Archives 2023-2024

62nd Annual Program
2023–2024

THE NATURE OF DEVOTION: PHILOSOPHICAL AND SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVES

The Nature of Devotion: Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives
Presented by the Boston Center for the Philosophy and History of Science
Co-Sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation, grant #62871, and the Boston University Center for the Humanities 

Workshop Topic
When people speak of devotion or devoted agents, they seem to have in mind firm, unwavering commitments to an ideal, cause, relationship, or activity. The devoted parent cares for his child, perhaps making sacrifices and setting aside other competing goods so as to help his child flourish. The devoted teacher won’t compromise on her goals of educating her students. Or, to pick a less agreeable case: the devoted member of a hate group organizes his life around his cause, fomenting violence and discord. Devotion seems to involve a particularly robust form of commitment, which might differ from standard forms of commitment in its intensity, stability, resistance to compromise, epistemic status, or deliberative weight. But how, exactly, should we understand devotion?

This workshop aims to explore the way in which existing scientific literatures and philosophical discussions can be integrated with the study of devotion. We will invite proposals that draw on psychological research on devotion and other forms of wholehearted commitment; sociological case studies of the devoted and non-devoted; and philosophical analyses that connect devotion to topics in philosophical psychology. Participants might explore these literatures to ask questions including: How should we understand devotion? Does devotion involve a form of grit? Does it require a particular epistemic stance toward the objects of devotion? Does it involve loyalty? Which kinds of communities, activities, and relationships provide opportunities for manifesting devotion? What are the different objects and forms of devotion? Are some forms of devotion more stable than others? Might devotion be a basic motivation in human beings? If so, why? What are the consequences of failing to satisfy this motivation? What are the most natural targets for devotion?

Schedule
Thursday, May 9
All events to take place at the Photonics Center, Room 906
8 St. Mary’s Street, Boston, MA 02215

11:00am-11:15am Coffee and Introduction

11:15am-12:30pm
“The Politics of Salvation,” David Livingstone Smith (University of New England, Philosophy)

12:30pm-2:00pm Lunch break

2:00pm-3:00pm
“Trying is Good,” Zoë Johnson King (Harvard University, Philosophy)

3:15pm-4:30pm
“Devotion, Striving, and Surrender,” Sarah Paul (New York University Abu Dhabi, Philosophy)

4:45pm-5:45pm
“Devotion, Faith, and Grit,” Paul Katsafanas (Boston University, Philosophy)

 

Friday, May 10

10:30am-11:45am
“Existential Motivations for Religious Devotion,” Daryl Van Tongeren (Hope College, Psychology)

12:00pm-1:00pm
“Devotion and Gracious Love,” Justin White (Brigham Young University, Philosophy)

1:00pm-2:45pm Lunch break

2:45pm-4:00pm
“The Evolution of Faith,” Joseph Henrich (Harvard University, Human Evolutionary Biology)

4:15pm-5:30pm
“Devotion, Attachment, and Moral Risk,” Monique Wonderly (University of California San Diego, Philosophy)

5:30pm-7:00pm Reception

 

MATHEMATICS WITH A HUMAN FACE

Mathematics with a Human Face
Presented by the Boston University Center for Philosophy & History of Science
Co-Sponsored by the University of Bergen’s Norwegian Research Council Grant

Abstract
How important are creativity and the human element to mathematics? In an age of AI and progress in automating proofs, these questions arise. To ask philosophically, we need to include a characterization of actual mathematical practice, and not exclude the cultural, linguistic, pedagogical, computational and conceptual development of mathematics within wider historical and social contexts. The question of the human as mathematician is emblematic for our time, when larger philosophical and cultural questions about the automation of human labor become increasingly central. Is human bias something to be celebrated or eradicated? What is the relation of mathematics to cultural concerns and values? Can we learn from confronting its history in terms of the present?

In 1947, in his Lecture to the London Mathematical Society, Alan Turing raised the question explicitly:

The Masters [i.e., mathematicians] are liable to get replaced because as soon as any technique becomes at all stereotyped it becomes possible to devise a system of instruction tables which will enable the electronic computer to do it for itself. It may happen however that the masters will refuse to do this. They may be unwilling to let their jobs be stolen from them in this way. In that case they would surround the whole of their work with mystery and make excuses, couched in well-chosen gibberish, whenever any dangerous suggestions were made. I think that a reaction of this kind is a very real danger.

There are many philosophical questions embedded in Turing’s remark, which was not simply a throwaway, but a prescient observation about what he elsewhere called “The Cultural Search”, which he believed would become increasingly important over time, and include “the human community as a whole” (1948, “Intelligent Machinery”). In this one-day event philosophers, mathematicians, logicians, historians and computer scientists will take stock of the issues.

Schedule
Monday, April 22
All events to take place at Barristers Hall, BU Law School
765 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215

9:30am-10:00am Breakfast

Part I: Mathematics: Concepts, Languages, Arts and Cultures

10:00am-10:55am
“Innate Arithmetical Knowledge: A Look at the Empirical Evidence,” Sorin Bangu (University of Bergen)

11:00am-11:50am
“Max Dehn and Mathematical Late Modernism,” Philip Ording (Sarah Lawrence College)

12:00pm-1:00pm Lunch

1:00pm-1:55pm
“Mathematical Hygiene,” Andy Arana (Université de Lorraine, Archives Henri-Poincaré)

2:00pm-2:55pm
“The Technological Sublime,” Juliette Kennedy (University of Helsinki)

3:00pm-3:15pm Tea break

Part II: Automating Mathematics
Moderator: Assaf Kfoury (Boston University)

3:15pm-4:00pm
“Will AI’s Ever ‘Do Math’?”
David Mumford (Brown University & Harvard University)

4:00pm-4:45pm
Comments: Michael Harris (Columbia University)

4:45pm-5:15pm
Closing discussion

Please click here for a recording of the colloquium.

 

LISE MEITNER AND THE DISCOVERY OF FISSION

Tuesday, March 26th, 2024
4:00pm-5:30pm
Kilachand Center, Eichenbaum Colloquium Room (101)

Lise Meitner and the Discovery of Fission
Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Presented by the Boston Center for Philosophy & History of Science

In this lecture by Anthea Coster (MIT), we will learn how Lise Meitner’s important contributions to atomic physics were overlooked both in history and in the recent film Oppenheimer. Please click here for a recording of the lecture.