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The volume and variety of data in astrophysics creates a need for efficient heuristics to automate the discovery of novel phenomena. Moreover, data-driven practices suggest a role for machine-led exploration in conceptual development. I argue that philosophical accounts of exploratory experiments sh...

Abstract We defend a noetic account of intramathematical explanation. On this view, a piece of mathematics is explanatory just in case it produces an appropriate type of understanding. We motivate the view by presenting some appealing features of noeticism. We then discuss and criticize the most pro...

In contemporary philosophy of measurement prominent philosophers (van Fraassen 2008; Chang 2004; Tal 2011) have explicitly or implicitly recognized the role the hermeneutic circle plays in measurement. Specifically, they have recognized its role in what is sometimes referred to as the “coordinatio...

Many philosophers have explored the extensive use of non-universal generalizations in different sciences for inductive and explanatory purposes, analyzing properties such as how widely a generalization holds in space and time. We concentrate on developmental biology to distinguish and characterize t...

The popular metaphysical view that concrete objects are grounded in their ultimate parts is often motivated by appeals to realist interpretations of contemporary physics. This paper argues that an examination of mainstream interpretations of quantum mechanics undercuts such atomist claims. First, me...

One of the core charges against explanationist scientific realism is that is too epistemically optimistic. Taking the charge seriously, alternative forms of scientific realism -- semi-realism and theoretical irrealism -- are designed to be more modest in their epistemic claims. I consider two cases ...

The aim of this symposium is to generate a more unified, yet pluralistic, framework for thinking about how similarities and differences in scientists’ modeling goals across various modeling contexts influence which multiscale modeling techniques are justified in those contexts. To accomplish this,...

In the mid-twentieth century, as mainstream scientific opinion turned away from eugenics and the most explicit versions of race science, two organizations were formed to preserve and continue research in defense of white supremacy. The Pioneer Fund has supported and the journal Mankind Quarterly has...

Over the past several decades, philosophical analyses have shown that reasoning about purposes in nature is epistemically respectable. However, less attention has been paid to the heterogeneity of aims and commitments that motivate inquiry into apparent purposiveness. Our aim in this paper is to map...

This note scouts a broad class of explanations of central importance to contemporary computer science. These explanations, which I call 'limitative' explanations, explain why certain problems cannot be solved computationally. Limitative explanations are philosophically rich, but have not received th...

There remains no consensus amongst social scientists as to how to quantify and understand forms of information deprivation such as misinformation. Measures of information deprivation typically employ a deficient conception of truth that should be replaced with measurement methods grounded in certain...

Elselijn Kingma (2018, 2019) argues that the popular view that the foetus is merely contained by the mother is inconsistent with the biology of pregnancy. Instead, she argues that the foetus is a part of the mother based on various physiological criteria. I argue that immune tolerance, a criterion o...

Consensus reporting is valuable because it allows scientists to speak with one voice and offer the most robust scientific evidence when interfacing with policymakers. However, what should we do when consensus does not exist? In this paper, I argue that we should not always default to majority report...

In quantum mechanics no specific molecular structure is assigned from first principles. Franklin and Seifert (2020) argue that this is due to the measurement problem. I explore the implications of this to the metaphysical understanding of structure. Specifically, I propose two metaphysical views: th...

While it is known that our current theories of quantum interactions and gravitation cannot describe the Planck scale, the effective scale at which the unification of forces into a quantum theory of gravity occurs is yet unknown. The attempts to build new theories are recently being complemented by a...

Recent accounts of multiscale modeling investigate ontic and epistemic constraints imposed by relations between component models at varying relative scales (macro, meso, micro). These accounts often focus especially on the role of the meso, or intermediate, relative scale in a multiscale model. We a...

Microaggressions, as defined by psychologist Derald Wing Sue, are “the brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial, gender, sexual-orientation, and religious slights an...

Although measurement is widespread across the human sciences, the reliability of measurement in these disciplines is often contested. Philosophers of science have developed conceptual models for how measurement practice progresses in the natural sciences, highlighting in particular the virtuous co-d...

This symposium investigates the relationships between the concepts of standard chemistry (e.g. bonds or molecular structure) and quantum mechanical reconstructions of these ideas. Though in many cases there is no straightforward reduction of these standard concepts into quantum mechanical terms, sti...

High powered methods, the big data revolution, and the crisis of replication in medicine and social sciences have prompted new reflections and debates in both statistics and philosophy about the role of traditional statistical methodology in current science. Experts do not agree on how to improve re...

This talk will look at a ubiquitous methodology in condensed matter physics and materials science that aims to understand bulk behaviors of many-body systems. The focus is on finding and characterizing structures that exist at scales in between the so-called fundamental or atomic, and that of the c...