Our final session of 2017 will be on Friday 15th of December, 10.30-12.30, in 7113 (The Philosophy Thesis Room) at the CUNY Graduate Center.
We will be discussing the attached paper by Louise Daoust (Penn/Eckerd) on Perspectival Geometry and Spatial Perception.
Hope to see you there.
PoPRocks (formerly known as ‘WoPoP’) is an ongoing series in the NYC area for early career researchers – typically grad students and postdocs – working on philosophy of psychology/mind/perception/cognitive science/neuroscience/… . We usually meet roughly once every 2 weeks to informally discuss a draft paper by one of our members, but Spring 2018 we will be meeting less frequently. Typically presenters send a copy of their paper around 1 week in advance, so do join the mailing list (by emailing poprocksworkshop@gmail.com or one of the organizers) or email to ask for a copy of the paper. We aim for a friendly, constructive discussion with the understanding that the drafts discussed are typically work in progress.
PoPRocks (formerly known as ‘WoPoP’) is an ongoing series in the NYC area for early career researchers – typically grad students and postdocs – working on philosophy of psychology/mind/perception/cognitive science/neuroscience/… . We usually meet roughly once every 2 weeks to informally discuss a draft paper by one of our members, but Spring 2018 we will be meeting less frequently. Typically presenters send a copy of their paper around 1 week in advance, so do join the mailing list (by emailing poprocksworkshop@gmail.com or one of the organizers) or email to ask for a copy of the paper. We aim for a friendly, constructive discussion with the understanding that the drafts discussed are typically work in progress.
If expansion is not the best explanation for the relevant data, then one can motivate certain normative claims about methodological shifts in contemporary cosmology. To wit—more thought should be dedicated to alternate explanations for red-shifting phenomena, and to the development and careful analysis of indirect tests for expansion as against alternative cosmological models.
Abstract: TBD.
Abstract: TBD.
Abstract: My main aim is to make a remark about the relation between (i) dualities between theories, as `duality’ is understood in physics and (ii) equivalence of theories, as `equivalence’ is understood in logic and philosophy. The remark is that in physics, two theories can be dual, and accordingly get called `the same theory’, though we interpret them as disagreeing—so that they are certainly equivalent, as `equivalent’ is normally understood. So the remark is simple: but, I shall argue, worth stressing—since often neglected.
My argument for this is based on the account of duality by De Haro and myself: which is illustrated here with several examples, from both elementary physics and string theory. Thus I argue that in some examples, including in string theory, two dual theories disagree in their claims about the world.
I also spell out how this remark implies a limitation of proposals (both traditional and recent) to understand theoretical equivalence as either logical equivalence or a weakening of it.
Abstract: TBD.
PoPRocks (formerly known as ‘WoPoP’) is an ongoing series in the NYC area for early career researchers – typically grad students and postdocs – working on philosophy of psychology/mind/perception/cognitive science/neuroscience/… . We usually meet roughly once every 2 weeks to informally discuss a draft paper by one of our members, but Spring 2018 we will be meeting less frequently. Typically presenters send a copy of their paper around 1 week in advance, so do join the mailing list (by emailing poprocksworkshop@gmail.com or one of the organizers) or email to ask for a copy of the paper. We aim for a friendly, constructive discussion with the understanding that the drafts discussed are typically work in progress.
“Reasoning often involves searching for information relevant to answering some question or determining the truth value of some proposition. Starting from a set of propositions, akin to a patch of resources in the environment, reasoners draw inferences, akin to harvesting resources from that patch. Reasoners forage through the space of propositions to find potentially informative patches, each of which promises multiple paths of inferences. Once reasoning from a premise patch begins, reasoners follow a path of inferences relevant to the reasoner’s goal. While foraging along these inferential paths, information relevant to the question or proposition is gathered from the premises. By interpreting reasoning in terms of information intake, a novel model of reasoning can be built.”
PoPRocks (formerly known as ‘WoPoP’) is an ongoing series in the NYC area for early career researchers – typically grad students and postdocs – working on philosophy of psychology/mind/perception/cognitive science/neuroscience/… . We usually meet roughly once every 2 weeks to informally discuss a draft paper by one of our members, but Spring 2018 we will be meeting less frequently. Typically presenters send a copy of their paper around 1 week in advance, so do join the mailing list (by emailing poprocksworkshop@gmail.com or one of the organizers) or email to ask for a copy of the paper. We aim for a friendly, constructive discussion with the understanding that the drafts discussed are typically work in progress.
What is the metaphysical status of quantum field theory (QFT)? How should field theories be interpreted? These questions have received considerable attention over the past few decades in various research projects in physics, mathematics, and philosophy, but there is no clear consensus on any of them. One finds a variety of different approaches to understanding QFTs — Algebraic QFT, conventional QFT, Bell-type Bohmian QFT, etc. — and different interpretations — realism, instrumentalism, and structuralism. What are the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches? What is the status of the measurement problem in these theories? And more generally, how should QFT inform the metaphysics of science?
The two-day Rutgers workshop aims to bring together researchers who work on these different approaches. It will provide opportunities for in-depth discussions about metaphysical issues in QFT. As we have limited seating in the seminar room, RSVP is required; please send an email to sr3109@columbia.edu if you’d like to attend.
(Information about the previous workshop in 2017, on structural realism, can be found here.)
Organizers: Eddy Chen (Rutgers), Sebastien Rivat (Columbia), Isaac Wilhelm (Rutgers)
Sponsors: Marc Sanders Foundation, Rutgers University Philosophy Department, Columbia University Philosophy Department, Rutgers Graduate Student Association.
Conference Schedule:
Thursday, May 17
- 9:45 – 10:00. David Baker (Michigan), “Introduction to the Ontology of QFT”
- 10:00 – 11:30. David Baker (Michigan), “Interpreting Supersymmetry”
- 11:45 – 1:15 Ward Struyve (KULeuven), “Bohmian Quantum Field Theory”
- 1:15 – 2:30. Lunch
- 2:30 – 4:00. Tian Yu Cao (Boston), “What is a Quantum Field?”
- 4:15 – 5:45. Anna Ijjas (Columbia), “QFT on Curved Space-times and its Applications in Cosmology”
- 6:30. Conference Dinner
Friday, May 18
- 9.45 – 10:00. Michael Miller (Toronto), “Introduction to Major Approaches to QFT”
- 10:00 – 11:30. Porter Williams (Pittsburgh), “The Physics within Metaphysics”
- 11:45 – 1:15. Laura Ruetsche (Michigan), “Perturbing Realism”
- 1:15 – 2:30. Lunch
- 2:30 – 4:00. Michael Miller (Toronto), “Indeterminacy at Large Order”
- 4:15 – 5:45. David Wallace (USC), “Quantum Metaphysics from an Effective-Field-Theory Viewpoint”
- 6:30. Dinner
Invited Discussants:
Richard Healey (Arizona), Meinard Kuhlmann (Bremen), James Ladyman (Bristol), Jeremy Butterfield (Cambridge), Brian Pitts (Cambridge), Ryan Reece (CERN), David Albert (Columbia), Mario Hubert (Columbia), Elise Crull (CUNY), Noel Swanson (Delaware), Ned Hall (Harvard), David Glick (Ithaca), Ward Struyve (LMU), Gordon Belot (Michigan), Nina Emery (Mount Holyoke), Valia Allori (NIU), Jonathan Bain (NYU), Cian Dorr (NYU), Hartry Field (NYU), Tim Maudlin (NYU), Michael Strevens (NYU), Adam Elga (Princeton), Hans Halvorson (Princeton), Mark Johnston (Princeton), Gideon Rosen (Princeton), Bob Batterman (Pittsburgh), Natan Andrei (Rutgers), Sheldon Goldstein (Rutgers), Matthias Lienert (Rutgers), Barry Loewer (Rutgers), Jill North (Rutgers), Zee Perry (Rutgers), Jonathan Schaffer (Rutgers), Ted Sider (Rutgers), Dean Zimmerman (Rutgers), Alyssa Ney (UC Davis), Paul Teller (UC Davis), Marian Gilton (UCI), Nick Huggett (UIC), Kerry McKenzie (UCSD), Charles Sebens (UCSD), Elizabeth Miller (Yale).
Conference hotel: Hyatt Regency New Brunswick.
*This workshop is made possible through the generous support of the Marc Sanders Foundation, Rutgers University Philosophy Department, Columbia University Philosophy Department, and Rutgers Graduate Student Association. Special thanks to Professor Mark Johnston, Professor Dean Zimmerman, and the administrative staff at Rutgers and Columbia.
SWIP-Analytic Fall 2018 Events
Thursday, September 20, 4:00pm-6:00pm
CUNY Graduate Center, Room 9205
Meghan Sullivan (Notre Dame), “Temporal Discounting in Psychology and Philosophy: Four Proposals for Mutual Research Aid”
Thursday, October 18, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Amie Thomasson (Dartmouth), Title TBA
Thursday, November 8, 4:00pm-6:00pm
Location TBA
Jessica Wilson (Toronto), Title TBA
More details will be added as they become available. Click here to download the flyer as a PDF.
We show that in the Maxwell–Lorentz theory of classical electrodynamics most initial values for fields and particles lead to an ill-defined dynamics, as they exhibit singularities or discontinuities along light-cones. This phenomenon suggests that the Maxwell equations and the Lorentz force law ought rather to be read as a system of delay differential equations, that is, differential equations that relate a function and its derivatives at different times. This mathematical reformulation, however, leads to physical and philosophical consequences for the ontological status of the electromagnetic field. In particular, fields cannot be taken as independent degrees of freedom, which suggests that one should not add them to the ontology.
(joint work with Vera Hartenstein)
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.
MAPS is supported by Rutgers, Columbia, NYU, and most recently, a generous gift from member Dan Pinkel.
Motivated by considerations from relativity theory, philosophers have recently contended that talk about an object’s existence in time should not be taken as fundamental, but rather analysed in the language of a formal theory of location in spacetime. This suggestion has important consequences for the debate about persistence: how do ordinary objects exist at different times? It has triggered a program of recovery whereby the main views from the classical debate, previously expressed using the language of temporal mereology, have been redefined in a locational framework. In this paper, I extend this program to the stage theory of persistence, the view according to which objects are instantaneous three-dimensional stages which exist at different times by virtue of having counterparts at these times. I offer a new characterization of the view, the first in a purely locational language, and argue that this locational approach helps dissolve confusions about the view.
The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will be meeting on Mondays from 4:15 to 6:15 in room TBD of the Graduate Center, CUNY (365 5th Avenue). The (provisional) schedule is as follows:
Feb 4. Melvin Fitting, CUNY
Feb 11. Benjamin Neeser, Geneva
Feb 18. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Feb 25. Achille Varzi, Columbia
Mar 4. Eric Bayruns Garcia, CUNY
Mar 11. Romina Padro, CUNY
Mar 18. Jeremy Goodman, USC
Mar 25. Kit Fine, NYU
Apr 1. Elena Ficara, Paderborn
Apr 8. Chris Scambler, NYU
Apr 15. Jenn McDonald, CUNY
Apr 22. GC CLOSED. NO MEETING
Apr 29. Tommy Kivatinos, CUNY
May 6. Daniel Durante, Natal
May 13. Martina Botti, Columbia
May 20. Vincent Peluce, CUNY