Archive for category: GWP News Archive

Submitted by Sebastian Schuol (Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg).

Conference: Public Research and Private Knowledge – Science in Times of Diverse Research Funding

Venue: Hörsäle Medizin, Ulmenweg 18, 91054 Erlangen

Start: 26.03.2020 09:30

End: 27.03.2020 17:00

Topic:

The production and distribution of knowledge is a key process in scientific and scholarly inquiry. In recent years, different agents have shown an increased interest in basic as opposed to applied science, for example in fields of rising social significance such as AI or biomedical technology. These research interests in turn direct attention to the sources of funding, and, as a consequence, to the direction of inquiry and the accessibility of results. The main problem that arises from this development can be expressed in two questions: First, does the influence of private funding change the selection of research topics in an epistemically or otherwise (un-)desirable direction? And second, does it lead to a privatization of knowledge, and if so, what are the consequences of this privatization?

Keynote speakers:

Manuela Fernández Pinto (Universidad de los Andes)

Bennett Holman (Yonsei University)

Naomi Oreskes (Harvard University)

Sergio Sismondo (Queen‘s University, Kingston)

Preliminary Program:

https://www.ziwis.fau.de/files/2020/02/Programm_31012020.pdf

Registration:

Please register until March 10th, 2020, by writing an E-Mail including your general information (name, contact, affiliation) to ziwis-conference@fau.de. The conference fee is 80 € (students: 50 €) and includes lunch and coffee breaks on both days. The fee is payable via bank transfer (we will send out detailed information after confirming your participation). Please note that the fee is refundable only until February 25th, 2020.

Links:

    www.ziwis.fau.de/files/2019/11/Handzettel_Public_Research_Homepage.pdf  

    www.ziwis.fau.de/public-research (conference website)

Organizers:

Michael Jungert, Julia Böttcher, Jon Leefmann, Christoph Merdes, Sebastian Schuol

Center for Applied Philosophy of Science and Key Qualifications (ZiWiS)

Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen (Germany)

Submitted by Rose Trappes (Bielefeld University).

 

Workshop: Niche Construction and Other Mechanisms in Ecology & Evolution

2-3 July 2020, Bielefeld University

Evolutionary and ecological theories have been developed separately, often concerning different phenomena and time scales, and with different explanatory goals. Yet the many points of connection between the two fields call for cooperation and integration between ecologists and evolutionary biologists and for integrative philosophical reflection. For instance, niche construction theory has been developed by evolutionary biologists to describe how changes made by organisms to their environments can cause evolutionary change. Niche construction is evidently just as much an ecological as an evolutionary mechanism, yet its meaning and relevance for ecology and for evolution has yet to be assessed.

This workshop brings together philosophers, ecologists, and evolutionary biologists interested in niche construction, mechanisms, fitness, and function. Our goal is to clarify the concept of niche construction and to discuss in how far it can be distinguished from related concepts, such as the extended phenotype. Niche construction (as well as niche choice and niche conformance) seems to be a paradigmatic example of an ecological (or ecological-evolutionary) mechanism. We will thus use this case to discuss more generally how the concept of a mechanism, developed primarily in regard to fields such as molecular biology and neuroscience, can be applied to the ecological and evolutionary context. Furthermore, we will examine the roles that concepts of fitness and function play in studies of niche construction mechanisms. We hope that thinking about niche construction in terms of mechanisms, fitness and function will contribute to overcome some of the challenges of integrating ecology and evolutionary biology.
This workshop takes place as part of the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre at the University of Münster, Bielefeld University and Jena University “A Novel Synthesis of Individualisation across Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution: Niche Choice, Niche Conformance, Niche Construction (NC³)”.

Confirmed Speakers

• Jan Baedke (Ruhr University Bochum)
• Tina Heger (University of Potsdam)
• Arnaud Pocheville (Paul Sabatier University and University of Sydney)
• Lynn Chiu (University of Bordeaux and St. Andrews University)
• Viorel Pâslaru (University of Dayton)
• Grant Ramsey (KU Leuven)
• Etienne Roux (University of Bordeaux)
• Joachim Kurtz (University of Münster)

Student bursaries
We offer a limited number of travel grants (up to 250 EUR for travel and accommodation) for students and PhD students to participate in the workshop. If you want to apply, please include a brief letter of motivation and your CV with your registration for the workshop.

Registration and further information
For more information and the full programme, check the website.
To register, contact Rose Trappes at rtrappes@uni-bielefeld.de.

Organisers

• Marie I. Kaiser (Bielefeld University)
• Rose Trappes (Bielefeld University)
• Ulrich Krohs (University of Münster)
• Behzad Nematipour (University of Münster)

Submitted by Kristina Musholt (University of Leipzig).

 

EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY
CALL FOR PAPERS
28th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology (ESPP), University of Leipzig, Germany, 31st of August – 3rd of September 2020

 

Keynote Speakers:

• Dorit Bar-On (University of Connecticut)
• Herbert Clark (Stanford University)
• Victoria McGeer (Princeton University and ANU)
• Vicky Southgate (University of Copenhagen)

 

Call for submissions:
The Society invites submitted symposia, papers and posters for this meeting. Submissions are refereed and selected on the basis of quality and relevance to psychologists, philosophers and linguists.

If you have any questions, contact us by writing an email to: conference@eurospp.org

For more information on the conference, have a look at our website: https://www.espp2020.com/

 

CFP
The Society invites submitted symposia, papers and posters for this meeting. Submissions are refereed and selected on the basis of quality and relevance to psychologists, philosophers and linguists.

Symposia are allocated a two-hour slot and consist of a set of linked papers on a common theme. Symposia should typically include perspectives from at least two different disciplines (e.g., philosophy and linguistics). Symposia organizers should submit an outline of the symposium along with a list of speakers and abstracts as a single document. Please do not submit more than one PDF file per symposium.

Papers should not exceed a length of 20 minutes (about 8 double-spaced pages) for a total 30 minutes session. Submissions may consist of a 500-word abstract, though in the case of philosophical submissions a full paper is preferred. A submission for a poster presentation should consist of a 500-word abstract. When submitting your paper or poster online, please first indicate the primary discipline of your paper (philosophy, psychology, or linguistics) and whether your submission is intended as a paper or a poster. Submitted papers may also be considered for presentation as a poster if space constraints prevent acceptance as a paper or if the submission is thought more suitable for presentation as a poster. All paper and poster submissions (whether abstracts or full papers) should be in .doc or PDF-format and should be properly anonymized in order to allow for blind refereeing.

The deadline for all submissions is April 1st (midnight, GMT), 2020.

Submissions should be made online via Easychair: https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=espp2020#

 

General Aim:
The aim of the European Society for Philosophy & Psychology is ‘to promote interaction between philosophers and psychologists on issues of common concern’. Psychologists, neuroscientists, linguists, computer scientists and biologists are encouraged to report experimental, theoretical and clinical work that they judge to have philosophical significance; and philosophers are encouraged to engage with the fundamental issues addressed by and arising out of such work. In recent years ESPP sessions have covered such topics as theory of mind, attention, reference, problems of consciousness, introspection and self-report, emotion, perception, early numerical cognition, spatial concepts, infants’ understanding of intentionality, memory and time, motor imagery, counterfactuals, the semantics/pragmatics distinction, comparative cognition, minimalism in linguistic theory, reasoning, vagueness, mental causation, action and agency, thought without language, externalism, hypnosis, and the interpretation of neuropsychological results.

 

Programme chairs:

• Dorothea Debus
• Olivier Mascaro
• Maria Spychalska
• Eva Rafetseder

 

Main local organiser:

• Kristina Musholt

Fabian Hundertmark (Universität Bielefeld).

 

The topic of this colloquium is Justin Garson’s latest book, “What Biological Functions Are and Why They Matter” (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Garson is one of the leading experts on biological functions. He published numerous articles on the topic of biological functions in prestigious journals and the book “A Critical Overview of Biological Functions” (Springer, 2016).

Based on the structure of his book, the colloquium will be divided into two parts. While the first day is about Garson’s generalized selected effects theory of biological functions and its alternatives, the second day will deal with the philosophical applications of this theory. These range from the philosophy of biology (mechanisms) over the philosophy of psychiatry (mental illness) to the philosophy of the mind (mental content).

Comments by

• Joe Dewurst (LMU Munich)
• Fabian Hundertmark (Bielefeld University)
• Marie Kaiser (Bielefeld University)
• Ulrich Krohs (University of Münster)
• Behzad Nematipour (University of Münster)
• Peter Schulte (University of Zurich)
• students from Bielefeld
• students from Münster

Website: https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/philosophie/personen/hundertmark/2020BF/index.html

The workshop is sponsored by the GAP and the GWP and organized by Fabian Hundertmark and Behzad Nematipour.

Attendance is free of charge. To register, please email Fabian Hundertmark (fhundertmark@uni-bielefeld.de).

Submitted by Niklas König.

 

The Research Unit “The Epistemology of the LHC”, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), invites applications for

2 Postdoctoral and 5 Doctoral positions
in the fields of philosophy of science, history of science,
social studies of science, and physics.

Established in 2016, the Research Unit has forged a unique cooperation between physicists, philosophers, historians, and social scientists. Its aim is to collectively investigate the epistemology of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. With its six individual projects cooperating closely and its teams located at universities across Germany and Austria, the Research Unit covers a broad variety of issues concerning the forefront of research on experimental and theoretical physics at one of the largest scientific facilities worldwide. It addresses key questions in philosophy, history, and the social sciences from an interdisciplinary perspective.

After a successful first phase, the Research Unit has been extended for a second phase of 36 months. We would like to fill the following positions:

Project (A1) “The formation and development of the concept of virtual particles”:
– 1 postdoctoral position at the RWTH Aachen University.

Project (A2) “The hierarchy, fine tuning, and naturalness problem from a philosophical perspective”:
– 1 position for a doctoral researcher at the University of Wuppertal.

Project (A3) “LHC and gravity”:
– 1 position for a doctoral researcher at the University of Bonn and the RWTH Aachen University.

Project (B1) “The impact of computer simulations and machine learning on the epistemic status of LHC data”:
– 1 position for a doctoral researcher at the KIT (Karlsruhe).

Project (B2) “Model building and dynamics”:
– 1 position for a doctoral researcher at the University of Bonn.

Project (B3) “Producing novelty and securing credibility in LHC experiments”:
– 1 position for a doctoral researcher at the University of Klagenfurt (Austria).
– 1 postdoctoral position at the University of Klagenfurt (Austria).

Each project is directed jointly by a principal investigator from physics and investigators from the philosophy of science, history of science, or social studies of science (STS).

We are looking for candidates from the aforementioned fields who are interested in engaging in interdisciplinary work and who have experience in one or more of the relevant fields of expertise. We are committed to diversity and equal opportunity, and would like to encourage applications from scholars who would diversify the Research Unit, and the academic community more generally.

Positions are funded for three years and will typically start on May 1, 2020.

Deadline for applications: January 31, 2020.

Descriptions of the individual projects can be found at

http://www.lhc-epistemologie.uni-wuppertal.de.

Please send applications electronically to lhc.epistemology@uni-wuppertal.de. Applications should include a letter of motivation with a ranked list of the project(s) (A1-A3, B1-B3) applied for, a curriculum vitae, a list of publications and presentations, copies of your degree certificates, and the names and addresses of referees (two for the postdoctoral positions and one for the doctoral positions) who can be contacted directly.

Submitted by Meinard Kuhlmann (University of Mainz).

 

CALL FOR PAPERS (Bonn, Deadline: 19.01.2020)

Call for abstracts for Workshop “Metaphysics of Physics”, Bonn, 31 March – 2 April 2020

The Working Group “Philosophy of Physics” (AGPhil) of the German Physical Society (DPG) invites submissions for its annual workshop. Contributions on any topic in the philosophy of physics are welcome. The workshop takes place 31 March – 2 April 2020 at the University of Bonn and will be part of the Annual Meeting of the DPG (https://bonn20.dpg-tagungen.de/). The AGPhil organizes a small workshop on “Metaphysics of Physics”. Contributions in this area are especially welcome.

Confirmed speakers so far:

Karen Crowther (Oslo)
Matt Farr (Cambridge)
Andreas Hüttemann (Cologne)
Christopher Timpson (Oxford)
Alastair Wilson (Birmingham)

If you would like to present a paper, please submit an abstract of about 200 words by 19 January 2020 (ignore the stated 15 December 2019 abstract submission deadline on the website), using the online-form at https://www.dpg-tagung.de/bn20/submission.html?language=en.

As conference fees are not trivial (https://bonn20.dpg-tagungen.de/registrierung/tagungsgebuehren), speakers who have difficulties paying the conference fees should contact us about possible travel grants.

We look forward to seeing you in Bonn!

Meinard Kuhlmann
Radin Dardashti
Christian Wüthrich

Submitted by Marie I. Kaiser (Bielefeld University).

 

The Faculty of History, Philosophy and Theology (Department of Philosophy) at Bielefeld University offers a

part-time research position (PhD-position)

starting April 1st, 2020

(E13 TV-L, 65%, non-permanent position, for 3 years)

The official job announcement can be found here: https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/Universitaet/Aktuelles/Stellenausschreibungen/Anzeigen/Wiss/wiss19304_englisch.pdf (English)

https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/Universitaet/Aktuelles/Stellenausschreibungen/Anzeigen/Wiss/wiss19304.pdf (German)

 

Your Tasks

The advertised position is part of the project on “Complex Biological Dispositions: A Case Study in the Metaphysics of Biological Practice” (PI: Prof. Dr. Marie I. Kaiser) in the DFG-funded research group “Inductive Metaphysics” (FOR 2495, https://indmet.weebly.com/).

This project asks what biological dispositions are, how they are individuated, what makes them complex, whether they are extrinsic and come in degrees, and how they relate to their causal basis and to (underlying) biological mechanisms. We address these metaphysical questions by analyzing four paradigmatic examples of dispositions studied in the biological sciences: the pluripotency of stem cells, the boldness of animals, the evolvability of populations, and the sustainability of human actions or development. The project is a study within Inductive Metaphysics, specifically in “metaphysics of biological practice” (Kaiser 2018, 29). We develop metaphysical claims about biological dispositions by using inductive methods that invoke various kinds of empirical information from and about biological practice, such as information about how biologists investigate biological dispositions and about how disposition ascriptions figure in their explanatory practices. The goal of this project is to develop a practice-oriented metaphysical account of biological dispositions, which makes novel contributions to the philosophy of biology and yields interesting consequences for debates about dispositions within the metaphysics of science.

 

Your responsibilities

• conduct independent research in the context of the project described above and in related areas (80 %)
• actively participate in the regular meetings and events of the research group (10 %)
• contribute to organizing workshops and other events (5 %)
• organizational tasks that are part of the self-administration of the university (5 %)

 

We expect

• university degree (Master or Diploma) in a discipline that is relevant to the project (e.g. philosophy, philosophy of science, biology, life sciences, science studies)
• willingness to work with colleagues in an interdisciplinary setting
• ability to work as a member of a team
• autonomous and active manner of working
• excellent coordination and organization skills
• good proficiency in written and spoken English

 

Application Procedure

Please send your application by email (a single PDF) to bewerbung-gephth@uni-bielefeld.de by January 1st, 2020. Please mark your application with the identification code: wiss19304. To apply, please provide: (i) a letter of motivation including a statement of your research interests, motivation and expectation from being part of the research group/project; (ii) a CV including information about academic education and degrees, and, where it applies, professional experience, publications, fellowships/awards, conference contributions, and further relevant skills and abilities; (iii) transcript of records of your Master studies; (iv) short summary of your Master’s thesis (1 page); (v) a letter of recommendation. The application can be written in German or English.

 

Contact

Name: Prof. Dr. Marie I. Kaiser

Phone: +49 521 106-4605

Email: kaiser.m@uni-bielefeld.de

Submitted by Marcel Weber (University of Geneva).

 

EASPLS 2020

Call for Applications

Sixth European Advanced School in the

Philosophy of the Life Sciences (EASPLS) 

“Dealing with complexity in the life sciences”

Konrad Lorenz institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (KLI),

Klosterneuburg (Austria), September 7–11, 2020

Event website: https://kli.ac.at/en/events/all_events/view/550

Directors: Guido Caniglia (KLI) & Marcel Weber (University of Geneva)

The European Advanced School in the Philosophy of the Life Sciences (EASPLS) consortium will hold its sixth biennial summer school on “Dealing with Complexity in the Life Sciences” at the Konrad Lorenz institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (KLI) in Klosterneuburg near Vienna. Young scholars (PhD students and early post-doctoral researchers) in the history, philosophy and social studies of the biological, biomedical, and environmental sciences are invited to apply. The registration fee is €350. The summer school will cover lunches and the opening dinner at the KLI. Participants will take care of their own accommodation and travel expenses. For updates and more details see: https://www.kli.ac.at/en/events/event_calendar/view/550.

Application 

Applications should be sent to the following email address: easpls2020@kli.ac.at. Please send a single pdf file (labelled: LastName-Firstname-easpls2020.pdf) containing:

• Letter of motivation (max 500 words)
• Title and Abstract (max 500 words) for a poster
• Short Curriculum Vitae (max 3 pages)

The deadline for applications is February 28, 2020. Applicants will be notified of decisions by late May 2020.

What is the EASPLS?

The European Advanced School for the Philosophy of the Life Sciences is a biennial event that aims at fostering research, facilitating collaborations, and provide professional training for students in the field of the philosophy, history, and social studies of the life sciences, broadly conceived. EASPLS is organized by a consortium of the following European top-level institutions in the area of philosophy, history and social studies of the life sciences:

• Centre for Ethics and Philosophy of Science (CEPS), Institute of Philosophy; Leibniz University Hannover, Germany
• Centre for Philosophy of Science, Department of Philosophy, University of Geneva, Switzerland
• Conceptual Biology & Medicine group (ImmunoConcEpT lab); CNRS & University of Bordeaux, France
• Egenis, the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences; University of Exeter, UK
• IAS Research Centre for Life, Mind and Society; University of the Basque Country, San Sebastian, Spain
• Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IHPST); University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France
• Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (KLI), Klosterneuburg, Austria.

Format

EASPLS is characterized by its unique format. The summer school includes different forms of participation and aims to foster structured interactions among participants and between participants and senior researchers. The schedule mixes:

• Inputs and discussions led by senior researchers in the consortium on the topic “Dealing with Complexity in the Life Sciences” (Readings will be circulated in advance).
• Inputs and discussions from two guest researchers in the philosophy of the life sciences.
• Group work addressing questions related to the topic “Dealing with Complexity in the Life Sciences”.
• Roundtable discussions and activities tailored to professional development (e.g. Publishing in the field; Preparing for an interview; etc.)
• The selected participants will bring a poster that will stay in the rooms of the Summer school for the whole duration of the event. Participants will present their posters in the form of short 3 minutes presentations for the rest of the people at the summer school.

Host Institution and Accommodation  

EASPLS 2020 will be held at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research in Klosterneuburg, a small town about 15min by train from Vienna. The KLI is an independent center of advanced studies in the life and sustainability sciences.

The mission of the KLI is to enable scientific reasoning that can contribute to understanding and sustaining life in its biological, cognitive, social, and cultural diversity. The institute is committed to contribute addressing pressing challenges of our time through inter and transdisciplinary research. The KLI is “A Home to Theory that Matters” and supports conceptual and formal research as well as philosophical and historical work that addresses broad and interrelated questions about: How and why has life evolved? And how is it evolving in the present and into the future? How can we sustain life on earth to meet the need of current and future generations within the limits of the natural world? What roles has cognition played in the evolution of life and what roles can it play in its future developments?

The KLI is located in the historical Kremsmünsterhof, a cultural heritage monument where workshops, symposia, and summer schools are hosted. It provides a stimulating and creative environment for fellows, visiting scholars, students, and external faculty (get an impression of the last EASPLS at: http://bit.ly/2cM9AWU).

Options for Accommodation in Vienna and surroundings

Vienna and Klosterneuburg offer plenty of options for accommodation. If you are interested in the more affordable ones, please, take a look at the following links:

• Jugendherberge (Vienna)
• Harry’s Home (Vienna)
• Hotel Anker (Klosterneuburg)
• Alte Mühle (Klosterneuburg)

Topic of EASPLS 2020: “Dealing with complexity in the life sciences”

Complexity, from genomes to ecosystems, is a fundamental characteristic of living systems. In dealing with complexity, the life sciences have developed over the centuries a wide range of epistemological and methodological approaches as well as social and institutional configurations to organize and perform scientific work.  The goal of this summer school is to bring together senior and junior researchers in the philosophy of life sciences to jointly reflect on and discuss:

• Epistemological and methodological issues in relation to complexity. We will look into the many practices developed in the biological, biomedical, and environmental sciences, in order to deal with the complexity of life. For instance, we will address the many roles that experiments, data, theories, models as well as heuristics, explanations or visualizations have played in the development of the life sciences.
• Ontological and metaphysical issues in relation to complexity. We will discuss issues related with complex causation in living systems, mechanistic constitution, process thinking as well as modularity and robustness as ways to understand the main characteristics of living systems in the biological, biomedical, and environmental sciences.
• Institutional, societal, and political dimensions of scientific work dealing with complexity. We will discuss social-organizational issues that emerge in relation to scientists’ various approaches to deal with complexity in the biological, biomedical, and environmental sciences. For instance, we will talk about the emergence of inter and transdisciplinary research centers and consortia; the different -omics; different configurations of sharing research materials and results; real-world laboratories at the science-society interface or big-data labs from medicine to sustainability science.
• The role that historians and philosophers of the life sciences can play in critically contributing to support scientific attempts to deal with complexity in the biological, biomedical, and environmental sciences.

Using examples from past and current science, during the summer school, we will analyze and reflect together on experimental, conceptual, and theoretical practices and strategies that scientists from different disciplines in the life sciences have created when dealing with complex living systems. The organizers aim to assemble a community of scholars addressing these issues from a wide variety of perspectives and whose research focuses on wide diversity of topics in the life sciences broadly conceived. The following areas of work serve to illustrate the sorts of issues that are in focus for the summer school, but it should be emphasized that EASPLS 2020 welcomes inputs and ideas that are not limited to the issues mentioned below.

Historical and current examples of dealing with complexity in disciplines and fields such as:

• • Evolutionary biology and systematics, e.g. phylogenetic inference, evolutionary developmental biology.
  • Developmental biology, e.g., whole-organism lineage tracing
  • Genetics and genomics, e.g., genome-wide association studies, integrative data-clustering
  • Clinical research, e.g., randomized controlled trials, real-world evidence
  • Cancer research, e.g., tumor typing.
  • Public Health, e.g. decision-making, policy-making
  • Personalized medicine e.g. diagnostic tool, interventions, and drug development.
  • Molecular and systems biology, e.g., gene regulatory networks.
  • Synthetic biology and genome editing  
  • Conservation sciences, e.g. systematic conservation planning and biodiversity.
  • Climate change research, e.g., simulations, forecasting, scenarios, visioning.
  • Sustainability science, e.g. transdisciplinary projects, real-world experimentation.

Senior Researchers and Guest Lecturers

Instructors at EASPLS 2020 will come from all the institutions of the Consortium:

• Guido Caniglia (co-director)
• John Dupré
• Philippe Huneman 
• Maël Lemoine 
• Sabina Leonelli 
• Thomas Reydon 
• Isabella Sarto-Jackson 
• Jon Umerez 
• Marcel Weber (co-director)

In addition to instructors from the consortium, we are delighted to announce that Sara Green (University of Copenhagen) and Federica Russo (University of Amsterdam) will be joining the summer school as Invited Guest Lecturers.

Submitted by Florian Boge (Bergische Universität Wuppertal and Aachen University of Technology).

 

MACHINE LEARNING: PREDICTION WITHOUT EXPLANATION?

“Machine Learning: Prediction without Explanation?” is a 2-day workshop taking place from 17 to 18 February 2020 at the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT), Germany. It aims to bring together philosophers of science and scholars from various fields using Machine Learning techniques, to reflect on the changing face of science in the light of Machine Learning’s constantly growing use. This workshop is organized by the project “The Impact of Computer Simulations and Machine Learning on the Epistemic Status of LHC Data” within the interdisciplinary, DFG/FWF-funded research unit “Epistemology of the LHC”.

Over the last decades, Machine Learning techniques have gained prominence in various areas of science. However, Machine Learning largely aims at predictions and does not seem to provide explanations for these, at least not in the same sense as predictions from theories or models do. Depending on the area of application, explanations may be desired or even necessary though. In this workshop, we want to address the complex of questions regarding scientific explanation that arise from this observation. These include, but are not restricted to:

§ Will future science favor prediction over explanation?

§ What methods are available to use Machine Learning results for explanations?

§ What is the nature of these explanations?

§ Does Machine Learning introduce a shift from the classical scientific explanation towards a statistical interpretation of explanation?

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS
Philosophy
Johannes Lenhard, Bielefeld University
Andreas Kaminski, Stuttgart University

Machine Learning practitioners
Stefan Hinz, KIT
Erwin Zehe, KIT

REGISTRATION
You can apply to the workshop by sending an abstract of maximal 500 words to MLworkshop2020@itas.kit.edu.
If you want to participate in the workshop without presenting please register through the same email address.
There is no registration fee. The deadline for registration is January 05, 2020.

ORGANIZATION & CONTACT
This workshop is organized by the project “The Impact of Computer Simulations and Machine Learning on the Epistemic Status of LHC Data” within the interdisciplinary, DFG/FWF-funded research unit “Epistemology of the LHC”. For further information, please contact the organizers:

§ Paul Grünke (KIT) paul.gruenke@kit.edu

§ Rafaela Hillerbrand (KIT) rafaela.hillerbrand@kit.edu