NATURE AND NORMS IN A STEREOSCOPIC VIEW

27-28 May 2022

MTA BTK Lendület Morals and Science Research Group

(Budapest, Hungary)

Keynotes:

Danielle Macbeth (Haverford College)

Willem deVries (University of New Hampshire)

Michael Esfeld (University of Lausanne)

David Landy (San Francisco State University)

Peter Olen (Lake-Sumter State College)

James O'Shea (University College Dublin)

Theme:

Wilfrid Sellars is arguably one of the most important philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. His writings have influenced the views of many philosophers with different metaphilosophical backgrounds, from ontology through philosophy of language to philosophy of mind. Opinions, of course, differ as to what exactly makes a position or attitude Sellarsian in these philosophical areas of study, and what was the stance of Sellars himself regarding scientific realism, empiricism, conceptual frameworks or the mental. 

The leitmotif of our conference is Sellars’s critique of logical atomism and positivism and the question of what exactly is “Sellars’s role in bringing about the collapse of sense data empiricism” (Rorty’s introduction to EPM). This question, however, is intertwined with a broader and more familiar distinction of Sellars, the distinction of the manifest and the scientific image. And although Sellars gives ontological priority to the descriptive image of nature expressed in theories, he also considers the essentially norm-governed manifest image methodologically and epistemically ineliminable. This broadening of the theme also opens up a wide range of topics of Sellars’ thought. We would therefore welcome papers on all areas of Sellars’s philosophy.

There is one more dimension of Sellars’s thinking that we should highlight, namely that Sellars’s writings are pervaded “through and through” with allusions to the history of philosophy as Sellars saw his own philosophy as a contribution to a philosophical dialogue that spans the ages. Accordingly, the Sellarsian attitude should not be confined to contemporary issues and there may be ample scope for Sellarsian interpretations in the history of philosophy. We would also encourage papers based on such an approach.

This is by no means a representative list of possible Sellarsian or Sellarsian-related topics:

• what is the role of philosophy, how it is related to science
• scientific realism and anti-realism
• the role of models in theory construction
• Sellarsian ideas in philosophy of mind (fictionalism, realism, "sensa", introspection)
• the relationship between the manifest and the scientific image
• the difference in ontology and in principles of conceptual frameworks, their significance in addressing different philosophical issues
• the Sellarsian interpretation of the concepts of person and we-intentionality
• Sellars and the history of philosophy 

Submission

We invite abstracts – roughly 500 words, excluding references – of short papers, suitable for a 25-30 minutes presentation. Abstracts should be prepared for blind review and include the title of the paper.

Abstracts should be sent to László Kocsis (kocsis.laszlo@gmail.com) or Krisztián Pete (pete.krisztian@pte.hu) by 31^th of March. Notifications of acceptance will be sent no later than 15^th of April.

Depending on the state of the pandemic, the event will take place in Budapest, Hungary. Should the organization of an in-person conference not be possible, it will be held online of which all participants will be informed in due time.

Our research group cordially invites you to its upcoming online conference on

Science, Faith and Society

Date of the event: 21st-23rd October, 2021.

You can join by clicking on the links below.

21st of October:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85861623996?pwd=MGorMjFodVBtTWJWQ2lKbkZyRTk0Zz09

Zoom Meeting ID for Thursday is 858 6162 3996 and Passcode is 187093.

22nd of October:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83407181305?pwd=SXkwdVVTL1ppUEs0c2lpRExaSVgrQT09

Zoom Meeting ID for Friday is 834 0718 1305 and Passcode is 904923.

23rd of October:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87844550469?pwd=Qjg1NUVtVlp6MjdjYnZsTkswaG45dz09

Zoom Meeting ID for Saturday is 878 4455 0469 and Passcode is 581240.

Programme:

Thursday, 21st of October:

14.00-14.45: Martin Beddeleem: Order without orders: Redefining authority in liberalism
14.45-15.00: Discussion

15.00-15.45: Peter Hartl: Central planning of science and Polanyi’s vision of free society
15.45-16.00: Discussion

16.00-16.30: Break

16.30-17.15: Jon Fennell: That Our World Might Endure: Polanyi’s "Primary Education"
17.15-17.30: Discussion

17.30-18.15: Phil Mullins: Science, Faith and Society and Polanyi’s Metaphysical Account
18.15-18.30: Discussion

18.30-19.00: Break

19.00-19.45: Walter Gulick: From Scientific Truth to Personal Meaning
19.45-20.00: Discussion

Friday, 22nd of October:

14.00-14.45: Agnes Festre & Stein Ostbye: Faith in Science: What can we learn from Michael Polanyi?
14.45-15.00: Discussion

15.00-15.45: Tihamer Margitay: Liberal Knowledge Arguments against Dictatorship
15.45-16.00: Discussion

16.00-16.30: Break

16.30-17.15: John Preston: World Views in Polanyi’s Science, Faith and Society
17.15-17.30: Discussion

17.30-18.15: Andrew Grosso: Polanyi Among The Pluralists
18.15-18.30: Discussion

18.30-19.00: Break

19.00-19.45: Stephen Turner: The Tragedy of the Liberal Theory of Science
19.45-20.00: Discussion

Saturday, 23rd of October:

14.00-14.45: Daniel Paksi: The Galilean Principle of Relativity: The Ultimate Fundament of Moral Inversion
14.45-15.00: Discussion

15.00-15.45: Oliver Keenan: Polanyi in the "Republic of Conscience": Academic Freedom and the Structure of Reality
15.45-16.00: Discussion

16.00-16.30: Break

16.30-17.15: Gábor Bíró: Enlightenment is Dead, Long Live the Enlightenment: Towards a Post-critical Age of Reason
17.15-17.30: Discussion

17.30-18.15: Cristopher Goodman: The English and the Continent
18.15-18.30: Discussion

18.30-19.00: Conference ending

SUNY Press has published the edited volume on

Philipp Frank: The Humanistic Background of Science
(edited by George A. Reisch and Ádám Tamás Tuboly)

The once-lost introduction to the philosophy of science by Philipp Frank (1884-1966), a leading member of the Vienna circle of philosophers and biographer of Albert Einstein.

Philipp Frank (1884–1966) was an influential philosopher of science, public intellectual, and Harvard educator whose last book, The Humanistic Background of Science, is finally available. Never published in his lifetime, this original manuscript has been edited and introduced to highlight Frank's remarkable but little-known insights about the nature of modern science—insights that rival those of Karl Popper and Frank's colleagues Thomas Kuhn and James Bryant Conant. As a leading exponent of logical empiricism and a member of the famous Vienna Circle, Frank intended his book to provide an accessible, engaging introduction to the philosophy of science and its cultural significance. The book is steadfastly true to science; to aspirations of peace, unity, and human flourishing after World War II; and to the pragmatic philosophies of Charles S. Peirce, William James, and John Dewey that Frank embraced in his new American home. Amidst the many recent surveys and retrospective analyses of midcentury philosophy of science, The Humanistic Background of Science offers an original, first-hand view of Frank's post-European life and of intellectual dramas then unfolding in Chicago, New York City, and Boston.

Table of contents:

Philipp Frank: A Crusader for Scientific Philosophy

PART I

1. Introduction: Science, Facts, and Values

2. The Longing for a Humanization of Science

3. Metaphysical Interpretations of Science

4. The Sociology of Metaphysical Interpretations

5. Philosophy of Science and Political Ideology

6. Sociology of Science and the Search for a Democratic Metaphysics

PART II

7. Scholastic Philosophy and Thomism

8. The Physical Universe as a Symbol

9. Union, Divorce, and Reunion between Science and Philosophy

10. Science, Democracy, and the New Wave of Positivism

11. The Vienna Circle: Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, and Otto Neurath

12. Pragmatism

13. Mechanistic and Dialectical Materialism

14. The Laws and Politics of Dialectical Materialism

Conclusion: Einstein's Philosophy of Science

Special issue of Synthese on "Humeanisms", edited by Tamás Demeter, László Kocsis, Iulian D. Toader, has been published.

link: https://link.springer.com/journal/11229/topicalCollection/AC_9d20e4ed06f82f31ddb2d12a31efe433

Contributions include:

1. László Kocsis, Tamás Demeter & Iulian D. Toader: Varieties of Humeanism: an introduction

2. Stefanie Rocknak: Regularity and certainty in Hume’s treatise: a Humean response to Husserl

3. Rachel Cohon: Hume’s practice theory of promises and its dissimilar descendants

4. Vera Matarese: Super-Humeanism and physics: A merry relationship?

5. Miren Boehm: Hume’s “projectivism” explained

6. Aaron Segal: Humeanisms: metaphysical and epistemological

7. Barry Loewer: The package deal account of laws and properties (PDA)

8. Elizabeth S. Radcliffe: A Humean explanation of acting on normative reasons

9. Daniel Dohrn: A Humean modal epistemology

10. Barbara Vetter: Explanatory dispositionalism

11. Dan O’Brien: Humeanism and the epistemology of testimony

12. Tudor M. Baetu: How interventionist accounts of causation work in experimental practice and why there is no need to worry about supervenience 

13. Tamás Demeter: Fodor’s guide to the Humean mind

14. Michael Esfeld: Super-Humeanism and free will

15. David Mark Kovacs: The oldest solution to the circularity problem for Humeanism about the laws of nature

16. Sean Morris: Carnap, Quine, and the Humean condition

The latest special issue of Metaphilosophy on "Metatheories of Disagreement", edited by Ákos Gyarmathy and Péter Hartl, has been published.

Contributions include:

1. Péter Hartl, Ákos Gyarmathy: Metatheories of disagreement: Introduction
2. Delia Belleri: Ontological disagreements, reliability, and standoffs: The pluralist option
3. László Bernáth, János Tőzsér: The biased nature of philosophical beliefs in the light of peer disagreement
4. Chris Ranalli: Moral hinges and steadfastness
5. Annalisa Coliva, Michele Palmira: Disagreement unhinged, constitutivism style
6. Victoria Lavorerio: The fundamental model of deep disagreements
7. Crispin Wright: Alethic pluralism, deflationism, and faultless disagreement
8. Teresa Marques: Illocutionary force and attitude mode in normative disputes
9. Marius Baumann: No fact of the matter: The case of dirty hands
10. Rogelio Miranda Vilchis: More than merely verbal disputes
11. Yonatan Shemmer, Graham Bex-Priestley: Disagreement without belief

Springer has published the edited volume on

Ernest Nagel: Philosophy of Science and the Fight for Clarity
(edited by Matthias Neuber and Ádám Tamás Tuboly)

This volume is dedicated to the life and work of Ernest Nagel (1901-1985) counted among the influential twentieth-century philosophers of science. Forgotten by the history of philosophy of science community in recent years, this volume introduces Nagel’s philosophy to a new generation of readers and highlights the merits and originality of his works.

Best known in the history of philosophy as a major American representative of logical empiricism with some pragmatist and naturalist leanings, Nagel’s interests and activities went beyond these limits. His career was marked with a strong and determined intention of harmonizing the European scientific worldview of logical empiricism and American naturalism/pragmatism. His most famous and systematic treatise on, The Structure of Science, appeared just one year before Thomas Kuhn’s even more renowned, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

As a reflection of Nagel’s interdisciplinary work, the contributing authors’ articles are connected both historically and systematically. The volume will appeal to students mainly at the graduate level and academic scholars. Since the volume treats historical, philosophical, physical, social and general scientific questions, it will be of interest to historians and philosophers of science, epistemologists, social scientists, and anyone interested in the history of analytic philosophy and twentieth-century intellectual history.

Table of contents:

Matthias Neuber: Introduction: Ernest Nagel and the Making of Philosophy of Science a Profession

Yvonne Nagel: Ernest Nagel: A Biography

Sander Verhaegh: Nagel’s Philosophical Development

Fons Dewulf: The Emergence of Scientific Explanation as a Problem for Philosophy of Science: Aristotle, Nagel, and Hempel

Thomas Mormann: From Cautious Enthusiasm to Profound Disenchantment: Ernest Nagel and Carnapian Logical Empiricism

Raphael Riel: Nagel on Idealization in Science

David Atkinson (et al.): Putting the Cart Before the Horse: Ernest Nagel and the Uncertainty Principle

Marij Strien: Ernest Nagel on Determinism as a Guiding Principle and Its Compatibility with Quantum Mechanics

Maria Carla Galavotti: On Nagel’s Truth-Frequency Theory of Probability

Bohang Chen: On Ernest Nagel on Teleology in Biology

Matthias Neuber: Nagel on the Methodology of the Social Sciences

Eric Schliesser: Philosophy of Science as First Philosophy: The Liberal Polemics of Ernest Nagel

Matthias Neuber (et al.): Interview with Ernest Nagel by Remmel Nunn

Matthias Neuber (et al.): Ernest Nagel’s “The Philosophy of Science” Lecture at the Delaware Seminar

Gábor received the 2021 Craufurd Goodwin Best Article Prize for his article “Michael Polanyi’s Neutral Keynesianism and the First Economics Film, 1933—1945,” published in Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 42(3), 2020. The prize is the annual award of the History of Economics Society for the best article published in the field. Details are available here.

Tamás Demeter's paper on Hume’s epistemic ideal has been published in Belgrade Philosophical Annual.

Tamás Demeter has been offered a visiting research fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Edinburgh, for research on enlightenment methodologies in natural and moral inquiry.

Gergely Kertész is giving a talk on "Resolving the Tension Between Different Approaches to Causation Within a Dynamical Systems Framework" at the conference entitled Alternative Approaches to Causation: Difference-making and Mechanism to be held in Kent between the 28th and 30th of June 2021.

Tamás Demeter's paper on "Zwei illiberale Konzepte des Staates: Szekfű und Lukács 1920" has been published in Der ungarisches Saat (ed. by Zoltán Szalai and Balázs Orbán).

Adam Tamas Tuboly's paper on "To the Icy Slopes in the Melting Pot: Forging Logical Empiricisms in the Context of American Pragmatisms" has been published in HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science.

The paper on "The Liberation of Nature and Knowledge – A Case Study on Hans Reichenbach’s Naturalism", co-authored by László Kocsis and Adam Tamas Tuboly has been published in Synthese.

Adam Tamas Tuboly's paper on “Building a New Thursday Circle: Carnap and Frank in Prague” has been published in Young Carnap in an Historical Context: 1918-1935/Der junge Carnap im historischen Kontext: 1918-1935 (edited by Christian Damböck and Gereon Wolters).