Workshop: Explanation, Causality and Unification (November 11 to 12, 2011)
Workshop: Explanation, Causality and Unification
Description:
Scientific explanations bear a close relation to two further concepts: causality (explanations provide causes) and unification (explanations subsume many events under a few principles). A third related concept is expectation (explanations make events expectable). One central question to be addressed at this workshop is whether these concepts stand in irresolvable conflict or whether there is an overarching account of explanation that does justice to all of them. Equally welcome are contributions to other issues in the philosophy of explanation, causality and unification, for example issues concerning conceptual questions of the explication of these concepts, or concerning problems and results that arise from their application to specific scientific disciplines.
Date: November 11-12, 2011
Place: Faculty of Philosophy, Duesseldorf, Building: 23.21, Room: 00.46a
Organizer/s: The workshop is organized as part of the DFG (German Research Foundation) research group FOR 1063 Causation, Laws, Dispositions and Explanations at the Interface of Science and Metaphysics.
Funding:
Poster (pdf)
PhotosSchedule
| November 11, 2011 | |
|---|---|
| 09.00-10.00 | Michael Baumgartner (Konstanz) The Causal Chain Problem |
| 10.10-11.10 | Andreas Hüttemann (Cologne) Causation and Modality |
| 11.20-12.20 | Matti Sintonen (Helsinki) Pluralism Rules, OK? |
| 14.00-15.00 | Gerhard Schurz (Düsseldorf) Causality as an Empirically Significant Theoretical Concept |
| 15.10-16.10 | Alexander Gebharter (Düsseldorf) Applications of Causality Theory: Mechanisms and Causal Cycles |
| 16.20-17.20 | Theo Kuipers (Groningen) Nomic Possibility as the Core Primitive Term for a Constructive Realist Explication of Laws and Causal Notions |
| 17.30-18.30 | Kevin Kelly (Pittsburgh) Simplicity and its Connection with Empirical Truth |
| November 12, 2011 | |
| 09.00-10.00 | Erik Weber (Ghent) The Role of Unification in Mechanistic Explanation of Laws |
| 10.10-11.10 | Victor Gijsbers (Leiden) Unification and Causation: Two Different Kinds of Understanding? |
| 11.20-12.20 | Margaret Morrison (Toronto) Beyond Reduction: Unification and Universal Physics |
| 14.00-15.00 | Henk de Regt (Amsterdam) Causalism and Unificationism Reconciled |
| 15.10-16.10 | Lorenzo Casini (Kent) Causality in Computational Economics: An Inferentialist Proposal |
| 16.20-17.20 | Jon Williamson (Kent) How Can Causal Explanations Explain? |
| 17.30-18.30 | Stathis Psillos (Athens) Regularities All the Way Down |