Dear all,
we warmly invite you to the next APSE (Applied Philosophy of Science and
Epistemology) Talk and Reading Circle. The talk will be held by Veli
Mitova (University of Johannesburg).
Talk:
When: Thursday, 22.05.2025, 15:00 - 17:00
Where: HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien)
Hermeneutical Reparations and the Right to be Known
According to an increasingly influential view in social epistemology, we
owe victims of gross human rights violations not only economic and
social reparations, but also reparations for the distinctively epistemic
wrongs that attend such violations (Lackey 2022). One type of epistemic
reparation is honouring victims' 'right to be known' (_ibid._)--their
right to have their true story known. This talk has two aims. First, I
argue that the right to be known cannot be successfully exercised in
hermeneutically unjust environments, i.e., environments in which the
explanatory and epistemic resources of the oppressed do not feature in
the mainstream knowledge economy (Dotson 2012, Fricker 2007). Thus, the
successful exercise of the right to be known requires what I call
hermeneutical reparations. The second aim of the talk is to sketch three
distinct kinds of hermeneutical reparations. If the arguments work, we
will have put into dialogue two bodies of scholarship that have,
curiously, not yet talked to each other. The dialogue will not only be
of mutual theoretical benefit to both, but will also up our chances of
attaining epistemic justice.
Speaker Bio
Veli Mitova is Professor in Philosophy and Director of the African
Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science [1] at the University
of Johannesburg. She works at the intersection of epistemology, ethics,
and social epistemology. She is the author of _Believable Evidence_
[2](CUP 2017), and the editor of _Epistemic Reparations and the Right to
Be Known_ [3] (forthcoming SI of _Philosophical Studies_), _Epistemic
Decolonisation_ [4](2020) and of _The Factive Turn in Epistemology_ [5]
(CUP 2018). Before joining the University of Johannesburg in 2015, Veli
taught and researched at Universität Wien, Universidad Nacional Autonoma
de México, Rhodes University (her alma mater), and Cambridge (where she
obtained her PhD).
Reading Circle:
When: Thursday, 22.05.2025, 13:00 - 15:00
Where: HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien)
We will focus our discussion on a forthcoming article by Veli Mitova
(attached pdf):
Mitova, V. (2025). Decolonial Epistemic-Authority Reparations.
_Episteme_. DOI: 10.1017/epi.2025.2
As introduction to Epistemic Reparations, Veli Mitova suggests the
following article:
Lackey J. (2022). 'Epistemic Reparations and the Right to Be Known.'
_Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association_
96, 54-89.
As introduction to Hermeneutical Injustice:
Fricker, M. (2007). Chapter 7: Hermeneutical Injustice. _Epistemic
injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing_. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Introducing the concept of Contributory Injustice:
Dotson, K. (2012). A cautionary tale: on limiting epistemic oppression.
_Frontiers - A Journal of Women's Studies_ (1): 24-47.
And the latest reading, distinguishing 3 kinds of Hermeneutical
Injustice:
Catala, A. (2025). Chapter 3: Deliberative Impasses, White Ignoring, and
Hermeneutical Domination. _The Dynamics of Epistemic Injustice:
Situating Epistemic Power and Agency. _New York: Oxford University
Press.
All the Best,
Ella Berger and Vinzenz Fischer
Links:
------
[1]
https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/departments-2/philosophy/philosop…
[2] http://www.cambridge.org/9781107188600
[3] https://link.springer.com/collections/jhbeccifed
[4] https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rppa20/49/2?nav=tocList
[5]
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/factive-turn-in-epistemology/A12342A58…
Links:
------
[1]
https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/departments-2/philosophy/philosop…
[2] http://www.cambridge.org/9781107188600
[3] https://link.springer.com/collections/jhbeccifed
[4] https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rppa20/49/2?nav=tocList
[5]
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/factive-turn-in-epistemology/A12342A58…
We are happy to invite you to our 8th talk of the Vienna STS Talk Series in 2025S:
[cid:image001.png@01DBB509.6DDB66F0]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/news-events/details/news/futurespace-talk-by-victo…>
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@01DBB509.6DDB66F0]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/>
Dear EST students and supervisors,
Our group cordially invites you to this mini workshop. Laura and Nick are both postdocs doing interesting work. Laura is a sociologist, and Nick is a philosopher, but both of them did their PhD work in interdisciplinary research groups and environments.
Best,
Tarja
Mini workshop on AI and computing — 20.05.2025
Lecture Room 3D (Room D0316, 3rd floor) Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna
Organized by: Univ.-Prof. Tarja Knuuttila
17:00 -18:00
Dr. Laura Savolainen (University of Helsinki)
Emperor’s New Crowds: “Untrustworthy” Workers and “Ground Truth”
Ground-truth datasets are supposed to nail down facts about the “world” represented by data, so that machine-learning models trained on them will behave reliably in that same world. Yet when annotation is outsourced to platform workers whom engineers do not know, and often mistrust, how is such reliability achieved or even imagined? Based on 27 interviews with machine learning researchers and practitioners, this paper investigates how ground-truth datasets are stabilised when 1) annotators are positioned as unreliable non-experts, 2) recognised domain experts are prohibitively expensive, and 3) the platform architecture itself suppresses deliberation, feedback, and learning. Given these constraints, I illustrate ground-truthing as a canny, iterative practice shaped by task design choices, aggregation methods, disciplinary conventions, and the affective politics of trusting data supplied by unknown workers. Rather than reflecting the world, the resulting datasets operationalize narrowly bounded problem formulations that satisfy performance goals ‘well enough’ for downstream modelling. By analysing the epistemic hierarchies, organizational constraints and judgment calls embedded in these pipelines, the discussion offers a concrete case for re-evaluating realist assumptions about data, evidence, and representation in contemporary AI research. Moreover, the analysis opens normative space for re-imagining data pipelines around more transparent authority structures and richer human feedback for a more reliable process and outputs.
18:15-19:15
Dr. Nick Wiggershaus (University of Lille)
Computational Artifacts and the Problem of Creation
As computer science integrates principles from logic, engineering, and physics, the ontological status of its core entities, such as computer programs, remains contested. Programs are often characterized as hybrids that have a “dual nature.” In attempts to untangle such hybrids, philosophers of computing have applied the concept of ‘technical artifact’ (combining teleological function and physical structure) to computing. While productive, it overlooks a notorious problem from the philosophy of art: the Problem of Creation, which asks how abstract objects like musical works or novels can be brought into existence through concrete human activity. I argue that, like repeatable artworks, computational artifacts have different representational modes (e.g., symbolic, mathematical, diagrammatic) and implementational media (e.g., ink on paper, chalk on a whiteboard, electrical signals, punched cards, etc.). Just as a novel or a musical work is not identical to any one performance or copy, a computer program persists across implementations. This this invites a philosophical conundrum: How can programmers create abstract objects that are not located in space or time? By appropriating solutions to the Problem of Creation, we gain new alternative ways to characterize the ontological status of programs and other computing objects. I conclude by exploring whether we can understand computational artifacts as abstract technical artifacts.
Dear all,
this might not have direct connection to our field at first sight, but I
would argue that definitions of sex have close entanglements with
science, and more specifically medicine. This is why I would like to
forward Flora Löffelmann's invitation also through this list!
Best,
Vinzenz
-------- Originalnachricht --------
BETREFF:
[News] Trans*Formations: Upcoming Workshop and Talk with Prof. Emma
Heaney (NYU)
DATUM:
12.05.2025 17:18
VON:
Flora Löffelmann <flora.loeffelmann(a)univie.ac.at>
AN:
news(a)lists.philo.at
Dear all,
I am excited to invite you to the next installments of the
Trans*Formations series at the Department of Philosophy!
This series of talks and workshops, supported by the Vienna Doctoral
School of Philosophy, provides insights into recent developments in
trans theorizing.
This time, we will be joined by Prof. Emma Heaney, who is a Clinical
Assistant Professor and Faculty Advisor for Experimental Writing at New
York University (US). She will give both a workshop (25 participants,
booking required) and a public talk that everyone is welcome to!
Please find all the info below and in the flyers attached to this mail,
and disseminate to all who might be interested!
Trans*Formations Workshop: On the Cisness of the Bourgeoisie: A Workshop
with Professor Emma Heaney
25.6.2025, 18:00 - 19:30, HS 3A (NIG, 3rd Floor)
This workshop will consider recently published and forthcoming work by
American scholar of Trans Studies and Comparative Literature: Emma
Heaney. Participants will read the introduction to Heaney's recently
published edited collection,_ Feminism Against Cisness_ [1], an
interview [2] with feminist theorist Sophie Lewis (_Full Surrogacy Now_,
_Abolish the Family_, _Enemy Feminisms_), and a forthcoming interview
that addresses questions of historical and linguistic translation in
decentering Anglophone texts (and histories of Western Europe and the
United States) in queer and trans theory. The historical focus on this
workshop is tracing the itinerary of transness and cisness in
medicalization of sex and sexuality from the mid-19th century to the
mid-20th century. Theoretical questions focus on the definition of sex,
the status of the feminine in regard to sex distinctions in the
foliations of the twentieth century, and the imposition of cisness as an
ideology that obfuscates the understanding of sex on both the
experiential and the political level.
To join the workshop, please sign up via e-mail to
flora.loeffelmann(a)univie.ac.at. You will then be sent the workshop
material! Participants are expected to read the material before the
workshop so a productive discussion can be ensured.
Thanks to the support of queer@hochschulen [3], there is a also a
limited number of travel stipends available for university students from
other Austrian universities. Please indicate in your sign-up mail if you
would like to apply for one!
The workshop will be in English with ÖGS translation.
Trans*Formations Talk: Provincializing Cisness
26.6.2025, 19:30 - 21:00, HS 3A (NIG, 3rd Floor)
Most examinations of sex and gender in the academy take bourgeois
national histories of North America and Western Europe as their frame of
reference. In the histories of Germany, the UK, France, and the United
States, doctors and state bureaucracies incorporated sexual and gendered
social practices into a taxonomy of identities (or even species, as
Foucault puts it,) beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. However, in
many sex-gender systems, including those of the proletarian
neighborhoods of these nations' metropoles, the assumptions that formed
expert orderings did not apply. This lecture surveys the non-cis
vernacular categories that ordered these sex-gender systems. The
relation between race/class and cisness means that there is no absolute
geography to this story. Drawing on source material from Indigenous
Americas to the South Asian subcontinent and from the working-class
neighborhoods of Kansas City to the courts of Nigerian nobility, the
talk will be attuned to a range of sex-gender systems that do not accord
with the categories produced by the Euro- American bourgeois in order
to, as the title suggests, reveal the provincial status of cisness.
The talk will be in English with ÖGS translation.
I want to thank the VDP [4], the Culture & Equality Unit [5] of the
University of Vienna, queer@hochschulen [3], and ACCESTECH / TU Wien [6]
for their financial support.
Bio: Emma Heaney is a scholar and teacher of feminist theory,
comparative literature, and trans studies. Her first book, _The New
Woman: Literary Modernism, Queer Theory, and the Trans Feminine Allegory
_(Northwestern 2017) is a study of the prominence of the medicalized
figure of trans femininity in works of twentieth-century literature and
philosophy. Her edited collection _Feminism Against Cisness _(Duke 2024)
gathers essays that demonstrate the nature and potential of feminist
thought unobscured by the counterrevolutionary mystification of assigned
sex. _This Watery Place: Four Essays on Gestation --- _a political and
phenomenological report from the gestational sensorium against cisness,
capital, and genocide --- is forthcoming from Pluto Press in November
2025. Her current book project is a sequel edited collection that draws
on the work of scholars from many disciplines and areas of geographical
and historical focus to reveal the provincial nature of the ideology of
cisness. Forthcoming essays theorize the emergence of the trans-gay
distinction in the twentieth century via literary representations. She
is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the XE program at New York
University, where she serves as faculty advisor for the Advanced
Certificate in Experimental Writing.
With all the best wishes and hoping to see many of you at the events,
Flora Löffelmann, MA MA
Pronouns: they/them (for more info see:
https://www.mypronouns.org/what-and-why/)
Happy about a gender neutral "hello"!
Department of Philosophy at University of Vienna
_______________________________________________
News mailing list -- news(a)lists.philo.at
To unsubscribe send an email to news-leave(a)lists.philo.at
Links:
------
[1] https://www.dukeupress.edu/feminism-against-cisness
[2] https://pinko.online/web/on-the-cisness-of-the-bourgeoisie
[3] https://queer-at-hochschulen.org/
[4] https://vd-philosophy.univie.ac.at/
[5] https://personalwesen.univie.ac.at/en/culture-equality/
[6] https://www.experiencing-access.eu/de/news/
We are happy to invite you to our 7th talk of the Vienna STS Talk Series in 2025S:
[cid:image001.png@01DBB437.C3AB0E50]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/news-events/details/news/sts-talk-by-malcolm-ashmo…>
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@01DBB437.C3AB0E50]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/>
Invitation
International Symposium
<https://www.umcs.pl/en/the-state-of-research-on-logical-empiricism.htm>
The State of Research on Logical Empiricism
May 16-17, 2025, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University
Zoom Access below
May 16-17, 2025
Institute of Philosophy, UMCS, Lublin (Poland)
Last year marked the centenary of the founding of the Vienna Circle, which
went on to become one of the key centers of logical empiricism. Over time,
the movement has been perceived in widely differing ways, the most
influential being the critique that emerged in the 1950s, leading prominent
figures in the philosophy of science to declare the death of logical
empiricism. However, the past 35 years have witnessed a distinct shift,
exemplified by the title of a book that appeared at the very beginning this
period: Rediscovering the Forgotten Vienna Circle. While this work focused
primarily on Neurath, it was followed by numerous studies on other figures
associated with logical empiricism. In this time, including recent years,
our understanding of the movement and the literature surrounding it have
been significantly enriched.
This conference seeks, on the one hand, to highlight the impact of this
process, focusing primarily on the key areas of scientific activity pursued
by members of the Vienna Circle and the Berlin School-logic, philosophy of
language, linguistics, the philosophy of mathematics, methodology, and the
philosophy, history, and sociology of science. On the other hand, it aims to
explore how the understanding and reception of the scientific conception of
the world-particularly the social dimension of the neopositivist
programme-have evolved over time.
Find more information here:
https://www.umcs.pl/en/the-state-of-research-on-logical-empiricism.htm
Zoom Access:
The State of Research on Logical Empiricism, day 1
Date: May 16, 09:00
Zoom:
<https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81944546317?pwd=J5h1y3ii358dLiD44N4yKinqrbviaN.1>
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81944546317?pwd=J5h1y3ii358dLiD44N4yKinqrbviaN.1
Meeting ID: 819 4454 6317
Passcode: 474416
The State of Research on Logical Empiricism, day 2
Datge: 17 maj 2025 09:00
Zoom:
<https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86558979345?pwd=3j1dOpfT3tPgn5rVvjwRleYWXMy5rN.1>
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86558979345?pwd=3j1dOpfT3tPgn5rVvjwRleYWXMy5rN.1
Meeting ID: 865 5897 9345
Passcode: 766979
We are happy to invite you to our 6th talk of the Vienna STS Talk Series in 2025S:
[cid:image001.png@01DBB436.BE2E7170]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/news-events/details/news/sts-talk-by-kean-birch/?n…>
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@01DBB436.BE2E7170]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/>
Dear all,
our next speaker in the Philosophy of Science Colloquium organized by
the Institute Vienna Circle is William Agay-Beaujon
(IVC Fellow), who will give a talk on May 8, 4.45-6.15 pm.
All are welcome!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Philosophy of Science Colloquium TALK: William Agay-Beaujon (IVC Fellow)
TRACING THE POLYSEMY OF “ENLIGHTENMENT” WITHIN THE VIENNESE LATE
ENLIGHTENMENT, AROUND THE VIENNA CIRCLE
Philosophy of Science Colloquium
The Institute Vienna Circle holds a Philosophy of Science Colloquium
with talks by our present fellows.
Date: 08/05/2025
Time: 16h45
Venue: New Institute Building (NIG), Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien, HS
3A
Abstract:
Enlightenment features can be found in most groups associated with Late
Enlightenment currents in the Viennese interwar period. Beyond each
group's particularities, a few key meanings can be identified:
"popularization" through knowledge, a singular structure of ideas behind
a visual metaphor, a self-positioning tool, and a critical-emancipatory
embodied scientific attitude.
This talk will attempt to sketch these intertwined meanings, and then
seek to understand their links with historical Enlightenment figures
such as Voltaire and Rousseau. To do so, I will focus on the journals of
the monists and freethinkers, writings of Josef Popper-Lynkeus, and the
book series "Der Aufstieg" from Anzengruber-Verlag (Suschitzky
brothers).
Dear EST Community,
Next week the Department of Science and Technology Studies is visited by
Philosophy of STS students from the University of Twente. We as the STS
student council organized two events to meet them and would warmly
invite you as well.
At the Department Wednesday the 7th of May at 16:15
At first, we will meet at the STS Department (seminar room) on Wednesday
the 7th at 16:15, to chat and see what's up in our STS corner.
Seminarraum STS, NIG Universitätsstraße 7/Stg. II/6. Stock, 1010 Wien
At Cafe Weidinger Wednesday the 7th of May 20:00
Afterwards we've invited them to then join us for a more casual hangout
at Café Weidinger at 20:00. There will be bowling (bring 1EUR coins!),
billiards, an inner courtyard, and good vibes provided you're there ;))
(PS: at Café Weidinger you can only pay in cash).
So if you're curious about a different approach to studying STS or just
wanna complain about boundary work to new people, please come!
Best wishes
STS Student Council
Call for Abstracts: Workshop II: Adverse Allies: Logical Empiricism and Austrian Economics
23.9.-25.9.2025, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
The FWF ESPRIT research project “Adverse Allies: Logical Empiricism and Austrian Economics”, the Institute of Philosophy and Scientific Method (JKU Linz), the Institute Vienna Circle (University of Vienna), and the Vienna Circle Society host two workshops in 2025. The organisers seek submissions for contributed talks for the second workshop. You can find more information about the workshops here <https://www.jku.at/en/institute-of-philosophy-and-scientific-method/adverse…> .
Deadline for Submissions of Abstracts for Workshop II: 08.06.2025
Notification of Acceptance: 08.07.2025 at the latest
Workshop II in Linz: 23.09.-25.09.2025
Logical empiricism and Austrian economics are arguably the two internationally most influential intellectual movements with Viennese roots. The Vienna Circle and the Austrian School have shaped the development of philosophical, scientific, and political debate in the 20th century. In the 21st century, logical empiricism has undergone extensive re-evaluation, while the Austrian School experiences another revival.
Yet, despite numerous connections and interactions between the two movements, their relationship has captured surprisingly sparse attention in the historical and philosophical literature. If an account is provided at all, logical empiricists and Austrian economists are portrayed as philosophically, scientifically, and politically antithetical groups. Among the most frequently mentioned contrastive pairs of catchwords are empiricism vs apriorism, formal methods vs verbal reasoning, and socialism vs classical liberalism.
Acknowledging the existence of disagreements between logical empiricism and the Austrian School, recent scholarship has challenged the received view of antithetical opposition by reconstructing hitherto neglected compatibilities and similarities between the two movements.
This workshop aims to advance historical as well as systematic discussions on the relationship between logical empiricism and Austrian economics. Contributions that fruitfully inform contemporary debates in philosophy, methodology, politics, or the sciences are particularly welcome.
Topics for workshop II include but are not limited to:
· Karl Menger and Felix Kaufmann as mediators between LE and AE
· common influences: Frege, Husserl, Kant, Mach, Wittgenstein
· non-cognitivism, the fact/value distinction, and the ideal of value-neutrality
· the principle of tolerance and polylogism
· logical tolerance, methodological tolerance, political liberalism
· logicism and the logic of action
· naturalism vs antinaturalism, unity vs disunity of science, scientific pluralism and pseudorationality
· essentialism and its discontents (Menger, Wieser, Neurath, Popper, Rothbard,…)
· defenses of democracy in Viennese Late Enlightenment
· expertise, education, and democracy
Abstracts should be 300-400 words (including references, if needed) and submitted here <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe4Oa0v65SfMmKUhTmr88xVx847CuxPpta…> .
Scientific Committee: Alexander Linsbichler (chair), Julian Reiss, Georg Schiemer, Friedrich Stadler
Local Organising Committee: Alexander Linsbichler, Michalis Christou, Robert Frühstückl, Jakob Gschwandtner, Jonatan Magnusson, Pauline Paulik, William Peden, Julian Reiss, Evelin Stockinger
Queries: Alexander Linsbichler (alexander.linsbichler(a)jku.at <mailto:alexander.linsbichler@jku.at> )
Both workshops are supported by the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology (DLMPST) of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.
Alexander Linsbichler
Institute of Philosophy and Scientific Method (Johannes Kepler University Linz)
<mailto:alexander.linsbichler@jku.at> alexander.linsbichler(a)jku.at
<https://ufind.univie.ac.at/de/person.html?id=47545> Department of Philosophy ( <https://ufind.univie.ac.at/de/person.html?id=47545> University of Vienna)
alexander.linsbichler(a)univie.ac.at <mailto:alexander.linsbichler@univie.ac.at>
neu erschienen: Viel mehr <https://www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com/detail/index/sArticle/57805/sC…> als nur <https://www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com/detail/index/sArticle/57805/sC…> Ökonomie <https://www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com/detail/index/sArticle/57805/sC…> (Böhlau, 2022)
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