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).