The Rutgers Center for the Philosophy of Religion presents: A Fine-Tuning Extravaganza (with Luke Barnes, Barry Loewer, Tim Maudlin, Hans Halvorson, and Alex Pruss).
1. Monday, February 20th, 7pm, Luke Barnes, an astrophysicist from the Sydney Institute for Astronomy and co-author of “A Fortunate Universe”, will give a general-audience talk on the scientific side of fine-tuning. The talk will be at Hageman Hall, the large meeting room on the first floor of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary (corner of College Ave. and Seminary Place, right in the middle of the College Ave. campus). Luke is an engaging speaker and a respected scientist — this will be an excellent introduction to all the kinds of phenomena that are typically used in fine-tuning design arguments.
2. Tuesday, February 21st, 1pm-5pm, a Round-Table on Design Arguments, with remarks from Luke Barnes (Sydney), Barry Loewer (Rutgers), Hans Halvorson (Princeton), and comments from Tim Maudlin (NYU) and Alex Pruss (Baylor). This will be an open-ended exchange of ideas on the prospects and problems for using the “fine-tuning of the cosmos for life” (or for something) in arguments for a designer, or for a multiverse, or for… other things. The event will take place in the large lecture hall on the top floor of the Alexander Library on College Ave — NOT in the philosophy seminar room!
Both events are free and open to the public.
The Rutgers Center for the Philosophy of Religion presents: A Fine-Tuning Extravaganza (with Luke Barnes, Barry Loewer, Tim Maudlin, Hans Halvorson, and Alex Pruss).
1. Monday, February 20th, 7pm, Luke Barnes, an astrophysicist from the Sydney Institute for Astronomy and co-author of “A Fortunate Universe”, will give a general-audience talk on the scientific side of fine-tuning. The talk will be at Hageman Hall, the large meeting room on the first floor of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary (corner of College Ave. and Seminary Place, right in the middle of the College Ave. campus). Luke is an engaging speaker and a respected scientist — this will be an excellent introduction to all the kinds of phenomena that are typically used in fine-tuning design arguments.
2. Tuesday, February 21st, 1pm-5pm, a Round-Table on Design Arguments, with remarks from Luke Barnes (Sydney), Barry Loewer (Rutgers), Hans Halvorson (Princeton), and comments from Tim Maudlin (NYU) and Alex Pruss (Baylor). This will be an open-ended exchange of ideas on the prospects and problems for using the “fine-tuning of the cosmos for life” (or for something) in arguments for a designer, or for a multiverse, or for… other things. The event will take place in the large lecture hall on the top floor of the Alexander Library on College Ave — NOT in the philosophy seminar room!
Both events are free and open to the public.
Registration is free but required. Registration deadline: Friday, December 8, 2017.
Friday, December 15, 2017
10:15 a.m. — Welcoming Remarks and Introduction
10:30-11:15 a.m. — Sharon Street (New York University), “Realism, Nihilism, and the Concept of a Normative Reason”
11:15-11:45 a.m. — Discussion Chair: Thomas Hurka (University of Toronto)
11:45-12:00 — Coffee break 12:00-12:45 p.m. — Jeff McMahan (University of Oxford), “Doubts about Parfit’s No-Difference View”
12:45-1:15 p.m. — Discussion Chair: Stephanie Beardman (Princeton University)
1:15-2:30 p.m. — Lunch 2:30-3:15 p.m. — Elizabeth Harman (Princeton University), “Abortion and the Non-Identity Problem”
3:15-3:45 p.m. — Discussion Chair: Johann Frick (Princeton University)
3:45-4:00 p.m. — Coffee break
4:00-4:45 p.m. — Samuel Scheffler (New York University), “Temporal Neutrality and the Bias toward the Future”
4:45-5:15 p.m. — Discussion Chair: Alex Guerrero (Rutgers University)
Saturday, December 16, 2017
10:30-11:15 a.m. — Peter Singer (Princeton University) and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek (University of Łódź), “Parfit on Act-Consequentialism”
11:15-11:45 a.m. — Discussion Chair: Melinda Roberts (The College of New Jersey)
11:45-12:00 p.m. — Coffee break
12:00-12:45 p.m. — Mark Johnston (Princeton University), “Does Reasons and Persons (Part 3) Undermine Ethics?”
12:45-1:15 p.m. — Discussion Chair: Rahul Kumar (Queen’s University)
1:15-2:30 p.m. — Lunch
2:30-3:15 p.m. — Frances Kamm (Harvard University), “Parfit on the Irrelevance of Deontological Distinctions”
3:15-3:45 p.m. — Discussion Chair: Dale Jamieson (New York University)
3:45-4:00 p.m. — Coffee break
4:00-4:45 p.m. — Larry Temkin (Rutgers University), “Box Ethics”
4:45-5:15 p.m. — Discussion Chair: Ruth Chang (Rutgers University)
Concluding Remarks
For Conference Reservations, Directions, and Area Accommodations, please refer to the official event page.
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.