[PhilPhys] The Center for Philosophy of Science's Annual Lecture Series Schedule- Spring 2025

[Center for Phil Sci]

The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh
invites you to join us for our 65th Annual Lecture Series Talks. All
lectures will be held in room 1008 in the Cathedral of Learning (10th
Floor) at 3:30pm EDT.  If you can't join us in person  please visit our
live stream on YouTube at
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.
The Annual Lecture Series, the Center’s oldest program, was established in
1960, the year when Adolf Grünbaum founded the Center. Each year the series
consists of six lectures, about three quarters of which are given by
philosophers, historians, and scientists from other universities.

*Maureen Lichtveld*
University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health

Friday, January 31  @ 3:30 pm - 6:00 pm EDT

*Title: Risk Benefit Analyses in Public Health: Whose risk? Whose benefit?*
*Abstract:  *Risk benefit analyses (RBA) are conducted to inform policy
decisions and public health advice. Approaches to conduct an RBA include a
multistep process, such as how to assess quality and uncertainty, evaluate
confidence in the potential conclusions of an RBA, identify relevant
factors that are additive to the findings of an RBA, and discuss any
implications or applications that may inform policy decision making. Given
the complexities of an RBA, it can be difficult to know when or when not to
conduct and RBA relative to risk-benefit factors.
This presentation will highlight a stepwise framework assessing four key
areas when evaluating when or when not to conduct a formal risk-benefit
analysis including 1) summarizing the existing evidence via a systematic
review of existing literature, 2) reviewing the validated approaches,
metrics, and frameworks within the literature,3) reviewing sufficiency of
contextual factors (i.e. geography, access, and community capital) to
contribute to the confidence of a RBA and 4) assessing the quality and
confidence of the overall RBA evaluation to inform policy decisions.  This
RBA feasibility assessment framework can serve as a decision-making tool to
characterize individual and community risks and benefits. The presentation
will also highlight ethical and equity factors informing the final decision
making.


*Alyssa Ney*

UC Davis

Friday, February 21  @ 3:30 pm - 6:00 pm EDT

Title: Local Branching in Everettian Quantum Mechanics.
Abstract:  In contemporary philosophy, the fundamentality of physics and
physicalism are typically understood as ontological completeness claims of
some sort. For example, physics is taken to provide a complete
supervenience or realization basis, or a complete set of grounds for all
facts or entities. However, since no formulated physical theory provides a
complete ontological basis for all facts or entities, one must seek an
alternative interpretation if one wants a realistic understanding of the
sense in which our current physical theories are fundamental. The aim of
this paper is to develop such an interpretation, one that bases the
fundamentality of our current physical theories in a claim about their
ontological depth and comprehensiveness. It is argued that this
interpretation of the metaphysical fundamentality of physics is more in
line with the way that physicists regard certain theories as fundamental
than standard philosophical conceptions.


*Samir Okasha*

University of Bristol, U.K.


Friday, March 21  @ 3:30 pm - 6:00 pm EDT

Title: *The “Philosophy of Fitness” revisited*
Abstract:  The "philosophy of fitness'' was a disparaging name given to the
philosophy of biology in the 1970s by critics who felt that practitioners
of this emerging sub-discipline spent too much time analyzing the concept
of fitness, to the exclusion of other topics. Despite the critics, the
philosophical discussion of fitness has burgeoned since then. Oddly,
though, this discussion makes little contact with the technical literature
on fitness in evolutionary theory itself, where there are ongoing
disagreements over what the "right" definition of fitness and / or the
"right" mathematical measure of fitness is, in different contexts, and why.
The existence of parallel literatures on a single topic is not uncommon in
philosophy of science but is rarely ideal. Better integration is needed.
This talk is part of a broader project that re-visits the concept of
fitness, tries to make sense of the controversies surrounding it, and to
integrate the philosophical and biological discussions. The basic idea is
to regard "fitness" as a theoretical term in science, and then to use the
Ramsey-Carnap-Lewis technique to define it via its theoretical role.
However, the situation is complicated by the fact that there is arguably
more than one "fitness role". Moreover, in any particular evolutionary
model, a given quantity, definable from the model parameters, may realize
one of these fitness roles but not others. Taken together, this explains
why the fitness concept has caused so much confusion, why the term
"fitness" is polysemic in evolutionary biology, and why theorists can
disagree about the "right" fitness measure despite the underlying science
not being in dispute.

*A reception with light refreshments will follow each Talk in The Center on
the 11th floor from 5-6pm*
All lectures will be live streamed on YouTube at
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.
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