Bergen Philosophy of Science Workshop

Abstracts of all meetings (external link)

2025

• Jon Williamson (Manchester)   Causal inference is not statistical inference: how Evidential Pluralism mitigates the replication crisis
• Stephan Hartmann (MCMP/LMU Munich)   Framework Fundamentality
• Vera Matarese (Perugia)   NOISE: Noisy Ontology Informing Scientific rEalism
• Jo Wolff (Edinburgh)   Is ‘ground truthing’ always the best measurement?
• Emiliano Ippoliti (Sapienza University of Rome)   From unreasonable effectiveness to reasonable ineffectiveness: the epistemic cycle of mathematics on Wall Street

2024

• Richard Dawid (Stockholm Univ.)   Unification and Surprise: How unification gets confirmatory
• Jingyi Wu (LSE)   Rigor Capture
• Michael Miller (Univ. of Toronto)   Precision and Determinacy
• Luna de Souter (Bergen)   Restoring Reductiveness in Regularity Theories of Causation
• Sam Flecther (Oxford)   The Limits of Approximation
• Daniele Molinini (Bologna)   Mapping‑Based Accounts of Applicability and Converse Applications
• Karen Crowther (Oslo)   Why do we want a theory of quantum gravity?
• Monica Solomon (Bilkent)   The Road Less Traveled to the Distinction between Absolute and Relative Motion: Newton’s De Motu manuscripts
• James Fraser (IHPST Paris)   Laws of Nature on Different Scales

2023

• Sam Schindler (Aarhus)   Two types of discovery: Nobel meets Kuhn
• Elena Popa (Jagiellonian Univ. Krakow)   Causality, Evidence, and Local Psychiatric Knowledge: A Case for Pluralism
• Rose Trappes (Exeter)   Behaviour as Disposition or Interaction
• Veli Pekka Parkkinen (Bergen)   Unique identifiability assumptions in methods and philosophy of causal enquiry
• Daniel Kostic (Leiden)   Pragmatics for Explainable AI
• Cyrille Imbert (Univ. Lorraine)   The Cognitive and Social Process of Computing Pseudo-Random Numbers for Scientific Applications: Ingredients for a Reliability Crisis
• Lorenzo Casini (Lucca/LMU)   High-level Causation and Causal Inference (w/ A. Moneta)
• Henrik Røed Sherling (Cambridge) & Benjamin Chin-Yee (Cambridge)   Clinical Communication: A Model for Scientific Assertion?
• Benedetta Spigola (Lisbon)   What is it like to be a conservation law? Between laws and principles
• Johannes Nyström (Stockholm Univ.)   Predictive success and theoretical stability: on the soundness of the two-variable no-miracles argument
• Aditya Jha (Cambridge)   On the Continuum Fallacy: Is Temperature a Continuous Function?
• Andrei Marasoiu (Univ. of Bucharest)   Representation and design in network models of category deficits

2022

• Chris Smeenk (Univ. of Western Ontario)   Fuzzy Modularity and Crucial Simulations (Joint work with Marie Gueguen, Rennes)
• Nic Fillion (Simon Fraser Univ.)   The argument view of computer simulations done right
• Ana-Maria Cretu (Bristol Univ.)   Human Computers as Instruments
• Elay Shech (Auburn Univ.)   Are Mesoscale Structures Natural Kinds? Reconsidering Batterman’s Middle Way
• Vincent Ardourel (IHPST Paris)   The reduction of hydrodynamics and singular limits
• Siska de Baerdemaeker (Stockholm Univ.)   Into the Unknown. Exploring Dark Matter with Stellar Streams
• Alex Franklin (King's College London)   Incoherent? No, Just Decoherent. How Quantum Many Worlds Emerge

2021

• Samir Okasha (Bristol)   Is there a Bayesian justification of hypothetico-deductive inference? (Joint work with Karim Thebault, Bristol)
• Jessica Wilson (Univ. of Toronto)   In Defense of Countabilism (Joint work with David Builes, Princeton)
• Alastair Wilson (Birmingham)   Theoretical Relicts: Progress, Reduction, and Autonomy (Joint work with Katie Robertson, Birmingham)
• Chris Pincock (Ohio State Univ.)   Defending Selective Scientific Realism

2020

• Roman Frigg (LSE)   Modelling Nature: the DEKI Account (Talk based on joint work with James Nguyen, LSE)
• Dana Jalobeanu (Univ. of Bucharest)   Baconianism and Newtonianism: a history (and philosophy) of shifting historiographic categories
• Jo Wolff (Edinburgh)   Making concepts measurable
• Richard Dawid (Stockholm Uiniv.)   How postmodern is cosmic inflation? (Based on joint work with Casey McCoy, Yonsei Univ.)
• Karim Thebault (Bristol)   Poincaré, Dark Energy, and the Deadly Robots of Krikkit (Based on work with Sean Gryb, Groningen)
• Karen Crowther (Oslo)   The Role of Singularities in the Search for Quantum Gravity (Joint work with Sebastian De Haro, Amsterdam)

2019

• Denis Walsh (Univ. of Toronto)   The Developmental Imperative
• James Ladyman (Bristol)   What if anything is fundamental about physics?
• Patricia Palacios (Salzburg)   Intertheoretic Reduction in Physics Beyond the Nagelian Model
• Axel Gelfert (TU Berlin)   Explanation and Exploration in the Science of Pattern Formation
• Laura Franklin-Hall (NYU)   Why are some kinds historical and others not?

2018

• P. Kyle Stanford (UC Irvine)   A Difference that Makes a Difference: Howard Stein on Realism, Instrumentalism, and Intellectually Nourishing Snacks
• Kirsten Walsh (Nottingham)   Inventing Units of Measurement: Causal Reasoning in Newton's Optics
• Dirk Schlimm (McGill Univ.)   Towards a cognitive and pragmatic account of notations for propositional logic
• Mark Colyvan (University of Sydney and the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich)   Analogical Reasoning via Mathematical Models
• Adrian Curie (Cambridge)   How are moa like sheep? Pursuit and value in science
• Julie Zahle (Bergen)   Data, Epistemic Values, and Multiple Methods in Case Study Research
• Alan Baker (Swarthmore College)   Mapping Mathematics to the World

2017

• Stathis Psillos (Univ. of Athens)   Laws and Powers in the Frame of Nature
• Alexander Bird (Univ. of Bristol)   Is there meta-scientific knowledge? Against both the no-miracles argument and the pessimistic induction
• Gordon Belot (Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor)   Gravity and GRACE: Does Underdetermination Undermine Objectivity?
• Laura Ruetsche (Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor)   Renormalization Group Realism: An Unduly Skeptical Review
• Michael Baumgartner (Univ. of Geneva / Univ. of Bergen)   Boolean difference-making: A modern regularity theory of causation
• Eleanor Knox (King's College London)   Spacetime Functionalism

2016

• Carl Hoefer (ICREA / Barcelona)   Current Great Theory Realism
• Stephanie Ruphy (Grenoble)   Pluralist challenges to a science-based metaphysics
• Jamie Tappenden (Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor)   Frege, Carl Snell and Romanticism; Fruitful Concepts and the 'Organic/Mechanical' Distinction
• Sam Schindler (Aarhus)   Prediction and testability
• James Conant (Univ. of Chicago)   Thomas Kuhn on Problems and Puzzles

2015

• Mark Steiner (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem)   The Silent Revolution of Wittgenstein in the Philosophy of Mathematics, 1937
• Catherine Wilson (York Univ. UK)   The 'Hard Problem' of Consciousness: Scientific Explanation and Philosophical Ineffability
• Juha Saatsi (Leeds Univ.)   Emergence and Explanation
• Mary Leng (York Univ.)   Mathematical Realism and Naturalism
• Anjan Chakravartty (Notre Dame Univ.)   Property Ontology in Fundamental Physics
• Øystein Linnebo (Oslo)   Mathematics and Inference to the Best Explanation

2014

• Robert Batterman (Pittsburgh)   Minimal Model Explanations 
• Michael Moreau (Tromsø)   Mr. Fit, Mr. Simplicity and Mr. Scope: from Social Choice to Theory Choice in Science
• Dennis Dieks (Utrecht)   Emergence, Reduction, Underdetermination and Explanation in Recent Quantum Gravity Research 
• Mauricio Suarez (London / Madrid)   Propensities, Chances, and Experimental Statistics 
• Mark Sprevak (Edinburgh)   Fictionalism about Neural Representations 
• Anouk Barberousse (Lille / Paris)   Bayesian Methods in Climate Modeling

2013

• Margaret Morrison (Univ. of Toronto)   Inconsistent Models: Problems and Perspectives
• Wendy Parker (Durham Univ., UK)   Simulation, Measurement & the Construction of Global Climate Datasets
• Michal Walicki (Univ. of Bergen, Institute of Informatics)   The holism of truth and paradox (joint work with Sjur Dyrkolbotn)
• Alexander Paseau (Oxford)   Knowledge of Mathematics Without Proof
• Rani Anjum (Norwegian Univ. of Life Sciences UMB) and Stephen Mumford (Durham)   Causation, Powers and Probability (joint work)
• Colin Howson (LSE)   The Importance of Being Bayesian