Program
Room Arrangement
| Date | Address, Room |
|---|---|
| 15.07.2018 | Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, room A120 (Kleine Aula) |
| 16.07. - 21.07.2018 | Richard-Wagner-Straße 10, room numbers in program below |
| 21.07.2018 | Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, room A120 (Kleine Aula) |
Sunday, 15 July
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 16:45 - 17:45 | Registration. |
| 17:45 - 18:00 | Welcome. |
| 18:00 - 19:15 | Welcome Lecture: What is Mathematical Philosophy? (Stephan Hartmann & Hannes Leitgeb, MCMP). |
Monday, 16 July
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 08:00 - 09:00 | Registration. (Room D018) |
| 09:00 - 10:15 | Introductory Lectures I: TBA (Neil Dewar, MCMP). (Room D105) |
| 10:15 - 10:45 | Coffee Break. (Room D016) |
| 10:45 - 12:00 | Tutorial for the Introductory Lectures I: TBA (Neil Dewar, MCMP). (Room D105) |
| 12:00 - 13:30 | Lunch Break. |
| 13:30 - 14:45 | Introductory Lectures II: TBA (Lavinia Picollo, MCMP). (Room D105) |
| 14:45 - 15:15 | Coffee Break. (Room D016) |
| 15:15 - 16:30 | Tutorial for the Introductory Lectures II: TBA (Lavinia Picollo, MCMP). (Room D105) |
| 16:30 - 16:45 | Break. |
| 16:45 - 18:00 | Parallel MCMP Fellows' Sessions:
1: Marianna Antonutti: The Epistemic Route to Reflection in Formal Arithmetical Theories (Room D102) |
Tuesday, 17 July
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 09:00 - 10:15 | Lecture Stream 1: The Ontology of Natural Language (Friederike Moltmann, French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique). (Room D105) |
| 10:15 - 10:45 | Coffee Break. (Room D016) |
| 10:45 - 12:00 | Tutorial: The Ontology of Natural Language (Friederike Moltmann, French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique). (Room D105) |
| 12:00 - 13:30 | Lunch Break. |
| 13:30 - 14:45 | Lecture Stream 2: Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, Semantics (Barbara Vetter, Freie Universität Berlin). (Room D105) |
| 14:45 - 15:15 | Coffee Break. (Room D016) |
| 15:15 - 16:30 | Tutorial: Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, Semantics (Barbara Vetter, Freie Universität Berlin). (Room D105) |
| 16:30 - 16:45 | Break. |
| 16:45 - 18:00 | Lecture Stream 3: Science and Metaphysics (Jo E. Wolff, King’s College London). (Room D105) |
Wednesday, 18 July
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 09:00 - 10:15 | Tutorial: Science and Metaphysics (Jo E. Wolff, King’s College London). (Room D105) |
| 10:15 - 10:45 | Coffee Break. (Room D016) |
| 10:45 - 12:00 | Lecture Stream 1: The Ontology of Natural Language (Friederike Moltmann, French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique). (Room D105) |
| 12:00 - 13:30 | Lunch Break. |
| 13:30 - 14:45 | Tutorial: The Ontology of Natural Language (Friederike Moltmann, French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique). (Room D105) |
| 14:45 - 15:15 | Coffee Break. (Room D016) |
| 15:15 - 16:30 | Lecture Stream 2: Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, Semantics (Barbara Vetter, Freie Universität Berlin). (Room D105) |
| 16:30 - 16:45 | Break. |
| 16:45 - 18:00 | Tutorial: Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, Semantics (Barbara Vetter, Freie Universität Berlin). (Room D105) |
| 19:00 - 20:30 | Evening Lecture: The Significance of the Metaphysics of Gender, Race and Sexual Orientation (Esa Díaz-León, University of Barcelona) |
Thursday, 19 July
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 09:00 - 10:15 | Lecture Stream 3: Science and Metaphysics (Jo E. Wolff, King’s College London). (Room D105) |
| 10:15 - 10:45 | Coffee Break. (Room D016) |
| 10:45 - 12:00 | Tutorial: Science and Metaphysics (Jo E. Wolff, King’s College London). (Room D105) |
| 12:00 - 13:30 | Lunch Break. |
| 13:30 - 14:45 | Parallel Sessions: Lecture Stream 1: The Ontology of Natural Language (Friederike Moltmann, French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique). (Room D118) Lecture Stream 2: Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, Semantics (Barbara Vetter, Freie Universität Berlin). (Room D114) Lecture Stream 3: Science and Metaphysics (Jo E. Wolff, King’s College London). (Room D102) |
| 14:45 - 15:15 | Coffee Break. (Room D016) |
| 15:15 - 16:45 | Round table: What is it like to be a Woman in Mathematical Philosophy? (Room D105) |
Friday, 20 July
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 09:00 - 10:15 | Parallel Sessions: Lecture Stream 1: The Ontology of Natural Language (Friederike Moltmann, French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique). (Room D118) Lecture Stream 2: Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, Semantics (Barbara Vetter, Freie Universität Berlin). (Room D114) Lecture Stream 3: Science and Metaphysics (Jo E. Wolff, King’s College London). (Room D102) |
| 10:15 - 10:45 | Coffee Break. (Room D016) |
| 10:45 - 12:00 | Parallel Sessions: Lecture Stream 1: The Ontology of Natural Language (Friederike Moltmann, French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique). (Room D118) Lecture Stream 2: Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, Semantics (Barbara Vetter, Freie Universität Berlin). (Room D114) Lecture Stream 3: Science and Metaphysics (Jo E. Wolff, King’s College London). (Room D102) |
| 12:00 - 13:30 | Lunch Break. |
| 13:30 - 14:45 | Parallel Sessions: Lecture Stream 1: The Ontology of Natural Language (Friederike Moltmann, French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique). (Room D118) Lecture Stream 2: Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, Semantics (Barbara Vetter, Freie Universität Berlin). (Room D114) Lecture Stream 3: Science and Metaphysics (Jo E. Wolff, King’s College London). (Room D102) |
| 14:45 - 15:15 | Coffee Break. (Room D016) |
| 15:15 - 16:30 | Parallel MCMP Fellows' Sessions: 1: Stefan Rinner: Neo-Russellians and the Goldbach Puzzle (Room D102) 2: Reuben Stern: Diagnosing Newcomb's Problem with Causal Graphs (Room D105) 3: Silvia Jonas: Using Mathematics as a Model for Other a Priori Domains (Room D114) 4: Alexander Reutlinger: Corrupt Science? - Philosophical Perspectives on Sponsorship Bias (Room D118) |
| 16:30 - 17:45 | Student Poster Sessions. (First Floor) |
| 19:30 | Summer School Dinner. |
Saturday, 21 July
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 09:15 - 09:45 | Student Presentation: TBA |
| 09:45 - 10:15 | Student Presentation: TBA |
| 10:15 - 10:45 | Coffee Break. |
| 10:45 - 11:15 | Student Presentation: TBA |
| 11:15 - 11:45 | Student Presentation: TBA |
| 11:45 - 12:00 | Wrap up and closing. |
Abstracts
Main Lecture Streams
The Ontology of Natural Language
Friederike Moltmann (French Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique)
Metaphysics in the past was considered mainly a pursuit of philosophers, asking questions about being in most general terms. While some philosophers made appeal to natural language in order to argue for a ontological category or notion, others have rejected such an appeal arguing that the ontology reflected in language diverges significantly from what there really is or from a philosophically accepted ontology. Whatever one’s view may be of what a philosopher should pursue, it has become clear, especially with the development of natural language semantics (and syntax), that the metaphysics reflected in natural language is an important object of study in itself, as the subject matter of natural language ontology. These lectures give an overview of the sort of appeals philosophers have made to natural language, of the ways natural language reflects ontological categories, notions and structures, of cases of discrepancies between the ontology implicit in natural language and the reflective ontology of philosophers or non-philosophers, of how the ontology reflected in natural language should be characterized, and of the way of natural language ontology is to be conceived as a branch of metaphysics.top
Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, Semantics
Barbara Vetter (Freie Universität Berlin)
Modality is at the centre of contemporary metaphysics. The nature of possibility and necessity, as well as possible worlds, is a hotly debated topic. Possible worlds have, moreover, been invoked in theories of just about anything in metaphysics. And finally, necessity bears special importance for metaphysics, since metaphysical theories generally aim to be not just true but necessarily true. In addition, modality is a case study for the interaction between logic, semantics and metaphysics. While Quine still held that quantified modal logic was based on illicit metaphysical assumptions, it was arguably the formulation of a rigorous framework for modal logic that led to a rehabilitation of modal metaphysics. In these lectures, we will be covering topics in modal logic, semantics, and metaphysics, with an emphasis on how they relate to each other. Topics will include the different systems for modal logic; the nature of possible worlds; the formal semantics of ordinary-language expressions of modality; problems of merely possible existence; and the more recent turn in metaphysics towards hyperintensional notions that are not properly captured by possible worlds, such as essence or grounding.top
Science and Metaphysics
Jo E. Wolff (King’s College London)
Metaphysics has seen a massive revival in analytic philosophy over the past couple of decades. Most metaphysicians in the analytic tradition today would describe what they are doing as naturalistic metaphysics. Given that philosophical naturalism in general holds that natural science is to be accorded epistemic primacy, this raises the question of how science relates to metaphysics on this naturalistic understanding of metaphysics. Can metaphysical theories simply be 'read off' our best current science'? Or do scientific theories require metaphysical interpretations? Do science and metaphysics compete for the same subject matter, but use different methodologies, or are their subject matters different, yet their methodologies alike?
These questions have seen intense debate in both (meta-)metaphysics and philosophy of science, and a definitive answer has yet to emerge. In these lectures, we will look at different approaches to these questions: Penelope Maddy's Second Philosophy, Ladyman and Ross' structural realism, Ted Sider's metaphysical realism, L.A. Paul's defence of metaphysics as akin to science, and others more. The aim is to get a sense of the methodological diversity in contemporary metaphysics, as well as the different views of science presupposed by these approaches.top
Public Evening Lecture
TBA
Parallel MCMP Fellows' Sessions' Abstracts
The Epistemic Route to Reflection in Formal Arithmetical Theories
This talk will discuss different kinds of philosophical strategies to motivate the addition of proof theoretic reflection principles to formal theories that contain a sufficient amount of arithmetic. Reflection principles are formal statements expressing the idea that everything that is formally provable in a theory is the case, or is true, i.e. they express the soundness of a theory, and a fortiori, its consistency. I will distinguish three main strategies in the literature for motivating the addition of reflection principles to formal theories of arithmetic: (i) syntactically, by motivating a certain amount of transfinite induction; (ii) semantically, by committing to a certain notion of truth for arithmetic; or (iii) epistemically, by committing to a notion of (informal or absolute) provability for arithmetic. Motivating reflection by truth theoretic commitment has sometimes been described as spelling out our ‘implicit commitment’ to a certain notion of truth for arithmetic: by accepting the axioms of a formal arithmetical theory such as Peano arithmetic, we thereby implicitly commit ourselves to accepting certain other statements, such as the statement that Peano arithmetic is sound, that are not formally provable from the initial axioms because of the incompleteness phenomena. I will present a version of the implicit commitment thesis for (iii) and I will put forward an alternative view for justifying uniform reflection principles.top
Using Mathematics as a Model for Other a Priori Domains
There is not much communication between philosophers of mathematics and philosophers working in seemingly unrelated fields such as ethics, aesthetics, or philosophy of religion. This is unfortunate, given that the central metaphysical and epistemological problems discussed in each field are identical. For example, realists about any of the above domains must explain (a) how we can have epistemic access to the respective abstract objects and corresponding truths about them; (b) why fundamental disagreements in each domain do not count against a realist position; (c) in which sense the objects quantified over are indispensable to the best theories about each domain. In my talk, I will show how mathematics can function as a model for other a priori domains, and how the philosophy of mathematics can help us unify our philosophical reasoning about them.top
Connexive Logic
Connexive logics constitute a family of non-classical logics that has been studied for a long time, even though it was a fringe topic until interest picked up over the last years. In this talk, I will quickly review its history, which arguably goes back to Aristotle and other ancient philosophers. I will present its intuitive appeal and show how those intuitions can be based on considerations in the philosophy of language. I will talk about some interesting formal properties of connexive logics, such as the fact that they are the only well-motivated non-classical logics I know of that have tautologies that are not classical tautologies (as opposed the much more common trait of having strictly less tautologies than classical logic). These additions have a price, and I will discuss which aspects of classical logic that one might wish to keep will have to be given up by the connexive logician. I end the talk by giving my very personal assessment on where the most interesting routes for future research lie in this field. The talk will assume only knowledge of classical propositional logic and some basic concepts in the philosophy of language, but knowledge of the philosophical issues surrounding non-classical logics will surely be of help.
Can Physics Explain Economics?
The success of formal methods to explain natural phenomena in physics prompts the question of whether similar methods can be applied to explain phenomena in the social sciences, in particular in economics. Motivated by this question and the new interdisciplinary initiatives in nonlinear dynamics during the late 1980s, the last thirty years has seen an upswell in alternative approaches to economic modeling (many of which have been inspired by analogies with statistical physics), this tradition has come to be known as “econophysics”. In this lecture, we are going to discuss different models of econophysics focusing on the following philosophical questions: i) In virtue of what are these models explanatory? ii) Can these models have predictive power? iii) iv) What justifies the idealizations involved in these kinds of models? v)Are these models causal? vi) Can these models serve to guide possible avenues for actions of policy makers?top
Corrupt Science? - Philosophical Perspectives on Sponsorship Bias
Biased research occurs frequently in the sciences. In this talk, I will focus on one particular type of biased research: research that is subject to sponsorship bias. A scientific study is affected by a sponsorship bias iff the study is funded by a financially interested sponsor, and the outcomes of the study are significantly and systematically distorted in a way aligning with the sponsor’s financial interests. I will address on the following question: what precisely is epistemically defective (that is, unjustified ) about biased research? In light of a specific example of sponsorship bias, I will defend the claim that biased research is epistemically defective because biased research fails to provide evidence for the hypothesis to be tested, contrary to the assertions of the scientists carrying out biased research projects. I support this claim by drawing on major accounts of evidence and confirmation.top
Neo-Russellians and the Goldbach Puzzle
Neo-Russellians like Salmon, Soames and Braun hold that:
(A) The semantic content of a sentence S of a language L in a context c is a structured proposition whose basic components are objects and properties.
(B) The semantic content of 'n is F' in a context c is the singular proposition [o, P], where o is the referent of the name n in c and P is the property expressed by the predicate F in c.
(C) A sentence of the form 'n believes that S' is true in a context c iff the referent of the name n in c believes the proposition expressed by S in c.
This is sometimes referred to as 'the Naive Russellian theory'.
In the first part of this talk, I will argue that the Naive Russellian theory cannot adequately explain that a rational, normal English speaker could be disposed to accept (1) without being disposed to accept (2).
1) Ralph believes Goldbach's conjecture.
2) Ralph believes that every even number greater than two is the sum of two primes.
I will call this 'the Goldbach Puzzle'. In the second part of this talk, I will argue that a similar problem also arises for contextualists like Crimmins and Perry which replace (C) with (C'):
C') A sentence of the form 'n believes that S' is true in a context c iff the referent of the name n in c believes the proposition expressed by S in c under a contextually determined mode of presentation.
Following this, I will argue that we either have to reject (B) or the claim that mental predicates like 'believe' express relations holding between agents and propositions.top
Diagnosing Newcomb's Problem with Causal Graphs
Correlation is not causation. As such, there are decision-making contexts (like Newcomb's Problem) where it is entirely reasonable for an agent to believe that the world is likely to be better if she chooses a particular option, but also to believe that choosing that option would cause the world to be worse. Is it rational to choose such an option? Evidential decision theorists say yes, while causal decision theorists say no. In this talk, I use graphical causal models to make what I argue is the best case for causal decision theory. In so doing, my aim is not to convince the audience that causal decision theory is correct, but is rather to identify and explore some assumptions about the nature of choice and the nature of agency on which the fate of causal decision theory rests. Chief among these is the assumption that the standards of rationality apply to an agent's choice only when the agent is in a position to intervene.top
Inductive Logic and Rational Belief - the Evolution of Carnap's Inductive Logic
The philosophical literature on the interpretations of probability abounds with pronouncements that Carnap's logical interpretation of probability and his program of inductive logic "amounted to no more than heroic failure" (Howson 2000). However, a lot of the criticism seems to be founded on a heavily simplified view of Carnap's project. In my work, I aim to disentangle the misunderstandings and see what philosophical value can be salvaged from Carnapian inductive logic.
We will start the lecture with developing a basic understanding of the main tenets of the subjectivistic (Bayesian) and the logical view on probability. With this understanding as a tool, we will take a closer look at Carnap's position on the matter and its evolution through time. This will allow us to see for ourselves how correct the popular criticisms are. Additionally, we will reconstruct Carnap's inductive logic project in the wider context of his general conception of rationality, which only recently has been worked out from previously unpublished material (Carus 2017, Carnap 2017).top
MAP (Minorities And Philosophy) Round Table
What is it like to be a Woman in Mathematical Philosophy?
This round table will discuss experiences of being a woman in mathematical philosophy: everyone is welcome to attend (regardless of gender). Participants in the summer school will automatically be able to take part in the round table discussion; if, as a woman in mathematical philosophy, you would also like to actively participate in the round table, please register by writing an email to mathsummer2018@lrz.uni-muenchen.de. Following the round table, there will be a Q&A period during which all attendees may ask questions or make comments.
Student Presentation Abstracts
TBA