Stanford Philosophy of School Science Oct 25 and 26, 2013 Here are my notes from the Stanford School of Philosophy of Science at Stanford ... Just found, too, this Wikipedia entry ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_School The former are long and the latter is short. Friendly regards, Scott Here, too, is the program http://philevents.org/event/show/11520 and the Stanford Philosophy department page http://philosophy.stanford.edu/community/events/view/1836/ :) Scott MacLeod’s notes from Day 1 organized by UCSC professor Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther Hasok Chang – from University of Cambridge in video conference … Hasok Chang’s Slides on screen -‐ What characterized my Stanford philosophy-‐of-‐science education / experience? A connection with history – of science (Lenoir, Knorr, etc.), and of philosophy (Rozemond, Follesdal, Foerster, etc.) B
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Disunity C Critical engagement with scientific practice (contra “know-‐nothing philosophy”) D Political awareness E Maternalism Key words Ann Franklin Critical and independent of mainstream science Disunity mafia Disillusioned by Kuhnian normal science Detested Nancy Cartwright’s book … Druggy phenomonological laws Physics down to the level of engineering … John Dupre Dissertation title “Measurement and the Disunity of Quantum Physics” passes over d) political awareness special nurturing environment at Stanford it’s not that mentors didn’t engage in deep philosophical debate or throw us off the deep end …
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but nurturing … what Chang has been able to do with Stanford upbringing hasn’t been able to get a job in a philosophy two books “Inventing Tempaerature: Measurement and Scientific Progress” (most historical work ever to have won the award – may not have seemed most rigorous, but in the seemingly relaxed … encouraged to learn what was needed) “Is Water H2O: Evidence, Realism and Pluralism” Slide A Philosophical history of physics and chemistry b Integrated HPS (UK, world) c SPSP (Society for Philosophy for Science in Practice) D Complementary science; pluralism E More to come: pragmatism, social epistemology, historical experiments F A personal ideal of philosophy To do philosophy while remaining fully in contact with life and other people
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Jonathan Kaplan Having arrived just a little too late Pluralism Practice Pragmatism Social Context Names Hacking – left 1982 Cartwright – left 1991 Galison – left 1992 Dupre – left 1996 Godfrey-‐Smith – arrived around this time Pluralism – in disunity sense Of sciences Of methods Of approaches to understanding the world more generally Themes (The importance of) Practice The practices of the sciences /scientists In the lab Writing up results When trying to secure funding Communicating with “the public” The uses to which results are put In (literal) technologies In social policy / society more generally
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Themes: Social Context Matters The answers to these questions matter: Who was doing what? When they were doing it? Where it was being done? What else was going on then and there? Etc. Themes: Pragmatism (and the ghost of Wittgenstein) What is the point of this debate (question, problem, etc.)? What do we hope that our answer will do? If it doesn’t matter why should we care? If it does matter, we should be able to show that it does. Science and political questions Race Gender Biological Behavior genetics Neurobiology of addiction Get things right Getting the science right: Philosophy as corrective Getting descriptions of science right The ‘right’ ways to use science (and arguing against misuses) The right politics: justice, fairness, and our shared world
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Janet Stemwedel San Jose State Hand out Fish and water are metaphors Approaches which shaped her felt like sensible ways as science If there is a Stanford School, what’s at its core? Language is slippery here Dupre Disunity Godfrey-‐Smith – significant There may be disunity there, what is it? Non-‐practicing chemist with a misspent youth in the laboratory Hasok Grumpy about laws Totally down with the way the laws of physics lie … light from heaven Philosophers who could dwell in the messiness Where is the mark of the Stanford School of Philosophy of Science visible in her work? Veered in focus to where physics and epistemology are intertwined Turned toward Blogosphere Her online focus – public outreach … Talking with non-‐philosophers …
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What scientists do is intimately connected to what scientists can know … How scientists factors matter … Reliable knowledge about the world, here’s how ethics go Transform from compliance of behavior from without To internal ethical practices … Details .. differ from the … That’s the way she talks about it, as influenced by the SSPS if or if it doesn’t exist Fish to weigh in on theory of hydrodynamics … Whale proof? Science made up of different subfields with different practices Science of nuance and complexity … Appreciating this … Intermediary between science and non-‐science Never letting the philosophical punch-‐line get lost … Focusing on the so-‐what … Given how many conversations are happening in the blogosphere … The SPSS conviction that the stuff they talk about really matters
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Michael Weisberg -‐ Penn He thinks there is a SPSS SPSS has allies Kitcher Bill Wilmas Dick someone American Philosophical Association 1988 advice – APA advice Pat suggests …. understand the science of its time, and its foundations … gives a list molecular biology cognitive neuroscience theory of mixed markets quantum theory Aristotle Kant Einstein Philosophers of science have to be fully engaged Get your hands dirty and develop some science Modeling and disunity are most enduring legacies … Most interesting legacies … learn how science works by participating … Especially in terms of getting your hands dirty And see that things may get messy
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Chemical structures … 74 million structures … recorded 140 million molecules many in lab every single substances is … of bonds let’s take quantum chemistry seriously … bread and butter work … Stanford modeling … interested in the practice of science, and not just the products … didn’t build a chemistry lab or field site … agent based modeling … what looks like a highly reductionist form of modeling … another point of overlap where the SPSS has emphasized the logico-‐empricism limitations doesn’t want to deny the SPSS … pluralistic since “How the Laws of Physics Lie” came out it’s dappled or promiscuously real It’s complex yes, But idealized
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Minds are simple … May be trade-‐offs That suggests we should never believe any of our models … We begin to build this picture of the world … Discharge idealizations Learn what the world is really like Hope the SPSS Seems to be how the world really works
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Rasmus Winther Do you see yourself as continuing the tradition? Yes – simply Longer answer thanks Galison … Turning him on to this thinking Dupre And Peter Godfrey Smith As undergrad and master’s student Cartwright Cantwell Smith His energy he put into this conference is a thank you Sees continuing tradition in biology and science 1 Mathematics of race and biological theorizing Uses and abuses of scientific mapping … Stanford, Berkeley, UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz Genomics and philosophy of race Important to get diverse Ongoing
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Q Unity issue of science has been important Could you emphasize both sides? A Bit of a dialectical compromise The idea that you can combine pluralism and unity Unity in units … Issuing models of causality Variety of work as a kind of unity in the SSPS A2 Defend the SSPS of disunity The sciences are different than you might think if all you looked at was the Physics’ view If you descend to the details, this is what we see The whole discussion of unity and disunity has to do with theory But when you look at experiment unity and disunity isn’t as interesting an issue Nancy talks about building lasers When we turn toward experiment, other questions become interesting They bracket theoretical interests
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Hasok Chang Helpful to distinguish the epistemic from metaphysical questions Nancy and John – the world is messy epistemologically Hasok – don’t know what the world is like But pluralism … yes epistemologically Q What’s the transcendental inference then? Dappledness? Nancy Cartwright? Balloons on the cover of the book are the way the sciences are Q Galison? Remarkable period in Stanford intellectual history … The influence is spreading even though it’s not localized He’s been at Stanford from the 70s-‐90s The proper philosophy of science … empirical conditions … laid down by entire knowers To janet What can you say on twitter that’s useful outside of philosophy of science “Here’s a post” or “here’s a link” that take 1500 words to lay out sensible
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Tumblr’s what I can’t wrap my head around Rasmus – The reasoning these panels are … Compress what this basic message was … Elevator pitch … Q From Ghana Where there’s an interest in the history of the Philosophy of Science In Europe Philosophy of Science is a historigraphically concept Philosophy of Science has some negative connotations What about Philosophy of Science is unique in the US? What is missing here Is about group dynamics and power dynamics Can this history only be written when this school is concluded? Who isn’t here? Who are the casts outs? Can we get with the school notion to work in an historical or sociological fashion? Rasmus, As the editor of a publication He’s looking for sociologists to reflect Blind spots More to come
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Mike: The spirit in which they raised it … As a kind of lineage With intellectual allies He doesn’t think that that many of the practitioners take it all that seriously … It’s worked for me … There’s this distinction about how this works … Q Galison? Two models contrasted e.g. Freudian psychoanalysis – fissures with Jung and the dynamic of the creation of an international society Freud and his close circle … This is not like that Another model The Bauhaus in Dessau In 1925 People disagreed utterly about the role of art The world of engineering or not Kadinsky changed his mind so many times … Marxist architects like Hannes Meyers If there are people who are considered apostates from the Bauhaus you don’t hear about it Performativity – men coming in with too long hair, women coming in with too short hair Not organized around fixed conception Around art, architecture and design … Felt a very powerful affinity in the conversations they developed Q What was it about the Bauhaus model? Was it just that there were just there at the same time?
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Surely more than proximity … People have piece-‐wise connections without a divided central core e.g. about the functions of the drive unity and disunity the point of contact was always around different points of scientific practice … it’s not a dogma but a second interest … to hold together … HPSS … Larry Louden’s model of sophisticated modification Philosophers were going elsewhere … Stree corner sociology … a lot came from Britain … Even when they were talking about similar figures … What made it interesting for philosophers … Q – from panelist Mike Does the fact that your sitting at a science with a great practice of science make a difference Q – comment – Pat Suppes What’s lacking in the discussion A revolution in science Complexity of science, Enormous amount of data And that philosophy of science has not yet begun to discuss the data revolution And it’s not just about data Brain data … Experimental data Will produce much less data than a substantial brain experiment on the nature of memory
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It turns out that computers are better at collecting data than they are at analyzing it … Big surprise we’re in for … in terms of overwhelming amounts of data … Q Jordi to Pat What’s paradoxical about computation ? Jordi It’s about surprise of expectations Pat Papers by 4000 people Complicated to do big time experiments We’re not discussing this today in the philosophy of science Janet: Perhaps enough Philosophical attention Scientific practice is doing this interestingly … citizen science e.g. Galaxy Zoo Pat But I would object to that in another way There’s something else which isn’t happening … Yes we can understand things … Went to a Suskind …talk … feels like it’s receding in front of us … That doesn’t mean you’re going to explain dark holes or dark matter It’s also recognized in other people So many people there 200-‐250 people Data is overwhelming … No one has a grasp of what’s going on …
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Janet Need to stop fetishizing data that will help us understand Pat What’s a good example of less data being better? Audience NSA Pat That example doesn’t count Janet: SSPS At least we can stay close to the conversation …. Hasok One thing – There are thankfully Philosophers of Science Exeter philosopher Looking at huge data sets Slow off the mark Since we’ve begun to pay attention to modeling … Q To Prof. Weisberg Ended remarks with challenge Unified structure Get me into trouble Accept your fate A Dappled epistemology Dappled metaphysics Parable of blind man or an elephant A little bit of this a little bit of that Believe what we triangulate with …
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In the SSPS endorse this picture Two words in Peter Galison’s mouth trader’s provides a whole different imagination into how epistemologies work out you can have agreement without consensus focus on practice and trading zones bring in more on trading zone Janet And if you want to rif on tool box Your neighbor doesn’t always use it the way you think it might Q Zach 20 years in the scientific field philosopher/scientist A Hasok Complementary scientist Many ways of getting your hands dirty Including literally getting your hands dirty Following scientists And paying attention to their practice … Point is to identify those scientific questions … That you can tackle That the scientists won’t or can’t tackle … That’s the trading zone between the SSPS people and the scientists Don’t think the idea is to be completely with the scientist
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Most successful Ph.D. student Ph.D. in philosophy New the deadlines and the grad sch rules Tragic – became so enamored with phil that he left science Michael-‐ Practical note It’s not that you do what Hasok did … you have to understand what science looks like … and go to science meetings … That’s what students should be doing … Q Sutter USCS 2nd year Motivation to maintain relevance to broader scientific community and whether it’s an ethical one … There are social ills out there … we have some sort of ills to fix them … n’est-‐ce pas? A One of my passions … Related to the SSPS school, but not more broadly … Janet See a lot of the relevance Because they don’t have picture of behind the white lab coat Tell them something useful or sell them something … Idealized picture of Less assymetric power structure laid over Q Do you think are aspects of the methodology that are generalizable to other areas of philosophy?
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A Political philosophy could be more engaged with political institutions … A Nancy Some bits of metaphysics should be … Mind brain We’ve got Jonathan Lowe there Metaphysicians metaphysician Not a know-‐nothing approach to metaphysics A Michael – Q Stanford philosopher of science … Interesting varieties of realism Q Different picture of the problem than metaphysics or epistemological one? A -‐ Jordi Try it out Reply DIFFERENT It looked like setting up the problem, but here’s where people did productive work, which might be inspring … Q Absence of discussion about different styles of inquiry Hacking Pickering
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A -‐ Rasmus Six styles Abstracting from these six styles … Not just that they’re different theories … fundamentally different styles Paradigm is a great word … Different kinds of ways of doing science … It’s hard to get a list … Pickering gives 4 There is something about organizing knowledge and combining practices … These styles CROSSCUT different disciplines … There is a specific list … You can combine (dis)unity with substance … Foucault’s historical a priori Q Earlier discussion about getting your hands dirty Are you doing ethnograpy, and if not, why not? A -‐ Damien We want to be doing philosophy of science Critical distance e.g. Thinking about the genetics of race A Science and technology What’s the relationship between phil of science, science technology studies, and SSPS How close is the SSPS close to sociology of knowledge, science of knowledge Janet – Hop on the nature of the chemical bond
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She takes seriously what the chemist is doing …and that phenomenon is real So what the hell does this have to do with doing ethnography So Janet looks at the chemistry education literature Wasn’t doing ethnography, but was peeling back, what’s going on What do we want to do? A – Michael It starts of ethnography in some ways A – Hasok The question or whether this is ethnography or not He puts Phil of Science under STS So what’s the whole point of science studies. a It’s a descriptive science B Hasok – aim to improve scientific knowledge … Help science to become better Connects with the ethical question … Ethnographers are not trying to improve what they’re doing … Q Inspired by Prof Stemwedel’s question Scientist’s motivations? Certain types of ethical concerns, and certain types that aren’t … Tell them a story about how the world is
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Making up data … honesty … Sometimes it’s a harder call Good argument from epistemology not to abuse their graduate students … Yelling at grad students Screwing up competitors This is a reason of not screw scientists This new generation of scientists … why not treat them humanely … ? Too many Ph.D. students for the number of jobs … If we’re thinking hard about what’s building our knowledge building capacities …
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Session 2 John Perry Been here since 1974 Pat Suppes Has been here 62 years SSPS Strong personalities Hired a MIT firebrand Marxist And now is a dean Having not rally outgrown her antiestablishment attitudes “Why something is not allowed?” Deborah Katz Political philosopher Disunity Importance of practice Cut her teeth on Adam Smith with Nancy Cartwright Parallel philosophers Better intersecting philosophers
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Philip Kitcher on screen Yes there’s a Stanford School of Philosophy of Science Yes it’s important to him Act 1 Late 1940s and 1950s Logical positivism to logical empiricism Carnap etc. Popper Lay out an agenda for philosophy of science Hempel -‐ 1950 Philosophers of science should focus on Confirmation Explanation Simplicity One other At times they had enormous and pernicious influences on Science These general theories didn’t emerge What happened was a kind of evolution of the project Tools … By the early 80s Arthur Fein PSA Central emphasis of the Stanford school Focus on practice in particular Act 2 Kuhn Feierabend Tolman
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Hens Study of the history of science would undermine (?) the tenets Popular reception among scientists to Kuhn was popular But a threat among philosophers Bogeyman Kuhn, Feyerabend Advocating a frightening relativism It also seems to have diverted Kuhn … Tried to write a book on the lexicon … never completed … Ian Hacking Peter Galison Peter refers to Peter Galison PGS refers to PGS Taking up of Kuhnian theme Stanford is coming play a positive role in the transformation Act 3 Begins in the head of Pat Suppes Hard to say when Might have been the 1960s, might have been the 1950s First Attention to scientific practice And areas of science quite different from high theory of other scientists who were interested in physics and specific areas Emphasis on statistics and probability
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Emphasis on models Concern for science in society Hypothesis meets O Most transformative Disunity thesis Nancy – Dappled World John – Disorder of Things Before closing the 3rd act Concern for embedding of science in society Fruition Exeter Evidence based positivism Durham John Biological Act 4 Despite the polarization of 80s Some phils were able to recognize and build on insights of historians Loginu Fox Keller Wylie Helen’s most important “Science and Social Knowledge” Values of the ambient society Act 5 – apologia Puck
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If the shadow’s have been extended … Back to Dewey 65 years Pragmatist bent there at the beginning … That was Philip
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Helen Logineau 4 questions attention to actual contemporary science strong engagement to phil matters recognition of disunity of sciences and pluralism as of you a willingness to think against the grain abandon orthodoxy ask new questions recognition of scienes in sociopolitical context, but not determined by them … point of phil argument was not one upmanship or counterexamples but rather understanding … because the subject matter matters beyond the seminar rooms beyond room 92 q – seminar room of phil dept. standards constitute a coherent set of attitudes have a profound effect in the phil of science doesn’t think it’s had enough of an effect personal answer in the late 1970s at Berkeley logic, epistemology, dept at Stanford was a haven
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the openness of philosophers to colleagues of other institutions was a life saver Nancy Cartwright John Dupres Might have otherwise ended up growing organic vegetables in Mendocino county Sometimes feels presumptious to identify with Stanfordians Very fruitful interaction sometimes at a distance Talking about work from the 1980s These Phils have gone beyond this One idea … Set of proposals … Where most phils are focused on deductive models Nancy says Laws must be true For Nancy laws can’t be true And their role is an example of their untruth This anti-‐realism in terms of theoretical laws liberates the mind that different patterns might be attuned … for example, a feminist mind Evelyn;s work Call to attention to alternative ways the phoneomenon might be understood Locating the causal action in the phenomena Encourages the phenomena Attend to the empirical data Kidns of correalations
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Rather the kinds of hypotheses and evidence Informal laws That are generalized and overgeneralized Ontological pluralism Promiscuous pluralism Standard assumptions fo the day Ground anti-‐essentialism Physical and social kinds Have radically different ontologies What kind of work, cognitive and practical, have Critiques of evolutionary psychology … John’s proposals From details of a particular science After she had left the bay area From Peter Godfrey Smith His theoretical questions in specific fields of … Like Pat Suppes Been a fan since 1980s presidential address to the APA Pat’s embraced of plurality Nancy’s particularism New focus The statistical basis of the data
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Phil of statistical inference Even in employing the languages of Pat said, in probabilistic … The theoretical attitude In 19th century science Hardly anyone suggested that this is all a mistake Pearce is an exception to this … About a number – the notion of an exact value has no meaning .. We live in a world of fluctuation Phil …
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Mexican Professor Many schools of Stanford Schools of philosophy of science Doesn’t think about a Stanford School of Philosophy of Science Worth naming Stanford Hub Sees parallels with functional school of psychology in Chicago in the last century Basic themes Anti-‐fundamentalism Causal pluralism Questioning of the boundaries between description and explanation … There is something important in the way these basic things interact … Coherent approach in contrast to others around in the 1970s and 1980s Anti-‐fundamentalism The world is dappled … Causation is an essentially contested concept No single explanatory theme by which phenomena can be expressed Stability is required for explanation … Mechanisms can’t explain everything (Dupres) The points is that the mechanisms are not enough
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Processes (Dupres suggests that we should focus on processes) Important in psychology Ontology of processes … Functional psychology What is abstraction and how our capacity of abstractions are produced. At a psychological level, how abstractions are formed is far from simple Might emphasize metrical of topological reasoning … Need more work on how this psychological work … installing scientific models … Different schools and science Or even if it’s worth continuing to teach philosophy of science Philosophy of science should be done in terms of institutional links Not committed to unified idea of science
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Graduated in 66 Late 60s Revolutionary thinking …in phil of science Was reading a lot from Stanford and Pat Suppes He suggests there is a Suppes school Group of people working on Common problems in common way Published joint papers Enormous influence To him this constitutes a school German structuralism Putnam Received view identified with Carnap Semantic view in opposition to this Suppes wrote about it a couple of years ago … March 26, 1969 Looking through papers from then Don’t see the above 2 views 4 years’ later, Suppes writes a paper about these During those years Later 50s, 60s early 70s
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Large group of collaborators .. Very general theories … Suppes’ “Set-‐Theoretical Structures in Science” Straightforward attack on what Putnam called the received point of view Carnap and Reichenbach Suppes’ “Set-‐Theoretical Structures in Science” Said this is not science Vis-‐à-‐vis the relation between theory and phenomenon Suppes introduces slogan Mathematics, not meta-‐mathematics e.g. geometry didn‘t change much over 2000 years… present the structures then then argue what they’re like qualification if you’re going to give definition you choose a language they choose set-‐theory this is the lingua franca of the scientist that was all a detour what Carnap had done was a great distraction 2nd part of this how are the theory related to the phenomena
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these were new ways of thinking about science …. Conceptual grinder as Pat Suppes described it … End by saying How he then related to it Receiver of theories Carnap – language Someone else said you dealt with structures and forgot about language For every theory there is a language
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Q How many parallel schools are there? Parallels with France and Hacking? Suppes: Foucault Helen He doesn’t just work on styles of thought … Hacking Engagement with history With statistics Nancy Cartwright – Q James Forrest Embodied experience with A Helen What embodied experience is … Very little unity across all our forms of embodied experience Pat Suppes Classical physics developed from a deterministic point of view Separated the physical from the statistical The weakness of that work was the absence of serious discussion
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The subject turned out to be a very complicated subject … Neglected as a methodological subject … Q Point of argument is to increase understanding Feminist point of view … A Helen What can a feminist philosophy of science contribute? Clarification Q How can a feminist philosophy of science increase understanding ? A Helen -‐ Through argument … Developing arguments Bringing considerations, reasoning there … Critical interactions … Gender sensitivity into philosophy of science Opened up value laden science What feminist philosophy of science Value of engaging In hopes of generating new understandings Across philosophical commitments feminist philosophy of science has gotten a respectability in philosophy of science in a way that feminism hasn’t gotten philosophy science which shapes other sciences …
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Q Janet Question for Philip Feel disappointed with yourself for having dragged your feet … Do you think there was something valuable that the Stanford philosophers got from his foot dragging … Q Another question for Philip Parallel philosophers A case where parallel lines meet in the SSPS Coming back to Dewey ... how? A Philip: Pragmatism is having a revival But pragmatists can’t agree Essential to pragmatism is that pragmatism matters for Dewey Another thing central for Dewey is the pluralism of categories 3rd theme for Cewey is values are central .. He would like to bring this on board for SSPS And classical view about truth and beauty
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“Preludes to Pragmatism” Q Michael: To Phillip and Bas Stanford school Measurement was the big issue Big interest in the Phil of Science PSA … not many talks on measurement Bas: 19th century Poincare “15 problems with the theory of measurement” lacking was theoretical models that Theory depends on measurement looking more carefully at bottom of the hierarchy pushed aside but 2013 is the decade for this … discussion of the model in SF Bay Nancy Theory to experiment to measurement where everybody is working on measurement
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Move to muse of science … application … Bas One reason for the cycling is that people aren’t studying the history Peter Galison Abt Statistics Vis-‐à-‐vis Pat In the 19th century …. Not just modeled deterministic things But also vis-‐à-‐vis Gauss Was current made out of discrete things or was it determinant Physics didn’t catch up with astronomy until deep into the 20th century … Is measurement data contaminated … The whether question …. Seemed deeply less interesting than how … And not “is it theoretically laden or not?” What mattered is which pieces of theory got deployed at which level of the theoretical process. It wasn’t this destroys the theory of the protocol … Q Pente Pondering the effects of the SSPS trains the scientists … fumbled thinks he got a good education because he shopped around … What does Stanford do now to help students who go into science?
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A Helen I’m the one person who’s doing that now who’s doing that There’s tom and Michael Friedman Experimenting teaching the philosophy of science in a new way As citizens, we need to understand the nature of scientific reasoning Basic logical concepts that students can use … Basics of argumentation and concept formation Specified the operationalized … Philip Just wanted to say something before he leaves Some of the difficulties in talking about the Stanford school Part of the problem is Pat You can’t take all of those strands and think of them in the SSPS But, as one … Set theory apparatus in reconstructing theories Tom on the teaching to Stanford students: What can students get from the SSPS His best students in philosophy are physics students If you take the standard physics You get to entanglement in the last few weeks
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But this is where they start … Insert some disquiet into the philosophical education … Pragmatism is already there … Q Question about what we know physically … We hear a lot about laws Is there a law in the notion of anything absolutely anything Can it categorically state that there is no such things as laws A John Perry Great skepticism about there being true laws of nature Plug for randomness A Bas Giving a paper “There are no laws of nature”
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John Perry Cordura hall and CSLI Panama and Campus Drive 20 million dollars John Perry Tom Wasow Ivan Saag Back some 40 years ago Call Pat Can I found a research center within ISSS The independent research center you own like your own Mercedes Suppes’ “Set-‐Theoretical Structures in Science” has been published and it’s on the web Skeptical Going to say something skeptical Stanford School of Philosophy of Science You can say set theory to think about this … He sees two schools Pat Suppes approach Disunity approach
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There’s commonalities … Long paragraphs crazy Hempel All clearly the product of people who know science … He knew John Dupres Bas Misrepresenting Pat Suppes Category theory English Emphasis is wrong … When Nancy talks about models, even though it’s very very different from the way Pat Suppes talked about it … Mathematics about this or mathematics about this … Action to models … Pat’s views of semantics And Bas’s The nice thing about defining a set theory predicate This is a Newtonian system but this isn’t Probabilistic causation is … Q
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Michael to Bas Stick it to Bas Models didn’t come up so much this morning Pat did with models diffusing throughout the Stanford school … SSPS Yes, I’m talking about the models in the sense of … yes we should be looking at theorists as they are developing their models Rasmus Martin Jones Two models Part of the discussion is that there is an ambiguity … Then there’s an issue about … A model is a function of Godfrey-‐Smith Dupres’s stuff Surely looks completely different Naïve but not totally super person could have that reaction … Introducing a focus on models Peter Not the distinction between axiomatic and not axiomatic work But …
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Highly removed from the philosophy of quantum physics Comment The spirit he brought to Stanford … To working with people from many different areas … Pentii Models 2 kinds of models 1 prove theorems 2 produce simulated data he used this Tie what Peter said with what Paul said … Pat was so involved with so many departments Deborah -‐ Who were the people who influenced the Stanford school the most? Ken Arrow Duversky Pat Suppes: Distinguishing what Nancy, John and Ian did …
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Was interested in the detail Language … What Nancy did was a step above this Pat was trying to use language Scepticism in social sciences brought by physicists He believed that models were … Deborah’s question was … Pat Suppes There was conversation across Stanford because it was small Q Helen said? SSPS not having enough of effect on Phil of Science What’ lies ahead? What are the challenges ahead? A Rasmus Distinction between general philosophy of science and specific areas – silos Try to interact a bit more in this increasingly technical discussions … Janet Maybe there will be more engagement and splits Different tribes seem to be emerging … Why paying attention to practice is a sensible thing to do …
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Michael It’s not just practice But the crew here paid attach to science more broadly Was it actually the Stanford thing to low barriers to interaction? Pat: Enormous increase in bureaucracy Not responsible for the Stanford school, but it helped … A lot of places between the philosophers of science … Peter Galison Plenty of barriers at Stanford 3 physics departments at Stanford Physics Applied Physics SLAC They weren’t worrying about banning the History of the Philosophy of Science, they were worried about SLAC Philosophy department here was small and there was a continuing conversation … If you reduce things to hypothesis, if H1 then H2 Heard about Game theory abstracted from anything concrete … Very different meanings but what people meant by disunity
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Cam ein 1974 Taught before here at UCLA for 8? years? With Ph.D. from Cornell Q Relation between ideas and practice … History was a kind of empiricism Translation at SSPS into practice … Another way of doing history Or was there a way of practice It certainly was not history … Much of American philosophy Following on this German tradition Pat Directed toward understanding the sciences currently … Q Puzzled by attention to practice, And it may not be one thing Is it an anthropological approach and people are asked to describe what they’re doing … Reforming the terms in which scientists think? Is that with attention to some normative reading. A
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We don’t just ask what scientists are doing But we have to explain what scientists are doing … Misuses of genetics in abstractions about race …. A Nancy A little depends on historical context … You did it at a very very abstract level … Phil of science as practice More differentiated More detrailed A lot of the foundation so physics was concerned with theory, as if theory was the only thing that happened … Approx. Data recording … The practice of science has to do with where it is Depended on what battle you are fighting … Great deal more particularity and disciplinarity …. Q Wanted to articulate more about practice … Connection between the historical turn and the Stanford Different approach that comes out of Stanford Dick Leiden was president at Stanford Assoc Deans together with Pat Suppes at that time
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Hi Amy you may not be the person at CI But I noticed that you do have a focus on k-‐12, so one point of articulation would be
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October 26, 2013 2nd Day *Panel #3: Collaborative Local Scientists [Saturday morning]* -‐ Brian Cantwell-‐Smith (Toronto) (paper read) -‐ Persi Diaconis (Stanford) (not present) -‐ CWF Everitt (Stanford) -‐ Solomon Feferman (Stanford) -‐ Marcus Feldman (Stanford) (not present) -‐ Melissa Franklin (Harvard) -‐ Denis Phillips (Stanford) -‐ Chair: Paolo Mancosu (UC Berkeley) Paolo Mancuso History and Philosophy of Mathematics Mathematical Logic Italian Foucault Hacking Would not speak of a Stanford School But rather of an environment … Melissa Franklin in video conference Rasmus reads Brian Cantwell-‐Smith’s paper AI, Computer Science Those earl y CSLI days Why so little connection with the Philosophy of Science Taking a stab at terms in various disciplines
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Linear logic Another favorite … Is problematic because … Does computer science count as a natural science? Computer science is as much engineering as science
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CWF Everitt (Stanford) Physicist who needs a chart so he can thnk A school? Bertrand Russell’s firs visit to Germany, 1900 “What School of Philosophy do you belong to?” I’ve no ideas, I’m simply someone trying to do philsoophy“” For F.E., history & philosophy intertwined The history of physics raises philosophical questions Collaborations with Ian & Nancy With Ian – “Which Comes First: Theory or Experiment?” Humphry Davy (1812 paper) vs Karl Popper Many walks to Telescope & back Deepening the question via Faraday’s processes of discovery Publication declined With Nancy – course on the Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics Schrodinger’s cat Leo Szilard, information theory & Macwell’s demon “And find no end in wand’ring mazes lost” (Milton) … (Quantum Mechanics) John Dupre “The Disorder of Things”
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Explanation, Connection, Discovery Science as: Explanation The common assumption Connection: the velocity c Dimensional arguments identify celectrical c electrical = c optical Maxwell’s theory: light & electromagnetism connected not explained Discovery: paleomagnetism Geological vs physical evidence: Graham’s tests Carbonierous times Britain was 10 degrees south of the equator Tropical rain forests and coal 3 discoveries in phyiscs Radioactivity (1895), nucleus (1911), general relativity (1915) Which is most important
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2 (or rather 5) books & 1 science
1930, J. Hershcel 1837, 1840 Whewell: ‘History and Philosophy of the Inductive Science’ Classification of the sciences ‘Levels’ of understanding Each science has its own ‘appropriate ideas’ Worlds: aid or impedance to thought The contrasted languages of chemistry & heat Chemistry: re-‐created by Laplace, Guyton de Morveau et al.1787 Heat developed over thousands of years with no obvious order Heat-‐chemsitry (18th century view), physics (19th century view) Some physics words, their dates and their inventers Field Energy Temperature Thermometer Thermodynamics Loaded words 1909 Planck & Einstein 1982 Dicke
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2 views of the 2 Russells
Russell the analystic philosopher; Russell the dispenser of wisdom Wittgenttein “Russell’s books should be bound in two colours … math logic in red ethics and politics in blue Somerset Maugham Accept Russell as a guide I sought
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Solomon Fefferman Is there a Stanford School of Phil of Scien 70s-‐90s – extraordinary time Cartwright Dupres Galison Godfrey Smith Hacking Return to the work of Patrick Suppes yesterday … Instead of answering Rasmus’s questions Respond to Pat From Tarski – logician (greatest along with Goedel) From his perspective as logician Polish school of logic was important to him But soon made connections with Carnap and Vienna Circle 1930s … came to Cambridge for conf on the 5th conf of the Unity of Science stranded here … 1942 found temporary position at UC Berkeley … generally considered 4 schools of logic proof theory
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1 Hilbert – consistency of mathematics – proofs – from syntax tried to show that 2 Recursive function theory – theory of computations 3 axiomatic set theory – Termello and Frankl and Von Neuman 4 model theory – most relevant for today set and model theory are most important Tarski Emphasized ideas of semantics and model theory Structure, One or more domains Objects What is its theory ? What can we tell about it? Graduate student of Tarski in 1950s Along with Richard Donohue Dana Scott came along as an undergraduate and soon joined seminars Tarski had a very close collaborator in JCC MacKenzie, who had worked on modal logic, -‐ came to Stanford in 1950 and tragically four years later … worked on the axiomatization in classical mechanics Only able to speculate on Pat’s influence from Tarski … or from MacKenzie
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Tarski – focused on first order thoeryies, not over sets of real numbers, or over … Pat – brought representations of models, and notions of variance … Isomorphic to variable models Showed how notions of probability … Probabilistic interests may have come out of studying weather patterns in the war Instead of direct interaction in the work of phil of sci Thinks of logic here as a common interest … In a way there emerged a Stanford school of logic around Kreisl Broader than Hilberts In … and Solomon Fefferman’s work What was happening there … Pat was working there with Dick Atkinson on statistical learning theory ..
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Melissa Franklin (Harvard) in video conference Was at Stanford from late 70s to early 80s, then a post doc at Berkeley in the mid-‐ 80s Read “How the Laws of Physics Law” in 1983 phenomenological theories being the only real ones … truffle farmer as experimentalists and pigs as theorists She decided to remain a bad pig … differences between theory and experiment are getting closer read a lot of books read Hacking’s book militant oil drop experiments to look for specific quarks we somehow do define if you can “spray” ??? it it’s real we haven’t yet been able to spray a higgs bozon when the higgs bozon – made in an accelerator – people are now using quantum entanglement to make computers or teleportation devices …
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thinking about quantum entanglements … as things we can spray only other person’s books I read “How experiments End” – Peter Galison’s books looking back you could probably argue that there was a school unless the other 3 said exactly the opposite so phil of science was no longer about theoretical physics but about physics as a whole in santé fe doesn’t want to be a bad pig anymore wants to come to a realization of the different roles of experimentalists and theorists thank you for listening to me
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Denis Phillips (Stanford) Field of education Relationship between him and SSPS Isn’t egoist Egoist -‐ Low taste more interested in himself than in me Started in 74-‐75 Somewhat insecure with phil identity Became bored in Australia with phil questions Evolutionary Biology … to Piaget seriousness with which they took philosophical practice … didn’t understand a word in SLACK physics department his relationship “Causal Influence or Selection Bias” Ian … was already doing it .. What was driving development through stages Piaget postulated Relationship between assimilation and accommodation When cognitive structures couldn’t deal, accommodative …
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Seemed to Dennis this wasn’t an adequate explanation “Make an adjustment to your way of belief” Kohlberg’s Theory of moral development stages Was Kohlberg a phenomenological engine and not a person …
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Questions Nancy Cartwright Other overlapping circles Big influence on her Ian Hacking and Peter Galison the historian Worked intensely with Rainy Gaston Building the history of philosophy program Stanford School and the someone revolution group … History had played an important role Q James Sutter – UCSC 3rd slide – mentioned Maxwell’s theory … connecting light and electricity to Francis Everett notions of explanation? Deduce Maxwell’s equations about Works for magnetism and for light Is it explained by something underneath it, or is it connecting things … Equal velocity What have you explained there?
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Is science explanation or Nancy Cartwright What would it be to explain, if connection isn’t enough? For Francis, connection is everything … David As amateur philosopher Einstein -‐ Constructive theory And … Compelling model of explanation in the physical sciences . Solomon Sees explanation all over the place Sometimes it’s so compelling it knocks you out … Newton theories of gravity explaining Kepler’s Who would think this would be an explanation … You plug in this data and it churns out this answer … Just what is gravity and how does it work? We have an explanation that stuns you and you move on to other problems … Ordinary arithmetical operation … The nature of an explanation can show when something is solvable and not Not as final answers but Occasions to be impressed
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Francis Was going to comment on Newton’s theories explains Kepler’s laws Maxwell’s theory main point is point of connection Arthur Fein or Fine Sometimes do philosophy of science Certain sea-‐change between the 60s and 70s Devaluation of logical methods as a way of doing phil of science Perhaps only Pat maintained building logic into What did it feel like to be part of a field where logic was devalued Hilbert 1900 23 mathematical problems brought axiomization of geometry up to date in 1976 conference on Hilbert’s problems and volume edited by Brauder to deal with this problem is difficult no simple way we as logicians had to stand by because we didn’t really know the physics they weren’t of genuine help very pleased to see that logic was playing some sort of role in the axiomitization …
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the kind of logic he grew up in as student of Tarski had to go beyond MacKenzie and Sucre Pleased to see that logic was there, but we as logicians didn’t see how to contribute in substantive way There were some by Dana Scott Pat Suppes: Working with Ernest Nagel Good feeling for problems But wasn’t sure he hadn’t solve anything Explanation … Well you can solve problems, and you can do it in an intellectually satisfying way … Komogoro … Coming to the realization that that’s the way to do things … Tarski also provided Methods for doing things Hilbert didn’t offer methods Albert projected that you can do everything that way, and Pat Suppes liked the imperialism of Albert Stemwedel Co-‐informing of philosophers … ? Dennis Phillips -‐ Students did Masters degree with philosophers in the philosophy of science Didn’t know that his work impacted the philosophy of science “Holistic Thought in Social Science” Methodological Individualistic stand
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Influenced by Watkins and LSE Wasn’t so bold Melissa Most philosophers and philosophy of science Are experimentalists And they send their manuscript Solomon: Since Dennis brought up students You have your traditional area of philosophy You have friendship and collegiality But otherwise not much interaction … Gave seminars in logic He hopes that logic went through them and back up … Appreciated having those students because they were very good Francis: Working with Ian Made him think about how physics developed in 19th century … Learned a great deal about history of physics … Francis was building a piece of machinery in Solomon: Learned things from Nancy and Ian About the unity of science movement Had to learn and understand things about the Vienna circle How the unity of science movement fell apart with WWII And everyone was dispersed Vienna Circle in exile with some accretions …
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Norrad who was great promoter of unity of science It would have been carnap to take over, but he wasn’t that kind of person … And the whole logical positivist program was under attack from many directions Everett and others re-‐created the spirit of unity of science Leading to Congresses of Law, Methodology and Science .? at Stanford And Pat was the worker Tarski was the pusher And Pat was the worker Tarski blew up … we will be submerged in a sea of men .. Solomon learned things that were very helpful Pat Suppes An important person at Stanford Cyclic theory in Greek thought Stanford George Smith – great historians of science and physics Particularly George Wants to read every single common and equation in Newton’s Principia While Nancy and Ian don’t … George has been a good example of what one can have in the history of science …
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George represents the SSPS school as anyone for Pat … now retired … teaches at Tufts a little Very important to include the discussion of George Smith … Would never be accepted in the Stanford history department … meant that as a complement Francis – doesn’t know what the philosophy of science is Melissa on screen You put all the scientists together and you have unity … You’re sitting in the school of knowledge Stanford has low silos And information go back and forth John McCarthy Had strong philosophical interests and opinions … There’s been very little contact and communication Between philosophy of science and computer science programs Why? Pat Suppes To contradict your example The first PDP 1 was shared dollar for dollar minute for minute …
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David -‐ John is the first significant philosopher in AI … He read one paper … Since the question was posed in terms of Silicon Valley That’s certainly true … The most important threads of ongoing work in AI and threads leading to Silicon Valley do have connections with philosophy of science in principle … have to do with the role with statistics and probability … rather than work in deductive logic Special role of theory and development in deductive logic … in AI The machine learning revolution … You get noisy data through equipment that doesn’t quite work … Q Computer science, Stanford school Development of the stored program machine … Solomon – Very glad with those comments Last year was Turing centenary Draw a line to Silicon Valley Based on the theory
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But the connection with Stanford was minimal … Pat Suppes Don’t disagree with what you say … The great contribution of John Was time sharing and interactive computers The first PDP 1 David Not much relationship between phil of science and Pat Endless discussion around how to do things …
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Q& A after break Tony Hunt -‐ UCSF Where’s the biomedical train going? A Solomon – Hopefully it doesn’t go off the tracks … A Post-‐genomics Epigenetics – most post-‐genomic context Now that we have meta-‐genomic methods And for doing fundamental metaphysics A Rick Prohm? Evolutionary biological Biologists will become conscious of the Stanford School That disunity is not necessarily a problem, but an effective tool … The connects … Rasmus Tony’s question … critique the framing of the question … Giving generation Pluralism Negotiation
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Solomon Words Being on a train Living in Silos … don’t like that metaphor When you work in a discipline, you focus on problems … Relate in a certain My apologies for not making it more substantive than it is His work is 100 thousand of the field of mathematics … He can barely talk to the other logicians Departmentalization is a fact of life … Pat – Part of this revolution Working on brain now … Stanford has more neuroscientists at this place … Instead of thinking about structural questions, They are now thinking about process … How do neurons and dendrites compete … It’s compute and compute … There is a thinking about computing … How do things get done?
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PGS Cantwell Smith Gave a talk Compute … Set of formal disciplines … Building useful devices … What computers are and what philosophy of science … Pat Meant something different here when talking about Not interested in building dendrites But how does the brain do it … If it isn’t computation, it’s got to be god in heaven … Do you regard that as a computation …? PGS Pat Computing … Solomon But Pat It’s one thing to pull a piece of paper out of your pocket …
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O yea but that’s being computed too Nancy – Doesn’t know the issue is Whether the physical process has a label that’s called compute … What the brain is doing something else in the case of perception. Why do you want to call it computing and Brian doesn’t? PGS Leap to representation was part of it at the time … Fodor argument … Then what is computation – manipulation of representations … Computation is anything within its engineering tradition … Is there empirical space for an alternative view… Bas -‐ How did the logicians feel when Pat and Solomon When they devalued logic … Pat’s formal work isn’t formalizing … Set predicate theorem …
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Were you devaluing the formal methods int eh phil of science? Nancy Well, we weren’t using it … A Arthur Fine Quantum physics The only way we’re going to understand this theory is if we get an axiomitization … A Introduce a philosophy course into the core biological curriculum Create an institutional setting where we can study this as a group … ? There was a co-‐existence Stanford and Silicon Valley (these guys are industrialists – no progress in 30 years) But Stanford ia a fount of innovation … They ‘re more than willing to listen … Q Didn’t hear the question A David Asked to represent
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Old dead white men Turing, Godel There is a pretty well understood notion of computation … Mostly thinking about Computation that doesn’t involve interaction with a larger environment … Pat Distributed computation Lots of elements and interacting with other parts of the environment And interacting with elements that aren’t computers … You can’t argue there’s no room for an alternative It’s hard to see what the alternative to computing could be And it’s a good way to think of what brains and other critters do … With respect to the brain … It’s to be taken a bit more literally ,and not just as a metaphor … Mancuso – Solomon, At MS research, there’s Yuri Gurevich Is very interested in distributed contribution in relation to classic notion The classic notions are perfect, whereas the others are not … And people are trying to move on from this …
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After lunch *Panel #4: Stanford School Core Members [Saturday afternoon]* -‐ Nancy Cartwright (Durham) -‐ John Dupré (Exeter) -‐ Peter Galison (Harvard) -‐ Peter Godfrey-‐Smith (CUNY) -‐ Patrick Suppes (Stanford) -‐ Chair: R. Lanier Anderson (Stanford) R. Lanier Anderson (Stanford) Relationship to SSPS Chair of Stanford Philosophy Department First Nietzsche Then Kant Hired Visiting assistant professor as a one year professor Learned the importance of teaching class on Mondays in winter quarter when there will be three non-‐meeting days 6 days for the critique of Pure Reason Pat taught 3 classes Christoph Then got to teach the Critique in 3 sessions What Hegel was all about … What Hegel was all about
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And what Hegel Powerful influences methodologically on this No-‐nothing ness Kant’s philso of Mathematics New assistant professor And a new subfield for him … First version Started while still an assistant professor Are there low silos here? In one case they were low enough and this got started … Should be realists about the existence of the Stanford school Hacking criterion of spreading realism Can the concept of SSPS Provide useful unity understandings .. Whether this concept to use the future perfect tense … will have been sprayed
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Nancy – Thinks there is a Stanford School Is told that she introduced the first concept in print Didn’t want to attribute ideas … Intensity of interaction interested her … When younger … Peter Ate lunch together New exposition … Subject to same philosophical ideas from the same philosophy department … Hasok Something sunk in … Concept of ideas at a very loose level Missing person from the SSPS Stewart Hampshire -‐ picture Here for 5 years When Pat and Peter and John and Jordi were all here … Signatory at Hasok’s wedding Associated with another school … The Oxford pessimists
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Isaiah Berlin Stewart Hampshire 3Bernard Williams 4Amarch Sen 4 people had a commonality of views parallel to the SSPS Marco You might think that the Oxford pessimists would be opposite … Absolute conception of science She’s interested in morality No true substantive moral theory There are moral ways of living and just interaction … No true substantive theories of justice … In the Phil of Science … if this pluralism and anti-‐unification … In the Philosophy of Science, She has tended to be epistemic John, or maybe Pat, tends to be more committal In probabilistic metaphysics There is no true substantive theory …
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Pluralism, realism and negotiation … No true substantive theories … This is not an anti-‐realist view … It’s neat to think of how we pull it off You can say true things that sound moral Sleazy or uplifting … Action guided and world guiding They’re not joined by a descriptive comment and then on top of it, joined, it’s good Can claim truly that that’s a true description How do we do that? Not just thick moral description But position objectivity … We ask questions in our languages, but nature does answer … There are fundamental laws that can use theoretical terms In Peter Galison’s work We have the traders But the islanders can talk truly With a position of objectivity Than the people on the ships Resist the story of the wise men and the elephant
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Different systems of thought … Both can be correct and each can make true claims How to handle conflict … ? At the time that Stewart was teaching out … Intercalated stone wall … Unity at the point of action … Similarity between SSPS and Oxford Pessimists Amartya Sen has similar views Amartya Sen These bring in different sets of duties and obligations … We manage to bring in and negotiate these … Stuart Hampshire is important for our discussions … Gives more substance there being a school More performatives to give schools … Close with one observation … She’s been married to Stewart Connection between more philosophy of science … brilliance of always observant John Perry Just reading your philosophy of science off your moral views …
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John Dupre He believes with everything Nancy says … One of the things I agree with … was wonderful place in 80s and 90s Real intellectual excitement and collegiality Don’t always fit into contemporary business models of university Contextually determined … Something becomes a gene because it lives in a particular kind of context He likes the work of the SSPS … It was a process determined in a very large part by a context … And John Perry was the heart of that department The context was massively conducive to an intellectual project Whether or not there was a project that deserves a name Branding Pragmatists in SSPS What’s the function of this?
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Whether other people, particularly younger people, find it useful as a ref point in the philosophical landscape … Ultimately the next generation will define whether there’s a SSPS or not … Some of his younger colleagues think there is one, an SSPS Society -‐ Philosophy of science in practice A number of people have mentioned a Pat Is there really such a thing as a Stanford school Prominent mention of Pat From the outside, it may be less obvious what Pat’s contribution is Bas identifies an earlier one …. More assoc with Bas Pat may have some selectivity in who comes to Stanford Selection bias People don’t precisely 1964 “Probabilistic Metaphysics” how belief is affected by the social instruments of science … epistemology and metaphysics are not easily separated John aggrees with Pat
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Better to separate in epistemology Some Philosophers of Science disagree with SSPS growing Pat as father of this project Answer is pretty clear at this point … Anti-‐essentialism Same name as pluralism Fully accept all of the themes central to the Stanford school Does think there are large parts of science it would be senseless to exclude values from Positive economics Economics that is designed to be free of values … The tradition of thinking of science as being value free Is crazy idea Normative assumptions are very important Conceptions with looping forms of work Nobody really loves Higgs Bozons
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One last topic … How much the Stanford school addressed the problem of interdisciplinarity Management buzz word Stanford department as being a donut department Metaphysics and epistemology Maybe the donut is a good philosophy department … people working on the core… Looping donuts … SPSS broadly conceived … is the right kind of philosophy to do the job … To promote this Healthy world of donuts .. Should promote the SSPS simply because it’s true
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Peter Galison Own discomfort with a history of science One great grandfather had a lab … only family member with science Lab was a time-‐transported object from 1890 or 1910 Turned his own screws, blew glass Packing room at the NY Public Library Spent a year in France In a plasma physics laboratory In a thing called the Q machine … My boss finally got me in … this is a nuclear defense laboratory In my undergraduate years at Harvard Baroque Kuhn Did Larry Louden have it right? Political issues pressing in on undergraduate years Jail, Canada and Vietnam didin’t sound like a wonderful chance Paris was still in the 1960s in 71—73 Met an actual agent provocateur … paid to throw a brick through the world Berlin was militarized … spent a semester in Berlin Pedro Lorenz, mayoral candidate was arrest
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Had a course from H. Stewart Hughes … Hegel 3 points Annale school Braudel, Bloch Used the material object as a basis – letter across the Mediterranean Wanted to do something on tangibility with history Einstein centenary wrote “How experiments end” said it was ok to work with problems of the practice of science … freedom to be able to pursue those questions … a time when we were all the time talking about this … 84-‐85 about practice … Pat interested in set theory In what science is doing … Philosophy is always set in a broader key … Theme of disunity … There were lots of disagreements
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Nancy would say that’s not an argument Ian I was never persuaded we shouldn’t treat black holes as real, because we aren’t in a position to manipulate them. It was always theoretical practice … How did they make contact … John Etchemendy also came to the department about the same time … There were graduate students who were terrific … History department was a harder nut to crack Paul Robinson Jim Sheehan His first film The “H Bomb” while he was here Descriptive of normative Purely descriptive account of practice is a chimera When you enter a lab like SLAC Nancy who comes from an anthropological standpoint The practices also tell you where the work was located … The first bubble chamber was first removed from the H bomb
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Trying to diagnose what the forms of unity were … Was it unified around a single law? Physical thing language? Set of objects? Divergence of what counted as unity … gave us a variety of approaches to understanding disunity … He overestimated the failures of Small group sociology Philosophically some hope
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Peter Godfrey Smith “Reflections on the “Stanford School” ” Yes, he thinks there is a SPSS Contrast picture Logical empiricist picture Science is an extension of extrapolation Legacy of David Hume is long-‐lived Caarl Hempel’s The Theoretican’s Dilemma A Study in the Logic of Theory Construction If theoretical posits do any real work … At Stanford, this view didn’t have very much grip … Suppes’ work on data models … Galison’s Instrument1 instrument2 instrument3 Theory Theory Theory Experiment1 experiement2
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If Hume and Hempel Give us the problem in philosophy of science Little epistemic atoms can support generalizations Suppes On development of subjectivism Part of his general exploration of probability Jeffrey built an edifice Totalizing Bayesians … Are quite different … More metaphysical topic … David Lewis What he called a Humean view of the world In Lewis’s words Loose and separate themes Vast mosaic … Contrast is very clear … Atomic loose and connected events A mosaic universe was not seen as a default or starting point at Stanford Distanced in two ways from Hume
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Does that mean Stanford is a Kantian place … Lewis Mosaic view of the world Connectedness needs to be reduced or eliminated … Something that had more usefulness than parsimony … Explains usefulness of Princeton work in the 1980s … A structure you explore and play as an idealization from a complex reality … A piece of philosophical modeling … The special properties and structures Were familiar enough … The same might be said about epistemological side … But the atomism that was a part of that observation … Particular events that were completing themselves in some ways As we’re talking about a university and its contribution Finish with organization of these places Existence of Stanford School was a good thing Good thing for styles of work associated with particular universities Sense of place in a department … is important In closing Stanford needs to strike the balances of great American universities and this university in particular
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Pat Suppes Both Peters … very interesting Own background … What made a difference in his education … Many of these criticisms of science Were criticized by his mentor Ernest Nagel Pat started out by being skeptical Patient way of taking things apart And asking what shall we keep and what shall we take away … No psychologists here … But Pat has credentials in this PGS mentioned about Hume And American and English reading of Hume He was above all a psychologist How we learn Come to deal with the world With emotions That set of ideas is seldom discussed in philosophy in the way Hume wrote about them Still about his own background … One of the biggest influences
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Learning theory Bill Estes Experimental psychology Conditioning Fit together like hand and glove Theory of learning … was a great thing to have … Only after publishing much on learning theory … Read Estes work as a theory of learning … Learning theoretical viewpoint … about how humans behave and why they behave as they do … Important point Example of one of the things it was easier to do in the old days Simply continuing graduate education by being a faculty member at Stanford Met and known a lot of very smart people Work he’s done and he’s got a lot done Importance of being able … Had a student who wanted to correct every sentence One of the great academic experiences has been learning from smart students … Here bright students say you’re wrong
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Made an appointment of Dana as an assistant professor Dana brought an immediate feeling for things … how you might want to tackle it … If you want to tackle a problem … Patient enough in getting rid of bad ideas … Another very smart Tarski student … Who in Berkeley … Bob Vaught Elegant guy Smart logician Had some mental problems that had difficulty Donald Davidson … spent years at Stanford Had very different styles Learned to work together well First book was a joint with him Experiments on decision-‐making … He come out English lit And Pat came out of meterology Pat’s life has been one grand collaboration at Stanford Not too many philosophers have that kind of experience … Important all for the development of the Philosophy of Science at Stanford
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That spread naturally and easily into the sciences … His views have not just been specialized Remembers John Herman Randall Jr. … who gave wonderful lectures in the history of philosophy … Not analytic but synthetic … great at having an overview of things and insights unusual about the history of thought Nagel had a bigger influence on him Brain … Really interested in Emotion in the brain What comes from Aristotle? Theory of form and matter .. Greatest ideas psychologically as an explanation particularly of perception The idea of form and matter … and the form is what we perceive and the form comes in different forms That particular item Normative matters: Pscyholgoically The saying about couples It doesn’t matter a damn about what you say, it’s how you say it …
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And what we’re saying now in the brain … And now looking for emotion in the brain … And that turns out to be a great pleasure … Everything is normative … You can make immediate normative judgments And it’s emotion …
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Q&A Panel to panel Peter Galison To Nancy and John Perry Underlying moral political philosophy 2 interesting aspect Prediction and explanation Could pull against one another Level Zero in Philosophy True Predictive Pedagogical Retreated All good things didn’t pull in the same direction … There’s the more contextualize … Love his “6 particles” Nancy – thinks Peter is a little optimistic about moral philosophy That virtues almost always pull against each other All told you should such that you should act per total utility
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It’s not just that virtues pull against each other But that systems of virtue pull against each other Political Concepts of justice Organization of life Competing theories of the good What’s true is that John’s lecture is uplifting … Nancy thinks it’s part of that … that once you’re within a discourse, you’re going to have a very difficult time separating action guiding and role guiding actions Once you’re acting under one of this identity As a mother As a teacher With a Christian view That the language you approach the world with aren’t going to fall under this categories … PGS List of Stanfordian themes … Peter – Mechanical objectivity meant losing John – Tradeoffs seem just to come with pluralism Things that have different virtues Answer different questions Different epistemic values
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Pluralism absolutely carries tradeoff and choice Pat – Sceptic about Nancy’s thesis or Peters In many areas, there are more agreements in virtues than fact … It’s not at all clear that’s overriding and deep that shows separation between normative and factual Peter Say in Astrophysics One group Analytic answer Another group A model is the end Show the term that shows the spiral formation of that galaxy Pat Distinguishing now prediction and facts From facts and virtues Nancy – Didn’t make any claims About where there was more consensus and less consensus
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That there will be places of conflict in both realms None of that is the opposite of hwa tyou said Pat I just wanted to make something more complicated out of what you said You formulated it So impossible to distinguish Between astrophysics claim And south India How do you make those further distinctions? Nancy – Very happy to do that in another seminar Q Rachel Christy Grad student at Princeton Unorthodox realism Philip Kitcher Panelists And Peter Similar Stanford School Pragmatism Thought there’s a closer tie in spirit … Nancy We shouldn’t have invited Bas Rachel
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How close is unorthodox realism to … PGS -‐ What I had in mind … these apples Dupre’s Promiscuous realism Nancy’s Nature’s capacities Making a claim about how the world might be … Unorthodox to resurrect capacities It’s very hard to even get to them if the kind of discussion is you’re not questions a basic realist outcome … But rather what kind of realism Unorthodox view … pragmatist kinship Don’t see any attempt to meet the anti-‐realist in any way … About what kind of world we actually inhabit … In all the cases of the people Nancy – No denial you can speak truth But which kinds of things you can say Anti-‐realist about the truth about widespread models that will actually describe truly what’s going on
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John is an anti-‐realist bout kinds The problems about unorthodoxy .. John – You did say you nancy were a bit soft on metaphysics Nancy – I didn’t want to have a metaphysical view that there really are these laws … Contrary to the evidence I like to argue John I can’t prove there’s an easter bunny That there’s any evidence whatsoever … Nancy There’s good reason to argue for the truth that there’s no easter bunny Pretty good reason that there aren’t widespread laws of physics But there are John – The Easter bunny could stand in Nancy – Risk averse when it comes to taking a claim when it comes to someone’s life I like the dappled world But if such a claim effects how someone is going to operate on my daughter …
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If push comes to shove, that’s much less certain … I happier relying on my cup empty Solomon – Was very interested in hearing about Stewart Hampshire and your group Oxford Pessimists I assume one of the similarities was pluralism Liberalism … an open society … That’s what Stuart accuses roles of being … And it’s not his positions Very much like Bernard’s … Was going to speak a language After defense of the realm The first responsibility of a government is to reduce poverty … You can make truths speaking different languages … That morality evolves You can now see things … It’s that how do you pull off the trick Of being assertive about John’s lecture being uplifting With a title that I’m allowed to use a normatively loaded action guided words … that my action guided words are the right ones
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Rasmus – some themes pragmatism has come up … “On why I’m not a pragmatist” Bas … something like structuralism Set theoretic structures … Have that from Pat Please help Pragmatist path And the structure isn’t clear yet … Nancy That morality and virtues have more to do with structure Pat Remarks on part of that The kind of example you’re raising is an interesting Using a clear set theoretical formalism But it’s very a preference or set Ken Arrow’s Ph.D. dissertation on individual choice Showing if you’re uninhibited on what a theory should show Is impossible It’s a combination of both the normative and ‘that’s impossible’ Perhaps too often we don’t consider ….
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Arzim Q about disunity of science That diff sciences don’t have unity Method Ontological reductions Or maybe there’s a unity but you need an argument for it As SSPS, is there a science there? Is there a unity in disunity to justify this use of the world ‘science’ John Often say there isn’t a science Invoke his hero Wittgenstein Family resemblance concept After he wrote “the disorder of things, “ Doesn’t want to tar feyerabend One of the things we should be doing as philosophers of science … Masquerading as science … neither epistemitcally or normatively Spent 10 years talking about parts of science he didn’t like Then he got back to looking at good science and that was a relief The need for philosophers to think about science about what we admire Piecemeal process of evaluation
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But there are also paradigms and also foils Q Michael Weisman Heard more about physics and chemistry than about biology How distinctive is the Stanford school in biology … Is there some Stanford-‐ish twist on it … Polyphonetic group … A PGS Philosophy of biology was a small field for a long time Sober was here for 2 years Similar Certainly john’s style and Sober thinks in Newtownian terms Evolutionary theory has a lot in common with how … Easily to tell Dick Jeffrey -‐ Dick Lewis Non-‐standard SSPS styles Sober might be relevant to Sober
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John -‐ “as a process” My thought is 70% of phil of biology PGS Massively selection biasing Reminded of big branches of work that don’t interest me and go on … Pat Stress his skepticism About Hull and Whimsat That biology has marched on to a wild and wonderful new set of problems Hull was writing about an earlier time in knowledge “Reengineering philosophy for limited beings” It’s partly how far one can distinguish style from substance ?
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Angie Harris Univ of Utah For Nancy Apprec Positional objectivity Moral particularism How does this differ from Positional objectivity But it sounds like Nancy speaks of Positional objectivity As relativism Particularist … the world is really dappled … Action guiding … I take it that the moral particularist … It’s not relevant to a theory of the good … As soon as you want to have a theory of the good and tack this on to It’s not relative to a theory of the good … Jordi Comment goes back to John on Wittgenstein Remember when John was writing a book As a model of disunity
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Wollheim’s “Art and Its Objects” that’s a model of unity but it’s the only one I have My request for Nancy and Pat Is to talk about economists Axiomatics Empirical science Don’t want to burden him with more commentary Pat Would say about economics 2 things normative judgment something further away from the norm what’s interesting is even though we can say something about axiomatic choices … show there is no normative method for showing all the things you want to have … different for seeing the aftermarket for gold when it goes down 800 points pat would like to have a causal account John – Just comment of Wittgenstein Don’t think he used family resemblance to introduce disunity
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So is there nothing at all to science … Just like asking Is there anything to art Peter -‐ One way of answering Jordi As a negative reading It’s disunity … Utterly unrelated Then it’s unified …
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Tom Ryckman Has the floor Winding up this conference “Where do we go from here?” n a (somewhat) personal perspective new about Nagel because he was Pat’s prized goat thinking about the Stanford School forgive the baseball analogy 1927 with murderer’s row the people here have been his teachers Nancy Cartwright’s “How the “ 1983 Ian Hackings’ “” 1984 Peter Galison Historian Physicist, Philosopher These are waves being made in phil of science So it’s humbling to say where do we go from here… What we’re doing now. Pat is developing the export model
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Lecturing in Chinese on brain science … PRC? Pat has brought to his brain science lab many Chinese physicists Living up to our illustrious heritage? What happens in Palo Alto remains in Palo Alto Some of both As with other “schools”, Disagreements Pat’s quantum physics class this semester Michael has transcendental tendencies Still have a fundaments agreement in general Ernst Nagel 1901-‐1985 “the double nature of analytic philosophy” (1993) March 2012 The style of doing philosophy He shouldn’t be associated with the Vienna circle More catholic writer Took a year off in 1933 Before the cataclysm
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SSPS does the latter Ryckman reads the former 1 Quiet green pasture 2 Keen shining sword What is it we really know? Models of data Experimental design, Parameter estimation, Robustness of correlation Error analysis “detailed” – Pat’s highest praise? We’d like to keep in our conception of the Stanford school … Nagel Process of inquiry Science as practiced Not science as logical reconstruction Stanford – LMU joint seminar on Foundations of QM 23 Sept .. Joint distribution for correlated random variables, … Haroche
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and Wineland diagram 1 detect the presence of one photon diagram 2 laser cooled string of ions in quadripole Paul trap: an almost harmonic three-‐dimensional potential .. ions share on (center of mass) motional ex of quantum teleportation done in the lab all of the above are due to Pat Helen Longinu Objectivity is constructed and extendible … A live issue for some of us: Empiricism as a stance + ? What do we need to add to the empirical stance? Bas is his conscience
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50 years’ ago Kuhn’s book “History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed.” Northwestern School of Phil of Science Arthur Fine Thomas Ryckman All happier on the west coast Einstein’s wonderful book on “the thinking game” Jean Petitot Stephan Hartman George Smith De facto members, outside California Transcendental nature of mathematics and physics 2 massive volumes on Newton about to come out …
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current collaboration: What do we really know about the universe? Peter Michelson Chair of the physics dept Peter Graham Yung string theorists Looking for observational evidence of the multiverse Together they’re going to teach a course to Stanford freshman Cosmology is now a standard part of physics You could say it happened much later … with penzius Wilson “Cosmology” All about data A science in the making In its revolutionary new state With data in its “Inflationary paradigm in trouble after Planck2013” Ijjas, Anna, Paul J. Steinhardt, Abraham Loeb arXiv:1304.2785v2 [astron-‐ph.CO] Fluctuations in cosmic background Live in a simple place A Black Hole Mystery Wrapped in a Firewall Paradox NYT August 12, 2013
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Hawking showed us that black holes radiate Plus ca change … ? Arthur Fine Sort of shocked when John mentioned Wittgenstein except for John giggled 1980s characteristic Wittgensteinian program anti-‐grand theoretical bias? Why were you giggling? PGS was giggling loudest Something more derogatory Philosophical theorizing The bigger the theory in philosophy The more pathological it is … Natural ontological question Peter … Wittgenstein played an important role in the 1980s Discussion of continuing a Cyrius
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Quine Wittgenstein for specific interventions John – More puzzled that I was Seems Peter metnioend some W themes Attention to practice Grand theory Wittgenstein … the more philosophical the more pathological … Hacking too Systematic philosophical answers What W wanted to do Is get you see where exactly you had made a problem where there wasn’t one … John Thinks there forgetting what the kind of philosophy W was rejecting PGS Thinks W would have hated “The Disorder of Things” “Nature’s Capacities” stepping off the path of coherent inquiry …
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Janet Stemwedel – To core members who haven’t caught cabs to airport Particular domain of science that SSPS hasn’t touched … what? PGS Sociology? Pat Economics John Stuart Mill Economist or a philosopher Peter – Complex of disciplines Hybrids of complex fields And moral political domains … e.g. Bioprivacy Information privacy and surveillance Simultaneous engagement with the practice Lots of domains like that characteristic of years ahead … Not questions of science like a democracy Important to pursue
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Pat – About the future Psychology and philosophy Psychology came out of philosophy in 19th century Williams James Two much intentionality Of smelled Serious philosophy and serious psychology Don’t work very well together Prediction he would like to work, Maybe as brain science develops The mental … Abstract psychology Doesn’t give you a physical account … In the nervous system or the brain And in terms of what’s been influential here The data of the brain have a basic difference from classical psychology And the kind of data collected about the brain Shift in complexity Going to be a natural desire To see if f the processes of the brain can’t be explained by physical processes …
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Will be occasion for new and interesting conflicts that slip off .. John – Try to understand systems’ biology What are the limits of trying to understand the kinds of biology we’re seeing Where the potential for an adequate model is … Pretty philosophical model Even suppose we could get reasonable predictive models, The models would be so complex…. Deal with wet biology Anderson Sad privilege as chair To announce that our time has expired Enormously grateful for members of SSFS to come back here Such a lively set of conversations And thought provoking Lanier aspires himself to becomes more serious and detailed person WE have our remit from the members of the SSPS To take this field to the next level …
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Pat Suppes Structure and certification are what are needed for good, online education, and vis-‐ à-‐vis World University and School
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