< Colloquia

Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science

2007–2008

48th Annual Program

The Robert S. Cohen Forum: Contemporary Issues in Science Studies
Trends in Italian Philosophy of Science
Sponsored by the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University with the support of the Consulate General of Italy in Boston
Monday, September 10 and Tuesday, September 11, 2007
The Castle, 225 Bay State Road
Moderator: Alessandro Torza (Boston University)
Monday, 9:00 a.m.- noon
Luciano Floridi (Oxford University/University of Bari)
"What is relevance? A subjectivist interpretation of relevant information"
Lorenzo Magnani ( University of Pavia)
Multimodal abduction. External Semiotic Anchors, Hybrid Representations, Affordances
Mario Piazza ( University of Chieti)
Logical Proofs through von Neumann Algebras

Moderator:Elisabeta Sarca (Boston University)
Monday, 2:00-5:00 p.m.
Mauro Dorato ( University of Rome - 3)
Connecting the Objectivity of Becoming with the Conventionality of Simultaneity
Giovanni Boniolo ( University of Padua)
Towards an Explication of 'Life' and 'Death'
Gilberto Corbellini, ( University of Rome - La Sapienza)
An Epistemological Framework for Evolution Based Medicine

Moderator: Elisabeta Sarca (Boston University)
Tuesday, 9:00 a.m.- noon
Andrea Grignolio ( University of Rome - La Sapienza)
The Learning Cell: From Immune to Neural Memory, via Darwinism
Massimo Stanzione ( University of Cassino)
Logical Proofs through von Neumann Algebras
Marcello Frixione ( University of Salerno)
Language Reference and Natural Science

Moderator: Alessandro Torza (Boston Univeristy)
Tuesday, 2:00-5:00 p.m.
Simone Gozzano ( University of L'Aquila)
Philosophy of Science Meets Philosophy of Mind: the Mind-Body Identity Theory
Roberto Cordeschi ( University of Rome - La Sapienza)
Models, Metaphors and Paradigms in Cognitive Science
Roberto Festa ( University of Trieste)
Evaluating the Predictive Adequacy of Qualitative Theories in Social Sciences

Future Horizons for Philosophy of Medicine
Monday, September 24, 2007
Boston University, School of Law, Rm. 1270 12th Floor, 765 Commonwealth Ave.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Boston University, School of Law, Barristers Hall 1st Floor, 765 Commonwealth Ave.

Moderator: Abraham Fuks ( McGill University)
Monday, 10 a.m.-Noon
George Khushf ( University of South Carolina)
Health as Intra-Systemic Integrity: Rethinking the Foundations of the Biopsychosocial Model of Medicine
Harold Kincaid ( University of Alabama at Birmingham)
Theories, Disease and the Philosophy of Science

Monday, 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.
James Marcum (Baylor University)
Humanizing the Biomedical Model
Peter Schwartz (Indiana University)
Risk and Disease
Jeremy Simon (Columbia University)
A Model-Based Approach to Diseases

Moderator: Alan Schechter (National Institutes of Health)
Tuesday, 10 a.m. - Noon
William Stempsey (College of the Holy Cross)
Philosophy of Medicine Is What Philosophers of Medicine Do
Miriam Solomon (Temple University)
Recent Epistemological Paradigms in Clinical Medicine

Tuesday, 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Alfred I. Tauber (Boston University)
Constructing a Philosophy of Medicine
Paul Thagard (University of Waterloo)
Mental Illness From the Perspective of Theoretical Neuroscience
John Worral (London School of Economics)
Evidence and Ethics in Medicine


Contributions of Martin Eger to the Philosophy of Science, Education, and Human Behavior
Friday, October 12, 2007, 1 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, G.S.U., 775 Commonwealth Avenue
Moderator: Dimitri Constant (Boston University)
Abner Shimony (Boston University, Emeritus)
Dialogue in Martin Eger's Philosophy and Friendship
Alasdair MacIntyre (University of Notre Dame)
Physics, Ethics, and the Life of Practice
Victor Kestenbaum (Boston University)
Eger on Missing Contexts and Larger Meanings

Karbank Symposium in Environmental Philosophy
Thoreau and Environmentalism
Friday, November 16 , 2007, 1:00 p.m. - 5 p.m.
The Castle, 225 Bay State Road
Moderator: Charles Capper (Boston University)
Richard Primack (Boston University)
Thoreau as a Climate Change Scientist
Max Oelschlaeger (Norther Arizona University)
Thoreau's Anticipations of Human Agency in Ecological Context
William Rossi (University of Oregon)
Thoreauvian Science and the Environmental Subject
Alfred I. Tauber (Boston University)
Thoreau's Pantheism and the Birth of American Environmentalism

Trends in the Mathematical Representaion of Space: Philosophical and Historical Perspectives
Friday, November 30, 2007, 3 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, G.S.U., 775 Commonwealth Avenue
Pierre Cartier (Institut Des Hautes Études Scientifiques, Paris)
On the Naturalness of Mathematics: Towards a Relativised Ontology for Mathematics

Saturday, 9 a.m. - Noon
Pierre Cartier (Institut Des Hautes Études Scientifiques, Paris)
Living in a Contradictory World: Categories Versus Sets
Colin McLarty (Case-Western Reserve University)
Generality Versus Unity in Geometry

Saturday, 2 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
F. William Lawvere (SUNY, Buffalo)
Euler, Maxwell, Grothendieck, and the Nature of Space
Jean-Pierre Marquis (University of Montreal)
From Klein to Kan: the Algebra of Space and the Space of Algebra
M. Iftime (Boston University and Massachusetts College of Pharmacy)
Grothendieck's Universe

Sunday, 9 a.m. - Noon
Louis Crane (Kansas State University)
What Does Quantum Gravity Tell Us about the Nature of Spacetime?
Gonzalo E. Reyes
An Axiomatic Approach to Einstein's Vacuum Field Equations

Sunday, 2 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Shawn Westmoreland (Kansas State University)
The Twin Paradox without Acceleration
F. Markopoulou (Perimeter Institute)
Geometrogenesis
O. Dreyer (MIT)
Internal Relativity


Post Structural Readings of a logico-mathematical text:
“Dangerous shifts of meaning” in the Gödel’s proof of his first incompleteness theorem
Friday, Dec. 7, 2007 from 12 p.m. - 2 p.m.
School of Theology 5th floor room 525, 745 Commonwealth Ave, Boston Ma.
Roy Wagner (Tel Aviv University/Boston University)

The Revolution in Mind/Brain Science
Monday, February 4, 2008, 12:30-5:30 p.m.
The Castle, 225 Bay State Road
Moderator: Emi Iwatani (Boston University)
Bryce Huebner (University of North Carolina)
Commonsense Conceptions of Phenomenal Consciousness
Marc Hauser ( Harvard University)
The Moral Organ
Mriganka Sur (MIT)
Plasticity
Stephen Grossberg ( Boston University)
How Brains Create Minds


The Actual, the Possible, and the Physical
Monday, February 25, 2008, 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.
The Castle, 225 Bay State Road
Moderator: Brad Skow, (MIT)
Peter Bokulich ( Boston University)
The Modality of Structures and the Structure of Modality
Ned Hall ( Harvard University)
Humean Reductionism about Laws of Physics
Barry Loewer ( Rutgers)
The Metaphysics of Fundamental Properties and Laws


Drawing the Line between Kinematics and Dynamics in Special Relativity
Monday, March 17, 2008, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Terrace Lounge, George Sherman Union, 765 Commonwealth Avenue
Moderator: John Stachel (Boston University, Emeritus)
Michel Janssen (University of Minnesota)

The Aristotelian Foundations of Today's Biology
Monday, March 31, 2008, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
The Castle, 225 Bay State Road
Moderator: David Roochnik (Boston University)
Alfred Miller (Catholic University of America/Boston University)


Are there Natural Kinds?
Monday, April 14, 2008, 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.
The Castle, 225 Bay State Road
Moderator: Gal Kober (Boston University)
Alisa Bokulich ( Boston University)
Is Pluto a Planet? Folk Concepts and Natural Kinds in Astronomy
Richard Boyd ( Cornell University)
The Reality of Kinds and the Reality of (Other) Things: Reductionism vs. Anti- Reductionism
Michael Devitt ( City University of New York)
Natural Kinds in Biology


A Function for Fictions in Science
Friday, April 25, 2008, 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
The Castle, 225 Bay State Road
Eric Winsberg ( University of South Florida)
A Function for Fictions: Expanding the Scope of Science
Catherine Elgin ( Harvard University)
Exemplification, Idealization, and Understanding
Alisa Bokulich (Boston University)
Explanatory Fictions