CfP: 7th René Descartes Lectures: Philip Kitcher on Progress in Science, Mathematics, and Values
Every other year, a distinguished philosopher visits Tilburg
University and the Tilburg Center for Logic, Ethics and Philosophy of
Science (TiLPS) to present the René Descartes Lectures. It is a great
pleasure to announce that Professor Philip Kitcher (Columbia University in the
City of New York) will deliver the 2020 Descartes lectures on the topic: Pragmatic
Naturalism: Progress in Science, Mathematics, and Values. Professors
Michela Massimi (Edinburgh), Cheryl Misak (Toronto), and James Conant
(Chicago/Leipzig) will provide commentaries on each one of Professor Kitcher’s
three lectures.
Concurrently with the lectures, we will host a workshop on the
topic of the lectures. For this workshop, we invite submissions in the form of
extended abstracts (about 500 words) by April 30, 2020.
Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:
- The nature and possibility of progress in science,
mathematics, or ethics
- Theories of progress—in particular, pragmatic and
naturalistic theories of progress
- The normative criteria for individuating improvement (or
regress) in science, mathematics, or ethics
- Historical case studies of progress in science, mathematics
or ethics
- The causes of long-term improvement (or regress) in
science, mathematics, or ethics
- Progress and human well-being
- Progress and realisms
- The social organization of inquiry and progress/regress
- Progress, diversity, and disagreement
Abstracts should be submitted via Easychair.
Please submit your abstract in an anonymized form.
Notifications of acceptance will be made by early June. Members of
the Descartes Lectures Program Committee are listed here. All
questions about submissions should be directed to the Chair of the Descartes
Lectures 2020 Committee, Dr Matteo Colombo (m.colombo[at]uvt.nl).
For more information, including the abstracts of all lectures,
visit our website https://descarteslectures2020.