CfP: Historical and Scientific Explanation (June 15-16, KU Leuven)
Keynote Speaker: Michael Strevens (NYU)
Invited Speakers: Philippe Huneman (CNRS/Paris Sorbonne 1), Sylvia Wenmackers
(KUL)
In
a 1942 article Carl Hempel famously described historical explanations
as (scientific) ‘explanation sketches’: incomplete explanations where
the historians had failed to explicitly refer to the underlying
universal laws. In reaction, Arthur Danto rejected the notion that
historical explanation had anything to do with scientific explanation.
Instead, historical explanation is a humanistic, interpretative
activity, and all attempts to bring historical and scientific
explanation together (e.g. Marx) have resulted in “intellectual
monsters”.
Despite
Danto’s protests, the past 50 years has seen a creeping expansion of
the application of scientific explanation. Historians incorporate social
science
into their explanations; literary criticism is often influenced by
psychology. With the advent of ‘Big History’, some have even attempted
to fit the whole of history within a quasi-predictive framework.
Intellectual monsters abound.
Has
Hempel been vindicated? A number of important developments in
philosophy of science give pause. The first is that our conception
of what it means to explain something scientifically has much widened.
It is no longer automatically means to subsume phenomena under timeless
universal laws, but can also mean, for instance, to find the mechanisms
causing the phenomenon, or to explain a state
of affairs as a path-dependent, irreversible outcome.
The
second is that scientific explanation is now distinguished from
understanding, at least by some philosophers. Giving an explanation of a
phenomenon is not the same
as understanding that phenomenon. This distinction was alien to the
early generation of logical positivists, but would have been
sympathetically received by Danto.
These
developments invite a reexamination of the relationship between
scientific and historical explanation – a topic that has fallen
into neglect since 1970.
For
this workshop, we invite contributions on the relation between
scientific and historical explanation. Addressed questions include but
are not limited
to:
1. What role does history play in scientific explanation? Why does history play
a role?
2. Can we reduce historical explanation to a form of causal explanation?
3. Is there a form of explanation or perhaps understanding that historians seek
that is distinctive from that of social scientists?
4. What is the difference between explanation in history and explanation in social
science?
5. Is there a difference between scientific understanding and humanistic understanding?
Submission information
We
have a number of 45-minute slots for contributed papers (no parallel
sessions). For this we invite submissions of abstracts of between 300
and 500 words, excluding references
and footnotes.
Abstracts must be blinded, but include personal information (affiliation, contact info) in your submission email. Send to hugh.desmond@kuleuven.be
Notification: April 15, 2018.
Travel grants
We
have funds to award travel grants to PhD students and early career
researchers. Please indicate in your submission whether you would like
to be considered.
Practical Info
Location: Higher Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Dates: afternoon of June 15 - afternoon of June 16
Scientific Committee
Bendik Aaby (KUL)
Dr. Hugh Desmond (KUL)
Prof. Dr. Bert Leuridan (UA)
Prof. Dr. Grant Ramsey (KUL)