<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4">The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh 
invites you to join us for our upcoming Lunch Time Talks and Annual Lecture Series presentation.  All lectures will be live streamed on YouTube at <a title="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg" id="m_-6277648019630375156m_5422915107825258630m_-3764833216693478172m_6607850884337007589m_-2341060921868922453m_192073903683202698m_-4366808584148716573m_3920387530433489363m_9206680493473021279m_6073136766091579437gmail-OWAa3f7876c-a0f4-4b6f-efde-62085c7a187c" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg. </a></font></div><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><br></font><div style="direction:ltr;line-height:1.8;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><br></font></div><div style="direction:ltr;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;line-height:1.38;margin:0px;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4">LTT– <span style="font-weight:700">Nina</span> <span style="font-weight:700">Atanasova</span></font></div><div style="direction:ltr;line-height:1.8;margin-left:0px;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4">Friday, September 12th @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EDT  </font></div><div style="direction:ltr;line-height:2.4;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4">Room 1117 on the 11th floor of the Cathedral of Learning</font></div><div style="direction:ltr;line-height:2.4;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4">This talk will be available online through Zoom:   <a id="m_-6277648019630375156m_5422915107825258630m_-3764833216693478172m_6607850884337007589m_-2341060921868922453m_192073903683202698m_-4366808584148716573m_3920387530433489363m_9206680493473021279m_6073136766091579437gmail-LPlnkOWAab1875d1-1722-fcee-8e73-7cca1385b6a5" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://pitt.zoom.us/j/91293273230" title="https://pitt.zoom.us/j/91293273230" target="_blank">https://pitt.zoom.us/j/91293273230</a></font></div><div style="direction:ltr;line-height:2.4;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><b style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:large">Title: The Surreality of Pain</b></div><div style="direction:ltr;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;line-height:2.4;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><span style="font-weight:bolder">Abstract:   </span></font></div><div style="direction:ltr;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4">Throughout
 the reductionist debates of the twentieth-century philosophy of mind 
and science, non-reductionists often referred to pain as irreducible 
mental state par excellence. Notwithstanding, reductionists have 
remained unmoved in their conviction that mental states are exhaustively
 physical in nature. Pain eliminativism, arguably the most radical form 
of reductionism, has recently seen a revival in popularity (Baetu 2020, 
Corns 2020, Coninx 2021, Hardcastle 2024, Gligorov 2025). According to 
pain eliminativism, the commonsense notion of pain as an irreducible 
subjective experience is deeply flawed. Thus, it is to be eliminated 
from our vocabulary and replaced with the terms of a mature science of 
pain.</font></div><div style="margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4">The claim of eliminativism can be interpreted descriptively as a <i>prediction</i> of what happens when the science of pain matures. However, it can also be interpreted normatively as a <i>prescription</i> of
 what should happen when the science of pain matures. Considering that 
the science of pain has matured significantly since the early days of 
pain eliminativism (Dennett 1978), the renewed interest in the topic is 
not surprising. However, the verdicts on pain eliminativism delivered by
 different philosophers are often contradictory and inconclusive. I 
attribute much of the disagreement to the equivocation between 
predictive and prescriptive interpretations of eliminativism.</font></div><div style="margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4">In this talk, I aim to show that pain eliminativism has been successful <i>predictively</i> in
 the case of neuroscience pain education (NPE). NPE is an approach to 
chronic pain management that allows patients to reconceptualize pain 
from a sign of tissue damage to a functional/dysfunctional state of the 
nervous system. I argue that the success of this method suggests that 
pain eliminativism can be justified <i>prescriptively</i> in other contexts beyond the scope of science.</font></div><div style="direction:ltr;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div id="m_-6277648019630375156m_5422915107825258630m_-3764833216693478172m_6607850884337007589m_-2341060921868922453m_192073903683202698m_-4366808584148716573m_3920387530433489363m_9206680493473021279m_6073136766091579437gmail-x_x_x_x_Signature"><div style="direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(12,100,192)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><br></font></div><div style="direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><div style="color:rgb(12,100,192)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">Featured Former Fellow<b> – Wayne Myrvold</b></span></font></div><div style="color:rgb(12,100,192)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">Tuesday, September 16th - </span><i style="color:rgb(0,0,0);letter-spacing:0.5px"><b>Canceled</b></i></font></div><div style="color:rgb(12,100,192);letter-spacing:0.5px"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><br></font></div><div style="color:rgb(12,100,192);letter-spacing:0.5px"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><br></font></div></div><div style="direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(12,100,192)"><div style="direction:ltr;line-height:1.8;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4">LTT – <b>Aydin Mohseni</b></font></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4">Friday, September 19th @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EDT  </font></div><div style="direction:ltr;line-height:1.8;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4">Room 1117 on the 11th floor of the Cathedral of Learning</font></div><div style="direction:ltr;line-height:1.8;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4">This talk will be available online through Zoom:  <span style="color:rgb(12,100,192)"><a href="https://pitt.zoom.us/j/98127984221" target="_blank">https://pitt.zoom.us/j/98127984221</a></span></font></div><div style="direction:ltr;line-height:1.8;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><br></font></div><div style="direction:ltr;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;line-height:1.8;margin:0px 0px 0.75em;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><span style="font-weight:bolder">Title: </span><span style="font-weight:bolder"> </span><b>A Bayesian Reduction of Causation in Causal Models</b></font></div><div style="direction:ltr;text-align:left;text-indent:0px;line-height:1.8;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><b>Abstract:</b></font></div><font style="color:rgb(0,0,0)" face="arial, sans-serif" size="4">The ontological status and explanatory role of causation has been a 
perennial puzzle. In recent work, Pearl and Mackenzie (2018) advance the
 thesis of a causal hierarchy (PCH) and posit the irreducibility of 
causal claims to purely probabilistic ones. Bareinboim et al. (2022) 
claim to have proven this irreducibility in the context of structural 
causal models (SCMs). We challenge this claim and demonstrate a general 
reduction of interventional propositions to probabilistic ones within 
the same context of SCMs and proffer a de Finetti-style representation 
theorem for causal learning and reasoning.</font></div><div style="direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(12,100,192)"><font face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><span style="font-weight:bolder;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></span></font></div><div style="direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(12,100,192)"><br></div><div style="direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><div id="m_-6277648019630375156m_5422915107825258630gmail-post-9448" style="box-sizing:inherit;display:flex;overflow:hidden"><div style="box-sizing:inherit;width:785.035px"><h1 style="box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px;line-height:1.38;padding:0px"><font face="arial, sans-serif" color="#000000" size="4">Lunchtime Talk – William Goodwin</font></h1><h5 style="box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px 0px 0.75em;line-height:1.2"><span style="box-sizing:inherit"><span style="font-weight:400;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:large;letter-spacing:0.5px;box-sizing:inherit"><span style="letter-spacing:normal;box-sizing:inherit">Tuesday, September 23 @ 12:00 pm</span><span style="letter-spacing:normal"> - </span><span style="letter-spacing:normal;box-sizing:inherit">1:30 pm</span></span></span></h5><h5 style="box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px 0px 0.75em;line-height:1.2"><span style="box-sizing:inherit"><span style="font-weight:400;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:large;letter-spacing:0.5px;box-sizing:inherit"><span style="letter-spacing:normal">Room 1117 on the 11th floor of the Cathedral of Learning</span></span></span></h5><h5 style="box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px 0px 0.75em;line-height:1.2"><span style="box-sizing:inherit"><span style="font-weight:400;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:large;letter-spacing:0.5px;box-sizing:inherit">This talk will be available online:  </span><span style="font-weight:400;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:large;letter-spacing:0.5px">Zoom: </span><a href="https://pitt.zoom.us/j/93124340892" style="font-weight:400;background-color:transparent;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:large;letter-spacing:0.5px;box-sizing:inherit;border-bottom:1.11111px solid rgb(51,74,255);text-decoration-line:none" target="_blank">https://pitt.zoom.us/j/93124340892</a><font face="arial, sans-serif" color="#000000" size="4"></font></span></h5><h5 style="box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px 0px 0.75em;line-height:1.2"><span style="box-sizing:inherit"><font face="arial, sans-serif" color="#000000" size="4"><br></font></span></h5><h5 style="box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px 0px 0.75em;line-height:1.2"><span style="box-sizing:inherit"><font face="arial, sans-serif" color="#000000" size="4">Title: Kuhn’s Speciation Metaphor and the Birth of Biochemistry</font></span></h5><h5 style="box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px 0px 0.75em;line-height:1.2"><span style="box-sizing:inherit"><font face="arial, sans-serif" color="#000000" size="4">Abstract: </font></span></h5><p style="box-sizing:inherit;letter-spacing:0.5px;line-height:1.5;margin:0px 0px 16px"><font face="arial, sans-serif" color="#000000" size="4">Biochemistry is an intersectional field: it, “arose by division and recombination of specialties already matured.”  This means that standard Kuhnian models of discipline formation cannot be expected to apply in the case of biochemistry.  Kuhn’s later account of discipline formation is by analogy to acts of evolutionary speciation, with ‘incommensurability’ playing the role of an isolating mechanism.  Since ‘incommensurability’ seems to play no role in the formation of biochemistry, this paper attempts to generalize and extend Kuhn’s speciation analogy thus making a considerably more interesting and plausible general account of discipline formation and eliminating any essential appeal to ‘incommensurability’ in that account.</font></p></div></div><br></div><div style="direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br></div><div style="direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br></div><div style="direction:ltr;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><p style="margin:0in;line-height:150%;font-size:12pt"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:150%;color:black;letter-spacing:0.4pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Annual Lecture Series - Andrea Loettgers</span></b><b><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:150%;letter-spacing:0.4pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></b></font></p>

<p style="margin:0in;line-height:150%;font-size:12pt"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:150%;color:black;letter-spacing:0.4pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Friday, September 26^th at 3:30</span><b><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:150%;letter-spacing:0.4pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></b></font></p><p style="box-sizing:inherit;font-family:Lato,sans-serif;letter-spacing:0.5px;line-height:1.5;margin:0px 0px 16px"><font color="#000000" size="4"><span style="box-sizing:inherit;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">This talk will be available online:  </span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Zoom: </span><a href="https://pitt.zoom.us/j/93042700398" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;box-sizing:inherit;border-bottom:1.11111px solid rgb(51,74,255);text-decoration-line:none" target="_blank">https://pitt.zoom.us/j/93042700398</a></font></p>

<p style="margin:0in;line-height:150%;font-size:12pt"><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:150%;color:black;letter-spacing:0.4pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><b>Title: Model Templates and
Model-Based Unification</b></font></span><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;letter-spacing:0.4pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:14pt;line-height:150%;letter-spacing:0.4pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></p></div></div><h5 style="box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px 0px 0.75em;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,-apple-system,BlinkMacSystemFont,Roboto,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:1.2;font-size:1.0625em"><span style="box-sizing:inherit;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><font color="#000000"><br></font></span></h5><h5 style="box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px 0px 0.75em;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,-apple-system,BlinkMacSystemFont,Roboto,Arial,sans-serif;line-height:1.2;font-size:1.0625em"><span style="box-sizing:inherit;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><font color="#000000">Abstract: </font></span></h5><p style="box-sizing:inherit;font-family:Lato,sans-serif;font-size:18px;letter-spacing:0.5px;line-height:1.5;margin:0px 0px 16px"><font color="#000000">Contemporary science is increasingly shaped by models that travel far beyond their original disciplinary homes. The Hopfield model, born in statistical physics and reimagined as a neural network, now informs fields as diverse as machine learning, gene regulation, and sociology. Scale-free networks, originating in graph theory and statistical mechanics, capture the hub-like structure of the internet, social networks, cellular metabolism, and citation patterns. The Kuramoto model, developed to study coupled oscillators, now illuminates phenomena ranging from circadian rhythms to power-grid stability.</font></p><p style="box-sizing:inherit;font-family:Lato,sans-serif;font-size:18px;letter-spacing:0.5px;line-height:1.5;margin:0px 0px 16px"><font color="#000000">These cases exemplify what we call <em style="box-sizing:inherit">model-based unification</em>: the integration of diverse research domains not through universal laws, but through the dissemination and adaptation of shared model templates. Such models unify by functioning as conceptual and computational scaffolds that guide reasoning, reveal regularities, and enable cross-domain inference—while also accumulating differences in meaning and use across contexts.</font></p><p style="box-sizing:inherit;font-family:Lato,sans-serif;font-size:18px;letter-spacing:0.5px;line-height:1.5;margin:0px 0px 16px"><font color="#000000">Drawing on case studies from physics, biology, and the humanities, this talk examines the epistemic power and risks of this mode of unification. It considers whether network models and other transdisciplinary templates are uncovering deep structural commonalities or simply projecting a familiar mathematical form onto disparate systems. By tracing how models are transformed in new domains, I will argue for a practice-centered understanding of scientific unity—one that embraces diversity and friction as productive forces in building connections across disciplines.</font></p></div>
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