Expected date for notifications of acceptance or rejection: February 1, 2012.
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This conference will gather
metaphysicians, philosophers of biology and philosophers of physics
and chemistry to offer a reflection on criteria of individuality in different
sciences and to try to develop a unified account on the notion of
what an individual is.
Argument:
The question of knowing
what individuals are and how they can be identified has been
recurring throughout the history of philosophy. It was, for example,
pointedly studied by Aristotle and Leibniz. Most contemporary
philosophers consider the problem from a general, metaphysical, point
of view, as is the case for Peter Strawson in his landmark book
Individuals:
An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics
(Strawson 1959). On
the other hand, in philosophy of science, the preferred approach aims
to define the ontological status of this or that individual, or this
or that class of individuals, typically in the fields of physics
(French & Krause 2006, Ladyman & Ross 2007, Morganti 2009)
and biology (Hull 1978, Hull 1992, Dupré & O'Malley 2009,
Godfrey-Smith 2009). Today, many consider that the approach used in
philosophy of science has obviously been more precise and globally
more fruitful than the purely metaphysical approach, often thought as
excessively general (for example, see Ladyman & Ross 2007). The
project of this conference stemmed from two observations. First, the
recent developments on the notion of individual in physics or in
biology are most certainly fascinating, but are still “regional”,
by which we mean that practically no transversal reflection,
comparing different scientific criteria of individuation and
conceptions of individuality, has been done. Thus, we believe that a
dialogue between philosophers of physics and philosophers of biology
on this question is of crucial importance. Second, since it isolates
a relatively small field of study, regionalism undoubtedly has the
advantage of precision. However, it too often lacks ambition compared
to the metaphysical approach, which tries to find the general
conditions to individuate an object. We are convinced that
philosophers of science must interact with metaphysicians, in order
to determine in which way the focused ontological questioning of the
former can contribute to the latter legitimate project of renewing
general metaphysics. In bringing together specialists on metaphysics
and on physical and biological ontologies, we hope to further define
the difficulties that hold back the construction of a general
conception of the individual that would be adequate for both physics
and biology, and perhaps even beyond.
Deadline for the
submission of abstracts:
December 15, 2011
Please submit a short abstract directly on the form
(maximum 200 words) and
a long
(maximum 1000 words) abstract in an attached PDF files.
Submitted abstracts need to be anonymous. Please remove any information related to your name, affiliation, country of residence, etc.
How to submit:
The submission is made exclusively via the current website.
The "Submissions" section only appears under the "MY SPACE" section once you have open an account on SciencesConf and login (see "Create an account" on the left).
Important for researchers affiliated to a French institution:
pour
les personnes affiliées à une institution française, lors
de la procédure de dépôt, dans la rubrique "Tutelles",
le code EPST de l’unité d’affiliation des auteurs doit
obligatoirement être
renseigné (e.g. pour le CNRS et l’université, ce sera UMRxxxx,
EAxxxx, etc.).
