Research Forum

All welcome!

If you have difficulty accessing the eLearning site (https://elearning.uni-bayreuth.de/course/view.php?id=32952), please let us know (Patricia Rich / Paolo Galeazzi).

Next one

• July 11th 2023 I Chiara Lisciandra (LMU) I Explanatory Norms and Interdisciplinary Science
  Abstract: This paper provides resources from the philosophy of science to identify differences between explanatory norms across disciplines and how such differences affect interdisciplinary work. This research field has its roots in Humphreys' seminal work (2002) and its refinement in a series of publications (2004, 2019). The body of literature on explanatory norms is rapidly growing. However, there is still no consensus on a theoretical framework that allows us to identify norms across disciplines in a systematic manner. The aim of this paper is to provide such a framework and use it to i) identify explanatory norms across domains; and ii) predict patterns of interdisciplinary work accordingly. By pursuing these goals, this work promises to be theoretically significant and practically relevant. It contributes to the work on domain-specific explanatory norms; and provides recommendations for science-policy analysis of interdisciplinary science.
  

Subsequent Talks

• none in summer 2023
  

• ---

Preceding Talks

• April 18th 2023 I Maren Behrensen (Twente) I Dragging Ontology back into Politics: Transphobia, Moral Panics, and Populism
  
  
• May 16th 2023 I Alessandro Galeazzi (Brescia) I The Evolution of Polarization in Twitter Debates: The Cases of U.S. Presidential Election and Climate Change
  Abstract: The public sphere is a complex environment where diverse ideas are discussed and contribute to shaping public opinion. With the rise of social media, a portion of these debates has shifted online, where communication is faster and disintermediated. Often, online debates around controversial issues become polarized, with two opposing factions clashing over ideological differences. This contrast may lead to an excessive level of polarization that can harm society in various ways, ranging from the risk of political deadlocks to individual and collective violent actions.
  Here, we present two studies on polarization in Twitter debates surrounding the U.S. presidential election and climate change. We first introduce the techniques used to study polarization and then we analyze the evolution of the debate over time. Finally, we present some open questions and future research directions. Overall, our findings contribute to the understanding of the role of polarization in online debates and its evolution over time.

• May 23th 2023 I Emanuele Ratti (Linz) I Automated Science, Machine Learning, and Values
  Abstract: Dreams of automated science have accompanied the development of modern natural sciences. However, it is difficult to pinpoint a specific conception of automated science. Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning in particular (ML), have been associated to the idea of automated science, suggesting that ML-driven contemporary automated science is just another step towards what science has always promised to fulfil. In this talk, I investigate the relation between ML and automated science. First, I reconstruct and identify two views of automated science. The first, called traditional automated science (TAS), sees science as mechanical, fostering intersubjective agreement, and suppressing scientists' subjectivity. The second view is Paul Humphreys' conception, and it differs from the first because it does minimize the suppression of subjectivity, and it attributes to automated science a non-human epistemic horizon. I compare these two views to ML to see which kind of automated science contemporary AI can possibly foster.
  

• June 13th 2023 I Matthias Brinkmann (LMU) I Joint Talk: What, if anything, is morally wrong with inflation?
  Abstract: Laypeople often discuss inflation in moralised terms, such as greed, political corruption, dishonesty, and so forth. However, contemporary philosophers have not had much to say about inflation at all. In this paper, I ask whether there is any philosophically respectable argument against inflation. After introducing the basics, I first discuss and re-construct several consequentialist arguments against inflation one can find implicit in the economic literature. Second, I explore various non-consequentialist arguments against inflation: for example, that it constitutes a hidden tax, arbitrary re-distribution, “counterfeiting”, or a violation of property rights. Third, I develop a novel argument against inflation based on the notion of legitimate expectations. Many socially valuable practices, such as saving or entering debt contracts, rest on money expectations—expectations that money keep its value, or at least only change its value in predictable ways. I argue that central banks as the controlling institutions of money have special moral duties to respect money expectations, and thus, not to unexpectedly change the value of money. In closing, I discuss several objections to, and implications of, the view.

• June 14th 2023 I Dean Lueck (Indiana) I Joint Talk: The Institutional Legacy of the Mexican Rancho System in California
  

• July 04th 2023 I Zoey Lavallee (CRÉ Montreal/McGill) I Affordances and the shape of addiction
  Abstract: Recently, a number of researchers have posited what might be called an ‘affordance model’ of addiction, according to which addiction shapes what possibilities for action addicted agents experience the world as offering. Combating addiction, then, involves altering the addicted person’s world by removing addiction-related affordances and creating new affordances. In this paper, we develop a more detailed affordance model of addiction. We argue that what is significant about the addicted person’s world is not only what affordances are experienced as salient, but also the way in which the addicted person’s world is shaped by a dominant concern, resulting in a comparably inflexible way of experiencing and interacting with the environment. Our analysis of addiction foregrounds the dynamic relationship between an individual and their environment, and suggests that strategies for recovery need to involve mechanisms that not only alter the environment, but that also counteract the dominant concern in addiction.
  
  

Webmaster: Dr. Uwe Czaniera