Dear Cambridge Philosophers of Science, Tomorrow (Wednesday, 11 May) CamPoS resumes with a talk in the philosophy of biology by Prof. Ken Waters of Calgary. His title is 'No General Structure'. The talk is at HPS downstairs at 1 as usual.
The talk is related to this paper of the same name here: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/12010/, which has the following abstract: 'This chapter introduces a distinctive approach for scientific metaphysics. Instead of drawing metaphysical conclusions by interpreting the most basic theories of science, this approach draws metaphysical conclusions by analyzing how multifaceted practices of science work. Broadening attention opens the door to drawing metaphysical conclusions from a wide range of sciences. This chapter analyzes conceptual practice in genetics to argue that the reality investigated by biologists lacks an overall structure. It expands this conclusion to motivate the no general structure thesis, which states that the world lacks a general, overall structure that spans scales. It concludes that the no general structure thesis counts as metaphysics because it says something very important and general about the world. This thesis informs science as well as philosophy of science, and it provides a useful perspective for societies that look upon science to help solve complex problems in our changing world.' Sincerely, Brian Pitts J. Brian Pitts Senior Research Associate Faculty of Philosophy University of Cambridge jb...@cam.ac.uk Ph.D., Philosophy/History & Philosophy of Science, University of Notre Dame Ph.D., Physics, University of Texas at Austin _____________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CamPhilEvents mailing list, or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents List archive: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive Please note that CamPhilEvents doesn't accept email attachments. See the list information page for further details and suggested alternatives.
