, very aware that some people may be unable or unwilling to travel to the conference. We ask that citizens of countries who wish to submit abstracts, but are potentially affected by the ban, get in touch with us, so that we can see whether it is possible to make any arrangements for some kind of remote access. We know that this is at best a half-solution, and apologise for that.
All the very best,
Causality in the Sciences steering committee
A panel discussion of Critical Theories and the Budapest School, edited by Jonathan Pickle and John Rundell.
Moderator:Dimitri Nikulin
Panelists: Andrew Arato, Richard J. Bernstein, Jonathan Pickle, and Agnes Heller
Presented by The New School for Social Research.
What does it mean that an event C “actually caused” event E? The problem of defining actual causation goes beyond mere philosophical speculation. For example, in many legal arguments, it is precisely what needs to be established in order to determine responsibility. (What exactly was the actual cause of the car accident or the medical problem?) The philosophy literature has been struggling with the problem of defining causality since the days of Hume, in the 1700s. Many of the definitions have been couched in terms of counterfactuals. (C is a cause of E if, had C not happened, then E would not have happened.) In 2001, Judea Pearl and I introduced a new definition of actual cause, using Pearl’s notion of structural equations to model counterfactuals. The definition has been revised twice since then, extended to deal with notions like “responsibility” and “blame”, and applied in databases and program verification. I survey the last 15 years of work here, including joint work with Judea Pearl, Hana Chockler, and Chris Hitchcock. The talk will be completely self-contained.
Deutsches Haus at NYU and the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute will jointly present the conference “Political Theology Today as Critical Theory of the Contemporary: Reason, Religion, Humanism,” to be held at Deutsches Haus at NYU, from February 15-17. Reverend Eugene F. Rivers III will deliver one of the keynote speeches. For a detailed conference schedule, please click here.
Across the globe the liberal logic of capitalism and technocracy has seemingly triumphed, and with it a culture of secularism, now the dominant ideology of the liberal establishment that prefers progress to tradition, an individualized identity to a sense of shared belonging, and free choice to common purpose. As much as this regime has produced wealth, it has also generated inequality and dissatisfaction. The populist insurgency that is sweeping the West is in large part a repudiation of this secular politics, opening the space for a post-liberal political theology. A resurgence of religion is underway that marks the failure of the secularization thesis and the need for alternative cultural resources, beyond positivism, to understand the place of humanity within the cosmos. Is this our new “Great Awakening”?
Amid the crisis of rationalism, critical theorists such as Jürgen Habermas have sought to rescue the project of a reasonable humanism from the twin threats of religious fundamentalism and secular naturalism. Yet Habermas’s conception of postsecularity remains residually secularist because he does not permit faith to make any substantive or critical contribution to public discussion that could undermine the primacy of formal, procedural reason. In response Pope Emeritus Benedict invoked Adorno and Horkheimer’s dialectic of enlightenment because the slogan “reason alone” leads to the dissolution of reason—to the conclusion that only will and power have any reality. The only way to avoid this outcome is to recall—so Benedict’s argument in his much-commented but poorly understood 2006 Regensburg address—that the West’s commitment to humanist reason is grounded in the classical and Christian idea that human rationality participates in the infinite reason of transcendence. Otherwise the rational is but the illusion of our own and of nature’s will to power.
The 2019 Telos Conference will discuss the role of political theology as critical theory of the contemporary: the reappearance of faith in civic life. The focus will not be on intellectual history but rather on how faith is reshaping politics and culture today.
Please note: Sessions taking place at Deutsches Haus at NYU will be open to the general public. Attendance for break-out sessions will be limited to conference participants who have registered with the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute only. Events at Deutsches Haus are free and open to the public. If you would like to attend this event, please send an email to deutscheshaus.rsvp@nyu.edu. As space at Deutsches Haus is limited, please arrive ten minutes prior to the event to ensure you get a good seat. Thank you!