Sociedad de Lógica, Metodología y Filosofía de la Ciencia

Se informa que la Universidad de Valencia ha enviado al Diario Oficial de la Generalitat Valenciana (DOGV) la convocatoria de una plaza de Profesor Ayudante Doctor para el área de Historia de la Ciencia adscrita al Departamento de Historia de la Ciencia y Documentación de esta Universidad.

El profesor que ocupe la plaza estará adscrito a este Departamento y tendrá la posibilidad de adscribirse posteriormente al Instituto de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia López Piñero (UV-CSIC).

   All researchers working on various aspects of "Cultures of Mathematics and Logic", including, but certainly not limited to, philosophers, sociologists, historians of mathematics, mathematicians, and researchers in mathematics education, are cordially invited to submit their one page abstracts by the submission deadline of 30 June 2012 (see below for details).

DESCRIPTION OF THE CONFERENCE. Mathematics and formal reasoning are fundamental building blocks of knowledge, essential for science, technology, policy-making and risk-management. Mathematical practice is a rich phenomenon of human activity, with subtle differences between various cultures: here, the word culture can refer to national cultures, but also cultural differences in different historical periods, in different strata of a given society, in different social settings.

And yet, the public perception of mathematics is of an apersonal subject with little or no human interaction, based on a false picture of a science of pure thought and deduction, with almost no interaction or visible activity.

In a move away from these traditionalist positions, philosophers and social scientists have recently become more interested in studying mathematical and logical practice, or, to be precise, different mathematical and logical practices. Our conference will focus on this plurality of viewpoints, studying the various cultures of mathematics and logic, and involve several disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, psychology, cognitive science, history of mathematics, mathematics education, and linguistics.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS.

* Andrea Bender. Universität Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
* Karine Chemla. Equipe Recherches Epistémologiques et Historiques sur les Sciences Exactes et les Institutions Scientifiques (REHSEIS), Paris, France.
* Christian Greiffenhagen. University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
* Shirong Guo. Inner Mongolia Normal University, Hohhot, China.
* Juan Pablo Mejía Ramos. Rutgers University, Piscataway NJ, United States of America.
* Reviel Netz. Stanford University, Stanford CA, United States of America.
* Zhaoshi Zeng. Sun Yat-Sen University. Guangzhou, China.

IMPORTANT DATES.

      Abstract submission deadline: 30 June 2012
      Notification of authors:  30 July 2012
      Conference:    9-12 November 2012

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION. All researchers are encouraged and invited to submit their abstracts until the deadline of 30 June 2012 via the easychair submission page at: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cml2012

Please submit the abstract either in the "abstract" field of the easychair submission site or as a one-page PDF submission.

POST-CONFERENCE PUBLICATION. All authors of papers presented at the conference will be encouraged to submit a full version to a post-conference publication volume. The deadline for submission of full papers will be in early 2013. All papers submitted to the post-conference proceedings will be refereed to high journal standards, and acceptance as a presentation is no guarantee that the post-conference paper will be published.

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE. Mihir Chakraborty, Jadavpur University, India; Shuchun Guo, Chinese Academy of Science, China; Joachim Kurtz, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Germany; Brendan Larvor, University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom; Benedikt Löwe, Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Martina Merz, Universität Luzern, Switzerland; Thomas Mueller, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands; Dirk Schlimm, McGill University, Canada; Ju Shier, Sun Yat-sen University, China

LOCAL INFORMATION. Guangzhou, known historically as Canton, is located in southern China on the Pearl River, about 120 km north-northwest of Hong Kong. With over 12 million inhabitants, it is the third largest city in China (after Shanghai and Beijing) and the largest city of southern China. In the month of November, expected temperatures are between 15 and 24 degrees. Baiyun International Airport is a major transportation hub with many national and international airlines (for instance, Air France, China Southern Airlines, Emirates, Lufthansa, etc.). In addition, Guangzhou is easy to reach from Hong Kong with its international airport.

SPONSORS. Sun Yat-sen University, Institute for Logic and Cognition; Universiteit Utrecht, Departement Wijsbegeerte; Universiteit van Amsterdam, Institute for Logic, Language and Computation.

Call for Participation

A Workshop with Jennifer McKitrick

Cologne, 23 July 2012(

Program (Abstracts see below)

10.00 - 10.15 Arrival
10.15 - 11.30 Kristina Engelhard: “Dispositions: Latency and Manifestation as states?”
Coffee
11.45 - 13.00 Andreas Bartels: "Why metrical properties are not powers"
Lunch
14.30 - 15.45 Mauricio Suarez: "Propensities and Pragmatism"
Coffee
16.00  - 17.30 Jennifer McKitrick: "Dispositional Essentialism without Necessitarianism"
Drinks, Dinner

[Room 0.A01, Philosophisches Seminar, Universität zu Köln Richard-Strauss-Straße 2, 50931 Köln]

Registration

Registration is kindly requested but not mandatory. Please send an email to Esta dirección electrónica esta protegida contra spam bots. Necesita activar JavaScript para visualizarla by July 14th.

Further Information on the Research Group http://www.clde.uni-koeln.de/

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Abstracts

Kristina Engelhard: “Dispositions: Latency and Manifestation as states?” Among other characterizations of what kind of thing dispositions and their manifestations are -numerically different causally related properties, or properties and events or processes – they are sometimes taken as different states (e.g. by Jennifer McKitrick). In the first part of the paper I investigate what this talk of „states“ might mean if it is not just a metaphor, whether they really are states of properties, e.g. modal states, or whether they are states of the particular in virtue of having the disposition. In the second part I question whether the picture of dispositions and their manifestations as states is compatible with other characterizations or not. A hypothesis is that to take dispositions and manifestations as different states of properties supports a view according to which dispositions and their manifestations are numerically identical, such that the disposition F in its latent state is the very same property as its manifestation. This view seems to be the original meaning of „manifestation“. According to this view the manifesting of a disposition would be a change of state of the very same property. A second related view would be that latency and manifestation are modes of instantiation. A particular may instantiate
a property F latently; while under certain conditions it might instantiate the property manifestly.
A third view might take latency and manifestation as states of the particular itself. While manifestation conditions are absent the particular is in a state of latently having the disposition F; when manifestation conditions are present the particular changes its state by manifesting F. The paper explores whether such views are
compatible with other important features of dispositionality, e.g. to take manifestations as effects.
Finally I discuss advantages but also problems of these views.

Andreas Bartels: "Why metrical properties are not powers" What has the dispositional analysis of properties and laws (e.g. Molnar, Powers, Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 2003; Mumford, Laws in nature, Routledge London, 2004; Bird, Nature’s metaphysics, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2007) to offer to the scientific
understanding of physical properties?—The article provides an answer to this question for the case of spacetime points and their metrical properties in General Relativity. The analysis shows that metrical properties are not ‘powers’, i.e. they cannot be understood as producing the effects of spacetime on matter with metaphysical necessity. Instead they possess categorical characteristics which, in connection with specific laws, explain those effects. Thus, the properties of spacetime do not favor the metaphysics of powers with respect to properties and laws. Mauricio Suarez: "Propensities and Pragmatism" This paper provides the outlines of a genuinely pragmatist conception of propensity, and defends it against common objections to the propensity interpretation of probability, prominently Humphreys’ paradox. The paper reviews the paradox and identifies one of its key assumptions, the identity thesis, according to which propensities are probabilities (under a suitable interpretation of Kolmogorov’s axioms). The identity thesis is also involved in many empiricist versions of the propensity interpretation deriving from Popper’s original and influential proposal, and makes such interpretations untenable. As an alternative, I urge a return to Charles Peirce’s original insights on
probabilistic dispositions, and offer a reconstructed version of his pragmatist conception, which rejects the identity thesis.

Jennifer McKitrick: "Dispositional Essentialism without Necessitarianism" Some philosophers claim that, if natural laws derive from what powers there are, and if what a power is is determined by what it’s a power for, then it turns out that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. Many find this view intuitively unattractive.  However, it may be less exciting than it sounds.   Furthermore, there are several ways to have essential dispositional properties while avoiding metaphysically necessary laws.(According to “lawlessness,” properties have dispositional essences, but there are no laws of nature, necessary or otherwise.
According to “probabilism,” indeterministic, stochastic powers do not support exceptionless laws.
On a “mixed view” non-dispositional properties have variable behavior, making for different laws in different possible worlds. According to “immanent realism,”if any properties had not been instantiated, they would not have existed, and the laws about them would not have held. A fifth possibility is “loose essentialism,”
according to which properties could have had a slightly different causal profile, and consequently, the laws could have been different.

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