- HPS_EST - Philosophy bulletin board

December 3rd: Punsch, Glühwein and Planning!

by Flora Löffelmann

Dear all, we want to invite you to come have a Punsch or Glühwein (mulled wine) together at the Christmas Market at Altes AKH! The goal is to update each other on what we have been up to, and to make some new plans for providing support to underrepresented groups in philosophy. Bring your best ideas, your warmest socks and maybe an extra pair of tights - it's supposed to be fairly cold that day! UPSalon are a group of BA, MA, doctoral and post-doctoral researchers; the initiative aims at creating a space and community in Vienna where underrepresented philosophers – such as women, trans*, inter and non-binary persons, BIPoC, socioeconomically disadvantaged people, queer people, and people with disabilities – can connect on a regular basis. For more information, check out our website: upsalon.univie.ac.at People from all stages in their philosophical studies are welcome, and we are especially excited to meet new people! We will meet on Tuesday, 3rd of December, at 18:30 in front of NIG and then walk to the Christmas Market together. We are very much looking forward to meeting all of you, and to reconnect with those who already joined for the last regular's table :) Do not hesitate to get in touch with any questions you may have. Best regards, UPsalon Mail: upsalon.philosophy(a)univie.ac.at Web: https://upsalon.univie.ac.at

8 months, 1 week

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Neue Professur Medizingeschichte und Workshop: Automated Order

by Anna Echterhölter

Liebe EST-ler, wir haben eine Einladung und eine gute Nachricht: Durch das große Engagement von Dietlind Hüchtker ist es gelungen, eine TT-Fast Track Professur *„Wissensgeschichte und politische Epistemologien von Biowissenschaften und Medizin im 20. Jahrhundert” für Prof. Birgit Nemec* am Fakultätszentrum für transdisziplinäre historisch-kulturwissenschaftliche Studien einzurichten. Der Wechsel vom Institut für Medizingeschichte an der Charité Berlin wird bereits am 1.12.2024 erfolgen. Ein Forschungsschwerpunkt wird Rahmen eines ERC Forschungsprojektes gefördert und gilt dem Engagement von Patient:innen mit arzneimittelbedingten Behinderungen sowie dem Wandel im Umgang mit Risiken seit der Contergan-Katastrophe. https://fakzen-thks.univie.ac.at/ Zudem wird Donnerstag und Freitag die*Tagung "Automated Order"* stattfinden, die Markus Ramsauer und ich mit Kolleg:innen veranstalten. Es geht um die Frage der Gesellschaftsbeschreibung durch neue statistische Verfahren, insbesondere Clusteringverfahren. Wer in letzter Zeit über die Frage von Algorithmen im US Wahlkampf diskutiert hat, über die Sicherung von Privatheit in Zeiten von AI nachdenkt oder mehr über die Geschiche der Sentiment Analysis erfahren will, ist ganz herzlich willkommen: Teilnahme ist unangemeldet möglich über Zoom (links auf der Homepage) oder Ihr kommt auf einen Kaffee im ifk vorbei (Reichratsstrasse 17, das Gebäude zwischen NIG und Hauptgebäude) https://automated-order.univie.ac.at/ Mit bestem Gruß Anna Echterhölter Clustering: Automated Order in the Social Sciences International Workshop, organized by Anna Echterhölter <https://ifg.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/mitarbeiterinnen/wissenschaftliche-mitar…> and Markus Ramsauer <https://ifg.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/mitarbeiterinnen/projektmitarbeiterinnen…> in cooperation with the working group “How is AI Changing Science <https://howisaichangingscience.eu/projektbeschreibung/>”, University of Vienna <https://fsp-wissenschaftsgeschichte.univie.ac.at/>, and the International Research Center for Cultural Studies (ifk). Date: November 28-29, 2024 Venue: International Research Center for Cultural Studies (Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften <https://www.ifk.ac.at/>), Reichsratsstraße 17, 1010 Vienna (ground floor) Online audience: Please use the following Zoom links: Donnerstag, 28.11. <https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87831389185?pwd=hPBpZ9CTmXdNqOj8M0dTeJ9MSJMQcn.1>us06web.zoom.us/j/87831389185 <https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87831389185?pwd=hPBpZ9CTmXdNqOj8M0dTeJ9MSJMQcn.1> Meeting-ID: 878 3138 9185 Kenncode: mcX7T5 Freitag, 29.11. <https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87613835276?pwd=xoYRKgybbq6HACrqcCpZ3Eme3F4EDn.1>us06web.zoom.us/j/87613835276 <https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87613835276?pwd=xoYRKgybbq6HACrqcCpZ3Eme3F4EDn.1> Meeting-ID: 876 1383 5276 Kenncode: ZwhF8y Download the poster:here <https://automated-order.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/i_geschichte/Ueb…> The workshop is part of the research project HiACS, funded by one of Europes largest research funding institutions, the Volkswagen Foundation Hannover. Members are Jens Schröter and Andreas Sudmann, University of Bonn, Alexander Waibel and Fabian Retkowski KIT/Carnegie Mellon, as well as Anna Echterhölter and Markus Elias Ramsauer, University of Vienna: howisaichangingscience.eu/projektbeschreibung/ <https://howisaichangingscience.eu/projektbeschreibung/> Programme Thursday, November 28, 2024 13.00 CET / Opening remarks / 7 am EST / Julia Boog-Kaminski <https://www.ifk.ac.at/kontakt-team/dr-in-julia-boog-kaminski.html>andAndreas Gehrlach <https://www.ifk.ac.at/kontakt-team/dr-andreas-gehrlach.html>(IFK): Welcome to the IFK Anna Echterhölter <https://ifg.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/mitarbeiterinnen/wissenschaftliche-mitar…>andMarkus Ramsauer <https://ifg.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/mitarbeiterinnen/projektmitarbeiterinnen…>(University of Vienna): Introduction 13.20 CET / Keynote I / 7.20 am EST / Evangelos Pournaras <https://eps.leeds.ac.uk/computing/staff/6446/professor-evangelos-pournaras>(University of Leeds): Privacy as a Collective Value and how to Protect it in the Era of AI 14.20 CET coffee break 14.30 CET / Panel I – Perspectives from Media Ethnography and Archaeology / 8.30 am EST / Chair:Jens Schröter <https://www.medienkulturwissenschaft-bonn.de/mitarbeiter_prof_dr_jens_schro…>(University of Bonn) 14.30-15.00 Fabian Retkowski <https://isl.anthropomatik.kit.edu/english/21_9385.php> (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) and Andreas Sudmann <https://www.medienwissenschaft.uni-bonn.de/personen/abteilung-personenverze…> (University of Bonn): Automated Coding: Multilabel-Classification in Ethnography 15.00-15.30 CETAndreas Sudmann <https://www.medienwissenschaft.uni-bonn.de/personen/abteilung-personenverze…>andJens Schröter <https://www.medienkulturwissenschaft-bonn.de/mitarbeiter_prof_dr_jens_schro…>(University of Bonn): AI in Science and Epistemic Media 15.30 CET coffee break 16.00 CET / Panel II – Clustering and Detecting Tensions within the Social Order / 10 am EST / Chair:Clemens Apprich <https://medientheorie.uni-ak.ac.at/en/project/univ-prof-mmag-dr-clemens-app…>(University of Applied Arts, Vienna) 16.00-16.30 CET Fenwick McKelvey <https://www.concordia.ca/faculty/fenwick-mckelvey.html>(Concordia University, Montreal): US Elections and the Electric Cluster Making Machine 16.30-17.00 CET Orit Halpern <https://tu-dresden.de/gsw/slk/germanistik/digitalcultures/die-professur/inh…>(Dresden University of Technology): Mirror Worlds: Clustering, AI, and the Management of Catastrophe 17.00-17.30 CET Aaron Gluck-Thaler <https://histsci.fas.harvard.edu/people/aaron-gluck-thaler>(Harvard University): Identification through Pattern Recognition in Cold War America 17.30 CET coffee break 18.00 CET / Keynote II / 12.00 am EST / Rebecca Lemov <https://histsci.fas.harvard.edu/people/rebecca-lemov>(Harvard University): History of Sentiment Analysis Chair:Markus Ramsauer <https://ifg.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/mitarbeiterinnen/projektmitarbeiterinnen…>(University of Vienna) 20.00 CET dinner (ASPIC, Garnisongasse 10) Friday, November 29, 2024 09.00 CET / Panel III – Automated Social Order / 3 am EST / Chair:Sarah Davies <https://sts.univie.ac.at/en/about-us/scientific-staff/wissenschaftliche-ma/…>(University of Vienna) 09.00-09.30 CET Dinah Pfau <https://www.deutsches-museum.de/forschung/person/dinah-pfau-2>(Deutsches Museum, Munich): Epistemology of a Matrix, or How Communication Technology Invented the Human 09.30-10.00 CET Eva-Maria Gillich <https://ekvv.uni-bielefeld.de/pers_publ/publ/PersonDetail.jsp?personId=1626…>(Bielefeld University): Norms out of Patterns 10.00-10.30 CET Tobias Matzner <https://www.uni-paderborn.de/en/person/65695>(Paderborn University): On some Similarities between Clustering and Embeddings 10.30 CET coffee break 11.00 CET / Panel IV – Clustering: Work and Health / 5 EST / Chair:Christian Dayé <https://www.tugraz.at/arbeitsgruppen/sts/publikationen/christian-daye>(Graz University of Technology) 11.00-11.30 CET Phoebe Moore <https://phoebevmoore.wordpress.com/>: (University of Essex): Affective Computing at Work: Policy Provocations and Rights for the Left 11.30-12.00 CET Rudolf Seising <https://www.deutsches-museum.de/forschung/person/rudolf-seising-2>(Deutsches Museum, Munich): Fuzzy Sets and Systems: An Alternative Approach to Blur and Inaccuracy for AI in the 20th Century 12.00-12.30 CET Wrap Up 13.00 CET lunch (Gastwirtschaft Blauensteiner, Lenaugasse 1) The research project and workshop are made possible by the Volkswagen Foundation. Visit MiniSeg, the new benchmark video segmentation model, or a database of European research projects using AI. Also more on the working group HIACS: https://howisaichangingscience.eu/ The venue is provided by ifk: https://www.ifk.ac.at/ For more in formation on the history of science working group in Vienna: https://fsp-wissenschaftsgeschichte.univie.ac.at/ Conference Abstract Clustering -- Automated Order in the Social Sciences ai\research\explorations workshop IV Organized by the Viennese working group of the project “How is AI Changing Science” in cooperation with the International Research Center for Cultural Studies (IFK) Vienna 28.-29. November 2024 One of the key elements in unsupervised learning is clustering. Thus, this particular data practice sits at the core of modern Artificial Intelligence, which is based on artificial neuronal networks. Whereas classification operates by organizing labeled data into specific categories, clustering relies on cheaper, unlabeled data for deciphering similarities inside a given set. While many scientific disciplines might be interested in this new element of technical progress, the social sciences should be. The workshop poses the open question if unsupervised data clustering has the potential of identifying and generating new patterns of the social. This idea is not new. As Orit Halpern has remarked, attempts to break free from stable categories like race, identity, territory, or ethnicity with the help of pattern recognition can be found e.g. in the works of political scientist Karl Deutsch already in the 1960s (Halpern 2014, p. 191). Can clustering come up with entirely new orders of the social, such as tribes of movements identifiable from telephone data, do they detect political party affiliation, friendship or kinship-patterns that are not blood-related, and thus resemble totemistic orders? Or does automatization in the analysis of social data reproduce older hierarchies and familiar stratifications with necessity? While it is crucial not to fall prey to techno-utopian fantasies of non-situated (AI) technologies ‘overcoming’ race, class or gender, the transformative potential of clustering practices for analysis and reorganization of society and resource management in crisis should not be dismissed entirely. While the history of quantification has made great strides to trace centers of calculation (Didier 2021; Wiggins and Jones 2023), while the cold war genealogy of AI is being established (Seising 2018; Dick 2021; Babintseva 2023), the history of data has developed additional perspectives. The focus lies with the practical handling of digital information as element of scientific or bureaucratic practices (Suchman 2006; Aronova 2017; Rheinberger 2018; De Chadarevian and Porter 2018; Dommann and Stadler 2020; Schlicht et al. 2021). The workshop singles out one particular episode from such a data journey (Leonelli and Tempini 2020). There are general discussions of classification and clustering (Arabie, Lawrence and de Soete 1996; Brunton and Kutz 2019; Bowker 2001), some already with respect to data practices within specific methods, and even fewer in the social sciences and humanities (Boumans and Leonelli 2020). Clustering practices are typical for automated learning across the disciplines, which relies on large amounts of data, thereby introducing an element of noise and ambiguity. They do seemingly replace human cognition as source of social order. Thus, automated ordering can be said to introduce a novel element of ambiguity to the representation of society. From this position we ask, if clustering algorithms like K-means introduce elements of irrationality into planning processes or sociological methods. The automated social order comes with a new level of imprecision. The history of rationality is thus faced with a new ambiguity, after the probabilistic revolution of the 19th century did already alter the accepted forms of evidence (Krüger et al. 1987). When during the cold war, “reason almost lost its mind” (Erickson et al. 2013), the mind now seems to prevail over rational forms of conclusion. We are particularly interested in this new mechanism that seemingly replaces conscious order with an automated process of matchmaking. As Sabina Leonelli has emphasized for the case of biology, clustering is the very pre-condition for data to become a representation of the world (Leonelli 2023, p. 317-318). Yet, in unsupervised learning, the outcomes seem to be uncontrollable. It stands to reason, which kind of tradeoff between rational planning and seemingly irrational ordering the new branch of computational sociology may soon come up with. Are we close to accepting a new age of similarities and epistemologies of similitudes which abandons factual evidence in exchange for patterns and noisy data clouds? Following the suggestions of the history of data this conference approaches AI in social sciences from the perspective of one key practice. The workshop invites media archaeologists, historians of science and quantification as well as computational sociologists and data curators to reflect on the history, promise a potential of clustering. For this we want to establish both, the analogue and digital histories of clustering. The Project: How is AI Changing science The workshop is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and part of a larger research project. We ask how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies do affect research and science? By following this perspective, the project is less concerned with research on AI per se than with how different disciplines use AI as a tool and as an epistemic entity within larger (post)digital infrastructures. The central focus lies on how heterogeneous concepts and operations of the social sciences and humanities, on the one hand, and the natural and technical sciences, on the other, are integrated into applications of AI. Research on the latter will also explore the extent to which critical perspectives inform and accompany the use of AI. The project concentrates on artificial neural networks (ANN) because of their dominant status among current AI approaches. Hence, the project not only explores the similarities and differences between the various areas of application of AI, but also sheds light on the cultural and national specificities inherent to these processes in an international context, particularly in Europe and the USA. howisaichangingscience.eu/projektbeschreibung/ <https://howisaichangingscience.eu/projektbeschreibung/> Members: Anna Echterhölter, Markus Elias Ramsauer University of Vienna, Jens Schröter and Andreas Sudmann, University of Bonn and Alexander Waibel and Fabian Retkowski KIT/Carnegie Mellon Literature: Arabie, Phipps, Lawrence J. Hubert, and Geert De Soete. Clustering and Classification. Singapore: World Scientific 1996. Aronova, Elena, von Oertzen, Christine und Sepkoski, David: Introduction: Historicizing Big Data. In: Osiris 32/2017, S. 1–17. Babintseva, Ekaterina: Rules of Creative Thinking: Algorithms, Heuristics, and Soviet Cybernetic Psychology. In: BJHS Themes, Volume 8: Histories of Artificial Intelligence: A Geneology of Power 2023, S. 81-95. Boumans, Marcel, and Sabina Leonelli: From Dirty Data to Tidy Facts: Clustering Practices in Plant Phenomics and Business Cycle Analysis. In: Data Journeys in the Sciences, edited by Sabina Leonelli and Niccolò Tempini. Heidelberg: Springer 2020, S. 79–101. Bowker, Geoffrey C.: Biodiversity Datadiversity. In: Social Studies of Science 30:5/2001, S. 643–684. Brunton, Steven L., and J. Nathan Kutz. ‘Classification and Clustering’. In: Data-Driven Science and Engineering: Machine Learning, Dynamical Systems, and Control. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press 2019, S. 154–194. De Chadarevian, Soraya and Porter, Theodore: Introduction: Scrutinizing the Data World. In: Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 48:5/2018, S. 549–556. Dick, Stephanie: Of Models and Machines: Implementing Bounded Rationality. In: ISIS 106: 3/ 2015, S. 623-634. Didier, Emmanuel: Quantitative Marbling, New Conceptual Tools for the Socio-history of Quantification (=Anton Wilhelm Amo Lectures n°7) Martin-Luther-Universitat, Halle-Wittenberg press 2021. Dommann, Monika, and Max Stadler: Introduction. In: Data Centers: Edges of a Wired Nation, hg. von Monika Dommann, Hannes Rickli und Max Stadler. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers 2020, S. 8–29. Erickson, Paul, Judy L Klein, Lorraine Daston, Rebecca M. Lemov, Thomas Sturm and Michael D. Gordin: How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind : The Strange Career of Cold War Rationality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2013. Halpern, Orit: Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and Reason since 1945. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press 2014. Krüger, Lorenz et al. (Hg.): The Probabilistic Revolution. 2 Bde. Cambridge: MIT 1987. Leonelli, Sabina: Classificatory Theory in Data-Intensive Science: The Case of Open Biomedical Ontologies. In: International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 26:1/2012, S. 47–65. Laubichler, Manfred D.; Maienschein, Jane; Renn, Jürgen: Computational Perspectives in the History of Science: To the Memory of Peter Damerow. In: Isis 104/2013, S. 119–130. Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg: Infra-Experimentality: From Traces to Data, from Data to Patterning Facts. In: History of Science 49:3/2011, S. 337–348. Schlicht, Laurens; Ledebur, Sophie; Echterhölter, Anna (Hg.): Data at the Doorstep. Intimacy and Formalization. In: Science in Context 34:4/2021 (topical issue). Seising, Rudolph: The Emergence of Fuzzy Sets in the Decade of the Perceptron—Lotfi A. Zadeh’s and Frank Rosenblatt’s Research Work on Pattern Classification. In: Mathematics/Fuzzy Mathematics 6:7/2018, S. 227–246.sei Suchman, Lucy: Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006. Wiggins, Chris; Jones, Matthew L.: How Data Happened. A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms. New York: Norton 2023.

8 months, 1 week

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Reminder Next Studi Meet-Up

by Vinzenz Fischer

Hey all! This is a Reminder for the next Get-together on tuesday, 26.11. at 19:00 in the SpielBar. Here is a link to the Google Maps Site: https://maps.app.goo.gl/GHknyPbedXYnMpAK8 Best, Vinzenz

8 months, 2 weeks

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REMINDER und Streaminglink: 32. Wiener Kreis Vorlesung über Moritz Schlick, 28. November 2024, 17 Uhr | 10 Uhr: Workshop über Moritz Schlick - Zwei Buchprojekte

by Vienna Circle Society

Das Institut Wiener Kreis und die Wiener Kreis Gesellschaft laden sehr herzlich zur 32. Wiener Kreis Vorlesung Massimo Ferrari (University of Turin) Moritz Schlick und sein Zirkel. Nach 100 Jahren Donnerstag, 28. November 2024 17 Uhr Aula am Campus Universität Wien Hof 1, Eingang 1.11 Spitalgasse 2-4 1090 Wien ACHTUNG: Die Veranstaltung wird zusätzlich für diejenigen, die nicht in Wien sind, bei YouTube gestreamt: Link zum Stream <https://www.youtube.com/live/tdXVJmb8RSY> Wir laden außerdem sehr herzlich zu einem Workshop am Vormittag: Neue Forschung über Moritz Schlick - Zwei Buchprojekte: Julia Franke-Reddig (Universität Siegen) Zur Kontinuität und Eigenständigkeit der Wissenschaftsphilosophie von Moritz Schlick (2025) Friedrich Stadler (Universität Wien) Moritz Schlick, Philosophie der Natur, Kultur und Geschichte. Ausgewählte Schriften aus dem Nachlass (2025) 28. November 2024, 10-12 Uhr Aula am Campus Vorträge in deutscher Sprache Eintritt frei, um Anmeldung wird gebeten: vcs(a)univie.ac.at <mailto:vcs@univie.ac.at> Weitere Informationen unter: https://vcs.univie.ac.at/SchlickWorkshop_und_WienerKreisVorlesung.pdf

8 months, 2 weeks

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IVC Talk: Matteo Collodel (IVC Fellow) "Criticism, Misrepresentation, and Decline: Feyerabend and Logical Empiricism", November 21, 4.45pm

by Zarah Weiss

Dear all, our next speaker in the Philosophy of Science Colloquium organized by the Institute Vienna Circle is Matteo Collodel (IVC Fellow), who will give a talk on November 21, 4.45-6.15 pm. All are welcome! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Philosophy of Science Colloquium TALK: Matteo Collodel (IVC Fellow) CRITICISM, MISREPRESENTATION, AND DECLINE: FEYERABEND AND LOGICAL EMPIRICISM Philosophy of Science Colloquium The Institute Vienna Circle holds a Philosophy of Science Colloquium with talks by our present fellows. Date: 21/11/2024 Time: 16h45 Venue: New Institute Building (NIG), Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien, HS 2G ABSTRACT: Feyerabend became familiar with the Vienna Circle tradition and Logical Empiricism in his formative years in post-war Vienna. However, since his early intellectual trajectory, he made LE one of his favorite critical targets, articulating his criticism in personal dialogue with some of its most distinguished representatives. This paper focuses on the second stage of Feyerabend's sustained assault against LE, examining both Feyerabend's reception of LE and Hempel's response to Feyerabend's challenge. In a series of papers published between 1962 and 1966, Feyerabend relentlessly questioned the descriptive adequacy and the normative desirability of the 'orthodox', logical empiricist, accounts of reduction and explanation advanced by Hempel and Nagel. Feyerabend's persistent criticism shook North American philosophy of science and prompted Hempel's reaction, which appeared in print in the second half of the 1960s. Initially, Hempel retorted that Feyerabend's methodological analysis was 'completely mistaken' and Feyerabend could offer 'no support' for his allegations. This raises interesting historiographical questions about the later reception of LE as it seems that Feyerabend, driven by his anti-authoritarian stance, substantially misinterpreted the logical empiricist research programme, his vantage point notwithstanding. On the other hand, Hempel also recognised that the descriptive issues on which Feyerabend insisted, despite having been long acknowledged by LE, could have more far-reaching consequences than previously envisaged. In fact, by the end of the 1960s, Hempel came to make quite radical concessions, admitting that the standard logical empiricist model for explicating the structure of scientific theories was essentially 'misleading', that the logical empiricist account of reduction was 'an untenable oversimplification', and that the logical empiricist approach as to the meaning of scientific terms was actually 'misconceived'. In this respect, there are good reasons to consider the decline of the logical empiricist research programme in the 1970s at least partly as the result of Feyerabend's stimulating, however misrepresenting, insights.

8 months, 2 weeks

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New Reading Circle on Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality

by Kristina Bogdan

Dear All, *We are organizing a reading circle based on the topic “Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality”!* To start a conversation about /sex/, we need to be clear what is the scope of the phenomenon we are talking about. For that we need to start with /sexual desire/, which is closely linked to /sexual motivation, arousal, and activity/. That is already closely connected to issues within /politics of sex, sexual orientation, and sexual identity/. When we engage in sexual acts, we are living out our /sexual orientation/. Beyond our orientation, understanding our /sexual identity/ is equally important as part of our personal identity. On top of that, the cultural theory of queer sexual identity plays a crucial role in shaping how we understand and express ourselves in various contexts. An interesting aspect to discuss is /normativity and permissibility of sexual acts/ under the consideration of sexual orientation and non-heteronomous identities. When discussing /good or bad sex/, we usually assume that consent was given to start the encounter. Without consent, the focus shifts to the permissibility of the act itself, with the prevailing view being that consent is morally transformative from impermissible to permissible. Is having the right mental state enough, or can it be implied through certaincommunications? Additionally, to which acts are we consenting? Within the scope of the named phenomenon /objectification/ is a concept, which can be viewed from different angles. The concept of /mutual objectification/ refers to the notion when both partners may objectify each other, which may be seen as problematic because it reduces a person’s humanity to their body. On the other hand, objectification can also be viewed from a /social perspective/, as feminist philosophers argue. For instance, they claim that pornography negatively portrays women’s sexuality, reinforcing harmful stereotypes. In contrast to that, Thomas Nagel offers a different view on objectification as a complex, multi-leveled awareness between two people, where both are mutually aware of each other's desire. *If that sounds interesting to you, don’t hesitate to send me an email – I’d love to hear from you! We plan to start the reading circle next week.* Best, Kristina

8 months, 2 weeks

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Vienna STS Talks - STS Talk by Louise Whiteley

by Katrin Hackl

We are happy to invite you to our 5th talk of the Vienna STS Talk Series in 2024W [cid:image001.jpg@01DB3684.5BAE8AB0] STS Talk by Louise Whiteley Medical Museion & CBMR, University of Copenhagen December 02, 2024 05:00 PM-06:30 PM Attempting the Impossible: Communicating Microbe-Human Relations in a Research Museum. Abstract The idea that the microbes in our guts can affect our mental wellbeing has moved from niche interest to mainstream discourse over the last decade. Based on early-stage laboratory research with non-human animals, the proposition has nonetheless spread rapidly into popular media, commercial products, and alternative medical practices. The Microbes on the Mind project started from a curiosity about what this means for thinking about the human as an everyday, experiencing self in constant negotiation with concepts, practices, and systems of health. We investigated how microbe-mind relations are communicated, felt, and experienced, and asked whether this communication helps activate the potentially positive consequences of thinking about human wellbeing as partly-microbial. Throughout we experimented with offering new forms of communication and experience within a university museum, addressing the difficulties of communicating about relations between invisible multitudes and human subjectivity. In my talk I will share examples of our research and public engagement - from a podcast to an art-science exhibition. I will also discuss how this hybrid project was informed by an STS lens on what microbiome research means and does, and reflect on how we applied STS principles of mirroring the complexity of the world in research to our curatorial practice in the museum. Biography Louise Whiteley is an associate professor and curator at Medical Museion and CBMR, at the University of Copenhagen. Louise researches how biomedicine moves and shapes everyday ideas about what is to be human, through popular culture and public engagement. Within this frame, they have looked at neuroimaging, microbiome research, metabolic science, and most recently translational stem cell research. Louise also curates exhibitions, art-science collaborations, and public engagement events, in dialogue with research, and is passionate about the importance of communicating values within interdisciplinary collaboration. Organiser Department of Science and Technology Studies Location STS Seminar Room, NIG, St. II. 6th floor, Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna & online via zoom<https://univienna.zoom.us/j/63251489007?pwd=FBTgiIoQbHPTvmHhnjFwObba9mAGqZ.6> [cid:image004.png@01DB3684.F2CBD830] Best wishes, Katrin Hackl __________ Mag. Katrin Hackl Research Support & Communication Department of Science and Technology Studies University of Vienna Universitätsstraße 7 /II/ 6th floor (NIG) 1010 Vienna / Austria Tel.: 0043-1-4277-496007 [cid:image002.jpg@01DB3684.5BAE8AB0]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/>

8 months, 3 weeks

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Date for Studi Meet-Up secured!

by Vinzenz Fischer

Dear all, by now I'm so confused if we communicate in English or German. We have a date! Our Meet-Up will be on Tuesday, the 26.11.2024 at 19:00 h. There is no fixed location yet. I propose the Spielebar as a possible location. If you have any other suggestions please let me know. Remember (students) to join the student signal group: https://signal.group/#CjQKII9CIPWOjPBrfU1RkePZsdPqez-misg9E3-DGxZJbVPSEhDEu… See you then! Vinzenz

8 months, 3 weeks

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POSTPONEMENT Vienna STS Talks - FutureSpace Talk by Eleanor S Armstrong & Réka P Gál

by Katrin Hackl

We are happy to invite you to our 6th talk of the Vienna STS Talk Series in 2024W [cid:image001.jpg@01DB311F.4E1BE600] FutureSpace Talk by Eleanor Armstrong & Réka Gál Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leicester & STS, TU Munich December 11, 2024 04:00 PM-05:00 PM The Playboy Bunny and the Astronaut Wife: Constructing Femininities and the United States Space Program. You can register for the talk here<https://futurespace-project.eu/futurespace-talk-registration/> Abstract Inspired by Ahmed (2010), we follow the figures of the 'playboy bunny' and the 'astronaut wife' through the cultural legacies of (north american) space flight. Following from our work on what feminist interventions can offer to social studies of outer space (2023), in this talk we work through how femininities of the Other of the hegemonic masculinities of outer space are constructed. Our work asks how these figures reverberate in popular cultures to shape present and futures conceptions of femininity in outer space, and offer pathways that intervene in normative gendered futurities. In following these figures, we think about what illuminating them might do also for directing pathways of feminist scholarship on outer space in the future. We consider the Playboy Bunny: a construct of the pornotopic 1950s, and the discursive counterpoint to the womanizing young man. Appearing off-handedly in archival interviews about life at Johnson Space Center during the early space programmes of the 1950s and 60s, making her way secretly into lunar checklists worn by astronauts on the Moon, and continuing to draw media attention into the 2000s, we draw on Preciado's biopolitical theorising (2019) to think through the sexual relations and gender politics of the space programme. Contrastingly on the mother-whore axis, stands the media construct of the "astronaut wife." Using perspectives from Feminist Communication Studies, we explore how the assigned duties of the astronaut wife upheld the figure of the hypermasculine astronaut. We argue that the caretaking duties assigned to the figure of the "astronaut wife" extended beyond the confines of her homeboundness and homemaking into outer space: she was rendered part of the communication technologies available to take care of the hypermasculine astronaut's mental health. We conclude by considering how these examples help us pluralise and (re)make future femininities in relation to outer space. Biography Eleanor S Armstrong is a Space Research Fellow at the University of Leicester, UK, where she leads the Constellations Lab (on Outer Space & Feminism). She was awarded her PhD at University College London, UK, in 2020; and since then has held positions at the University of Delaware and Stockholm University, and visiting positions at, among others, the University of Cambridge, Ingenium Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation, New York University, and University of Vienna. Réka P Gál is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Technische Universität München. She completed her doctorate at University of Toronto's Faculty of Information. She is the co-editor of Earth and Beyond in Tumultuous Times: A Critical Atlas of the Anthropocene, published by meson press. Organiser Nina Klimburg-Witjes, Assist. Prof. STS Dep Vienna / PI "FutureSpace" & Joseph Popper (Postdoc Researcher, STS Dep Vienna / FutureSpace) FutureSpace (ERC Starting Grant Project), Department of Science and Technology Studies Location online via zoom<https://univienna.zoom.us/j/63251489007?pwd=FBTgiIoQbHPTvmHhnjFwObba9mAGqZ.7> [cid:image006.png@01DB3120.3735F880] Best wishes, Katrin Hackl __________ Mag. Katrin Hackl Research Support & Communication Department of Science and Technology Studies University of Vienna Universitätsstraße 7 /II/ 6th floor (NIG) 1010 Vienna / Austria Tel.: 0043-1-4277-496007 [cid:image002.jpg@01DB311F.4E1BE600]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/>

8 months, 4 weeks

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IVC Talk: Georg Schiemer "On two types of instrumental devices", November 14, 4.45pm

by Zarah Weiss

Dear all, our next speaker in the Philosophy of Science Colloquium organized by the Institute Vienna Circle is Georg Schiemer, who will give a talk on November 14, 4.45-6.15 pm. All are welcome! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Philosophy of Science Colloquium TALK: Georg Schiemer On two types of instrumental devices Philosophy of Science Colloquium The Institute Vienna Circle holds a Philosophy of Science Colloquium with talks by our present fellows. Date: 14/11/2024 Time: 16h45 Venue: New Institute Building (NIG), Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien, HS 2G Abstract: Instrumental devices are linguistic expressions that are formal or non-representational but nevertheless indispensable or at least instrumentally useful for certain theoretical purposes. We give a systematic study of such expressions and their roles in theorizing, thus offering a unified treatment of instrumental devices across different philosophical areas. Specifically, we present an explication of two general types of such devices, namely merely expressive devices and merely inferential devices and discuss their respective theoretical roles based on a number of philosophical examples. Joint work with Hannes Leitgeb (LMU Munich).

8 months, 4 weeks

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