PSA 1998 Conference Papers
Through this page we make available in .pdf format many of the papers to be presented at PSA '98. Included are all contributed papers and those symposium papers whose authors have so far provided us with electronic versions of their manuscripts.
[Conference Home Page] | [Abstracts are available here]
"Do We See Through a Social Microscope?: Credibility as a Vicarious Selector"
Douglas Allchin, University of Texas at El Paso | [Manuscript]
"The Dogma of Isomorphism: A Case Study From Speech Perception"
Irene Appelbaum, University of Montana | [Manuscript]
Prasanta S. Bandyopadhyay and Robert J. Boik, Montana State University | [Manuscript]
"Bell's Theorem, Non-Separability and Space-Time Individuation in Quantum Mechanics"
Darrin W. Belousek, University of Notre Dame | [Manuscript]
"Why Physical Symmetries?"
Elena Castellani, University of Florence | [Manuscript]
"Problems with the Deductivist Image of Scientific Reasoning"
Philip E. Catton, University of Canterbury | [Manuscript]
"Are GRW Tails as Bad as They Say?"
Alberto Cordero, Graduate Center and Queens College, CUNY | [Manuscript]
"Why Bayesian Psychology is Incomplete"
Frank Döring, University of Cincinnati | [Manuscript]
"The Conserved Quantity Theory of Causation and ChanceRaising"
Phil Dowe, University of Tasmania | [Manuscript]
"Laudan's Naturalistic Axiology"
Karyn Freedman, University of Toronto | [Manuscript]
"Is Pure R-Selection Really Selection?"
Bruce Glymour, Kansas State University | [Manuscript]
"Explanatory Pluralism in Paleobiology"
Todd A. Grantham, College of Charleston | [Manuscript]
"Theories as Complexes of Representational Media"
Robin F. Hendry, University of Durham, and Stathis Psillos, The London School of Economics | [Manuscript]
"Helmholtz's Naturalized Conception of Geometry and his Spatial Theory of Signs"
David J. Hyder, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte | [Manuscript]
"Use-Novelty, Gellerization, and Severe Tests"
Tetsuji Iseda, University of Maryland, College Park | [Manuscript]
"A Note on Nonlocality, Causation and Lorentz-Invariance"
Federico Laudisa, University of Florence | [Manuscript]
"Explaining the Emergence of Cooperative Phenomena"
Chuang Liu, University of Florida | [Manuscript]
"Van Fraassen and Ruetsche on Preparation and Measurement"
Bradley Monton, Princeton University | [Manuscript]
"Applying Pure Mathematics"
Anthony Peressini, Marquette University | [Manuscript]
"Functional and Intentional Action Explanations"
Mark Risjord, Emory University | [Manuscript]
"What Should a Normative Theory of Values in Science Accomplish?"
Kristina Rolin, University of Helsinki | [Manuscript]
"Changing the Subject: Redei on Causal Dependence and Screening Off in Relativistic Quantum Field Theory"
Laura Ruetsche and Rob Clifton, University of Pittsburgh | [Manuscript]
"Visual Prototypes"
Pauline Sargent, University of California, San Diego | [Manuscript]
"Selection and the Extent of Explanatory Unification"
Rob Skipper, University of Maryland at College Park | [Manuscript]
"Rhetoric, Narrative and Argument in Bruno Latour's Science in Action"
David G. Stern, University of Iowa | [Manuscript]
"The Failure of Equivariance for Real Ensembles of Bohmian Systems"
Jitendra Subramanyam, University of Maryland | [Manuscript]
"Reconsidering the Concept of Equilibrium in Classical Statistical Mechanics"
Janneke van Lith-van Dis, Utrecht University | [Manuscript]
"Who's Afraid of Undermining? Why the Principal Principle Need Not Contradict Humean Supervenience"
Peter B. Vranas, University of Michigan | [Manuscript]
"Reasoning With the 'Rosetta Stones' of Biology: Experimental Systems and Doable Research"
Kevin Lattery, University of Minnesota
"The Limited World of Science: A Tractarian Account of Objective Knowledge"
Alfred Nordmann, University of South Carolina | [Manuscript]
"The Likelihood Principle and the Reliability of Evidence"
Andrew Backe, University of Pittsburgh | [Manuscript]
"Objects or Events? Towards an Ontology for Quantum Field Theory"
Andreas Bartels, Universität Gesamthochschule Paderborn | [Manuscript]
"No One Knows the Date of the Hour: An Unorthodox Application of Rev. Bayes' Theorem"
Paul Bartha, University of British Columbia, and Christopher Hitchcock, Rice University | [Manuscript]
"Can Experiments Help Us Choose Between the Bohm and Copenhagen Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics?"
Lon Becker, University of Illinois at Chicago | [Manuscript]
"Empiricism, Conservativeness and Quasi-Truth"
Otavio Bueno, University of Leeds | [Manuscript]
"Organisation, Evolution and Cognition: Beyond Campbell's Evolutionary Epistemology"
Wayne Christensen and Clifford Hooker, University of Newcastle | [Manuscript]
"The Analysis of Singular Spacetimes"
Erik Curiel, University of Chicago | [Manuscript]
"The Light at the End of the Tunneling: Observations and Underdetermination"
Michael Dickson, Indiana University | [Manuscript]
"Inference to the Best Explanation is Coherent"
Igor Douven, Utrecht University | [Manuscript]
"The Plurality of Bayesian Measures of Confirmation and the Problem of Measure Sensitivity"
Branden Fitelson, University of Wisconsin-Madison | [Manuscript]
"Moral Responsibility and the 'Ignorant Scientist'"
John Forge, Griffith University | [Manuscript]
"Interpolation as Explanation"
Jaakko Hintikka, Boston University, and Ilpo Halonen, University of Helsinki | [Manuscript]
"Category Theory: The Language of Mathematics"
Elaine Landry, McGill University | [Manuscript]
"Defending Abduction"
Ilkka Niiniluoto, University of Helsinki | [Manuscript]
"'Laws of Nature' as an Indexical Term: A Reinterpretation of Lewis's Best-System Analysis"
John Roberts, University of Pittsburgh | [Manuscript]
"Scientific Objectivity and Psychiatric Nosology"
Particia Ross, University of Minnesota | [Manuscript]
"The Semantic (Mis)Conception of Theories"
C. Wade Savage, University of Minnesota | [Manuscript]
"Functionalism and the Meaning of Social Facts"
Warren Schmaus, Illinois Institute of Technology | [Manuscript]
"Proper Function and Recent Selection"
Peter Schwartz, University of Pennsylvania | [Manuscript]
"Does Science Undermine Religion?"
Neven Sesardic, Miyazaki International College | [Manuscript]
"Degrees of Freedom in the Social World"
Mariam Thalos, SUNY at Buffalo | [Manuscript]
"Measured Realism and Statistical Inference: An Explanation for the Fast Progress of 'Hard' Psychology"
J.D. Trout, Loyola University of Chicago | [Manuscript]
"The Principle of the Common Cause Faces the Bernstein Paradox"
Jos Uffink, Utrecht University | [Manuscript]
"Inference to the Best Explanation and Theoretical Entities"
Susan Vineberg, Wayne State University | [Manuscript]
"Gravity and Gauge Theory"
Steve Weinstein, Northwestern University | [Manuscript]
"Defending Longino's Social Epistemology"
K. Brad Wray, University of Calgary | [Manuscript]
Symposia
Symposium: Philosophical Perspectives on Quantum Chaos
Organizer: Frederick M. Kronz, University of Texas at Austin
Chair: TBA
"Bohmian Insights into Quantum Chaos"
James T. Cushing, University of Notre Dame
"Nonseparability and Quantum Chaos"
Frederick M. Kronz, The University of Texas at Austin
"Chaos and Fundamentalism"
Gordon Belot, Princeton University | [Manuscript]
Symposium: The Organism in Philosophical Focus
Organizer: Manfred D. Laubichler, Princeton University
Chair: TBA
"Fashioning a Descriptive Model of the Worm"
Rachel Ankeny, University of Pittsburgh
"Behavior at the Organismal and Molecular Levels: The Case of C. elegans"
Kenneth Schaffner, George Washington University
"Organism and Decomposition: Steps Towards an Integrative Theory of Biology"
Manfred D. Laublicher, Princeton University, and Günter P. Wagner, Yale University
"Ontological Butchery: Distinguishing Organisms from Other Functionally Integrated Biological Entities"
Jack A. Wilson, Washington and Lee University
"The Organism in Development"
Robert C. Richardson, University of Cincinnati
Commentator: Jane Maienschein, Arizona State University
Symposium: Studies in the Interaction of Psychology and Neuroscience
Organizer: Gary Hatfield, University of Pennsylvania
Chair: TBA
"Mental Functions as Constraints on Neurophysiology: Biology and Psychology of Color Vision"
Gary Hatfield, University of Pennsylvania
"Cognitive Science and the Neuroethology of Electroreception"
Brian L. Keeley, Washington University in St. Louis
"Neuropsychology and Neurology"
William Hirstein, William Paterson University
Symposium: Toward a New Understanding of Scientific Success
Organizer: Janet A. Kourany, University of Notre Dame
Chair: TBA
"How Inevitable Are the Results of Successful Science?"
Ian Hacking, University of Toronto
"What Does 'Explanation' Mean in Developmental Biology?""
Evelyn Fox Keller, MIT
"A Successor to the Realism-Anti-Realism Question"
Janet A. Kourany, University of Notre Dame
Symposium: Evidence, Data Generation, and Scientific Practice: Toward A Reliabilist Philosophy of Experiment
Organizer: Deborah G. Mayo, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Chair: Ian Hacking, University of Toronto
"Data, Phenomena and Reliability"
James F. Woodward, California Institute of Technology
"Can Philosophical Theories of Evidence be Useful to Scientists?"
Peter Achinstein, Johns Hopkins University
"Experimental Practice and the Reliable Detection of Errors"
Deborah G. Mayo, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Symposium: Conceptual Foundations of Field Theories in Physics
Organizer: Andrew Wayne, Concordia University
Chair: TBA
"The Gauge Argument"
Paul Teller, University of California at Davis
"Counterintuitive Features of Quantum Field Theory"
Gordon Fleming, The Pennsylvania State University
"Description, Individuation, and Relation in Gauge Field Theory"
Sunny Auyang, Independent Scholar
Commentator: Andrew Wayne, Concordia University
Symposium: Philosophy and the Social Aspects of Scientific Inquiry: Moving On From the âScience Wars
Organizer: Noretta Koertge, Indiana University at Bloomington
Chair: Cassandra Pinnick, Western Kentucky University
"Reviving the Sociology of Science"
Philip Kitcher, University of California, San Diego
"The Recent Past and Possible Future of the Sociology of Science"
Stephen Cole, SUNY at Stony Brook
"Science, Values and the Value of Science"
Noretta Koertge, Indiana University at Bloomington
"The Contexts of Scientific Practice"
Rose-Mary Sargent, Merrimack College
Symposium: Philosophy of Chemistry
Organizer: Eric R. Scerri, Bradley University
Chair: TBA
"Agency of Multilevel Coherences: in Chemistry and in Other Sciences"
Joseph E. Earley, Sr., Georgetown University
"Can We Exclude Nature from the Stability of Laboratory Research?"
Daniel Rothbart, George Mason University
"Putting Quantum Mechanics to Work in Chemistry"
Andrea I. Woody, The University of Chicago
"The Periodic System: Its Status and its Alleged Reduction"
Eric R. Scerri, Bradley University
Symposium: The Coevolution of Language and Brain: Is there Anything New Under the Sun?
Organizer: Edward Manier, University of Notre Dame
Chair: Edward Manier, University of Notre Dame
"The Roots of Human Linguistic Competence in Apes"
Duane M. Rumbaugh, Georgia State University
"Syntax Facit Saltum: Minimal Syntactic Computation and the Evolution of Language"
Robert C. Berwick, MIT
"Evolutionary Engineering: How our Mental Capacities were Built from a Set of Primitives."
Marc Hauser, Harvard University
"Could Grammar Have Evolved?"
Terry Deacon, McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Boston University
"Richard Rudner, Postmodern Separatism and The Symbolic Species"
David Rudner, Tufts University
Symposium: The Developmental Systems Perspective in Philosophy of Biology
Organizer: Peter Godfrey-Smith, Stanford University
Chair: TBA
"Causal Symmetries and Developmental Systems Theory"
Peter Godfrey-Smith, Stanford University
"Development, Culture, and the Units of Inheritance"
James R. Griesemer, University of California at Davis
"Causal Democracy and Causal Contribution in DST"
Susan Oyama, John Jay College, CUNY
"Development, Evolution, Adaptation"
Kim Sterelny, Victoria University, New Zealand
Symposium: The Prospects for Presentism in Spacetime Theories
Organizer: Steven Savitt, The University of British Columbia
Chair: Lawrence Sklar, University of Michigan
"There's No Time Like the Present (in Minkowski Spacetime)"
Steven Savitt, The University of British Columbia | [Manuscript]
"Special Relativity and the Present"
Mark Hinchliff, Reed College
"Is Presentism Worth Its Price?"
Craig Callendar, The London School of Economics
"Presentism According to Relativity and Quantum Mechanics"
Simon Saunders, University of Oxford
Commentator: Lawrence Sklar, University of Michigan
Symposium: Special Relativity and Ontology
Organizer: Yuri V. Balashov, University of Notre Dame
Chair: TBA
"Becoming and the Arrow of Causation"
Mauro Dorato, University of Rome
"QM and STR: Combining Quantum Mechanics With Relativity Theory"
Storrs McCall, McGill University | [Manuscript]
"Relativity and Persistence"
Yuri Balashov, University of Notre Dame | [Manuscript]
Symposium: Kuhn, Cognitive Science, and Conceptual Change
Organizer: Nancy J. Nersessian, Georgia Institute of Technology
Chair: Nancy J. Nersessian, Georgia Institute of Technology
"Continuity Through Revolutions: A Frame-Based Account of Conceptual Change During Scientific Revolutions"
Xiang Chen, California Lutheran University, and Peter Barker, University of Oklahoma | [Manuscript]
"Nomic Concepts, Frames, and Conceptual Change"
Hanne Andersen, University of Roskilde, Denmark, and Nancy J. Nersessian, Georgia Institute of Technology
"Kuhnian Puzzle Solving and Schema Theory"
Thomas J. Nickles, University of Nevada at Reno
Symposium: The Medical Consensus Conference
Organizer: Miriam Solomon, Temple University
Chair: TBA
"The Epistemic Contribution of Medical Consensus Conferences"
Paul Thagard, University of Waterloo
Title TBA
John H. Ferguson, Office of Medical Applications of Research, NIH
"Are Consensus Conferences Political Instruments?"
Reidar Lie, University of Bergen, Norway
Commentator: Miriam Solomon, Temple University
Symposium: Relations between Philosophy of Science and Sociology of Science in Central Europe, 1914-1945
Organizer: Alan Richardson, University of British Columbia
Chair: TBA
"On the Relations between Psychologism and Sociologism in Early Twentieth-Century German Philosophy"
Martin Kusch, Cambridge University, UK
"Edgar Zilsel's 'Sociological Turn' in Philosophy"
Elisabeth Nemeth, University of Vienna, Austria
"Logical Empiricism and the Sociology of Knowledge: Rethinking the Relations of Philosophy and Sociology of Science"
Alan Richardson, University of British Columbia
"Otto Neurath and the Sociology of Knowledge"
Thomas E. Uebel, The London School of Economics, UK
Symposium: Realism and Classification in the Social Sciences
Organizer: Michael Root, University of Minnesota
Chair: John Dupre, University of London
"How We Divide the World?"
Michael Root, University of Minnesota | [Manuscript]
"The Politics of Taxonomy"
Richard W. Miller, Cornell University
"Race: Biological Reality or Social Construct?"
Robin Andreasen, University of Wisconsin, Madison
"Local Realism and Global Arguments"
Harold Kincaid, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Symposium: The Structure of Scientific Theories Thirty Years On
Organizers: Steven French, Leeds University, and Nick Huggett, University of Illinois at Chicago
Chair: TBA
"Understanding Scientific Theories: An Assessment of Developments, 1969-1998"
Frederick Suppe, University of Maryland
"Theories, Models and Structures: Thirty Years On"
Steven French, University of Leeds, and Newton da Costa, University of Sao Paulo
"The Emergence of Feminist Philosophy of Science"
Helen E. Longino, University of Minnesota
"Local Philosophies of Science"
Nick Huggett, University of Illinois in Chicago
"The Legacy of 'Weltanschauungen' Approaches in Philosophy of Science"
Alison Wylie, University of Western Ontario
Symposium: Recent Advances in the Logic of Decision: A symposium in Honor of Richard Jeffrey
Organizer: Allan Franklin, University of Colorado
Chair: Brian Skyrms, University of California, Irvine
"Why We Still Need the Logic of Decision"
James Joyce, University of Michigan
Title: TBA
Ethan Bolker, University of Massachusetts, Boston
"Conditionals and the Logic of Decision"
Richard Bradley, London School of Economics
"Subjective Thoughts on Subjective Probability: What did Dick Jeffrey know and when did he know it? and a Mathematician's Request for Help from the Philosophers"
Ethan Bolker, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Massachusetts, Boston
Commentator: Richard Jeffrey, Princeton University