CFP: Science and Certainty: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Submission deadline: January 31, 2015
Conference date(s):
May 29, 2015 - May 31, 2015
Conference Venue:
Department of Philosophy, UC San Diego
La Jolla,
United States
Topic areas
Details
There are those who have believed that science and certainty are tightly connected in one way or another (e.g., Aristotle and Descartes). Today, however, it is thought to be a truism that nothing is certain but death and taxes. How should we respond? Can we rescue certainty from the skeptical onslaught posed by underdetermination, the problem of induction, the pessimistic metainduction and so on? And what should we do practically about problems of epistemological risk—when dealing, for example, with possible but perhaps uncertain environmental threats? The purpose of this workshop is to share and discuss work in progress on the topic of certainty in science: what sort, if any, can be had, and what individuals and policy-makers should do about it.
Possible Session Topics include, but are not limited to:
Attempts to deal with the problem of induction and other threats to certainty
Certainty and theories of anthropogenic climate change
Certainty and the precautionary principle
Historical conceptions of certainty
Interdisciplinary case studies involving certainty and skepticism
Normal
0
false
false
false
EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE
Proposals for papers, symposia, or roundtable sessions are welcome from faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars. If you are interested in presenting, please send a roughly 500 word proposal to Daniel Schwartz at [email protected]. The deadline for proposals is February 1, 2015. Accepted papers will need to be sent to commentators by April 15, 2015. If you would like to volunteer as a commentator, please send a CV to the same address.
Limited support is available to help defray travel expenses. If you would like to be considered for a travel voucher, please indicate this with your submission. The amount of the voucher will be determined by the number of accepted presenters needing support.