Dear all,
our next speaker in the Philosophy of Science Colloquium organized by
the Institute Vienna Circle is Jose Alejandro Fernandez Cuesta
(Complutense University of Madrid), who will give a talk on November 13,
4.45-6.15 pm.
All are welcome!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Philosophy of Science Colloquium TALK: Jose Alejandro Fernandez Cuesta
(Complutense University of Madrid)*
Quantum Propositions and Logical Monism
Philosophy of Science Colloquium
The Institute Vienna Circle holds a Philosophy of Science Colloquium
with talks by our present fellows.
*Date:* 13/11/2025
*Time:*16h45
*Venue:*New Institute Building (NIG), Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien, HS 2i
*Abstract:*
In this talk, I will briefly present the formalism of standard quantum
logics (QLs) and examine /sui generis/ features that seem to set them
apart from other non‑classical logics. I will focus on their being
plausibly "discovered" and on their apparent lack of interpretative
utility in the philosophy of physics. On the usual presentation, QLs are
introduced via a set of experimental propositions ("physical
qualities"), informally specified in natural language as a response to
these peculiarities; this apparatus has been used to draw a tenuous link
between the semantics of QLs and the interpretation of certain
experimentally obtained yet conceptually problematic results in quantum
mechanics. I argue that this apparatus is philosophically relevant only
under a prior commitment to logical monism –indeed, logical monism holds
iff the experimental‑propositions apparatus is in place– and I offer
several critiques of both. Rejecting both the monist commitment and the
apparatus allows a reassessment of the sui generis properties of QLs and
their philosophical interpretation.
Show replies by date
Dear all,
our next speaker in the Philosophy of Science Colloquium organized by
the Institute Vienna Circle is James Glover (IVC Fellow), who will give
a talk on November 20, 4.45-6.15 pm.
All are welcome!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Philosophy of Science Colloquium TALK: James Glover (IVC Fellow)*
Ramsey's Theories (1929)
Philosophy of Science Colloquium
The Institute Vienna Circle holds a Philosophy of Science Colloquium
with talks by our present fellows.
*Date:* 20/11/2025
*Time:*16h45
*Venue:*New Institute Building (NIG), Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien, HS 2i
*Abstract:*
My talk concerns Frank Ramsey’s theory of theories. The literature on
his paper ‘Theories’ (1929) has tended to argue that the
primary-secondary systems model of theories that it presents is (i) such
that ‘the primary’ refers to what is given in experience while the
‘secondary’ refers to theoretical concepts that are not so given, and
(ii) anti-reductionist about those theoretical concepts. I show instead
that the primary-secondary systems model is (i) defined along
explanatory lines (though it may derivatively apply to the distinction
between what is given and what is not) and (ii) reductionist about
theoretical concepts. Along the way, I trace some seldom-noted
influences on the paper from Wittgenstein, Hilbert, Weyl, and Carnap. I
then connect Ramsey’s theory of theories to his late epistemological and
meta-philosophical views, and argue that they exhibit an interesting
degree of agreement with those set out in Carnap’s /Aufbau/. I conclude
that Ramsey’s late views spanning the philosophy of science,
epistemology and meta-philosophy were more continuous with the
scientific philosophy of the Vienna Circle than has been appreciated.
Dear all,
our next speaker in the Philosophy of Science Colloquium organized by
the Institute Vienna Circle is Mauricio Suárez (Complutense University
of Madrid), who will give a talk on December 4, 4.45-6.15 pm.
All are welcome!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Philosophy of Science Colloquium TALK: Mauricio Suárez (Complutense
University of Madrid)*
Inference and Representation Reconsidered
Philosophy of Science Colloquium
The Institute Vienna Circle holds a Philosophy of Science Colloquium
with talks by our present fellows.
*Date:* 04/12/2025
*Time:*16h45
*Venue:*New Institute Building (NIG), Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien, HS 2i
*Abstract:*
/Inference and Representation/ (Chicago, 2024) was written over a long
period of time, starting in 2001 and culminating during the pandemic.
The draft manuscript was delivered to the University of Chicago Press in
November 2021 and the final version of the book was consigned to the
publishers in July 2022 from my desk at the Institute Vienna Circle
(IVC), where I was staying that summer as a visiting fellow. After
providing a precis of the main themes of the book, I focus briefly on a
few respects in which my views have developed in the interim three years.