In our paper, we discuss a recent fMRI study from Professor Maria Concetta Morrone’s lab in Pisa, Italy (Pooresmaeili et al., 2013) which examined the role of the primary visual cortex (V1) in size perception. Consistent with previous fMRI studies that examined V1 activation during size perception in the context of optical illusion displays (Murray [...]
by Reuven Brandt Science is neither cheap nor easy. One tool used to incentivise investment of both money and effort into scientific research is patent law, which offers temporary monopolies as a reward for new marketable scientific developments. In theory, the profits to be made from patent protection drive innovation by rewarding individuals for turning [...]
By Jessey Wright The notion of public interest, while murky and hard to define, can be a useful tool for isolating the core issues at play in a policy debate. Appreciating what is meant by ‘the public interest’ requires identifying which ‘public’ is being served. The clearest approach is to identify what they mean by [...]
By Amy Wuest Grischa Metlay, in her 2006 paper "Reconsidering Renormalization: Stability and Change in 20th-Century Views on University Patents," traces conceptual shifts in the debates surrounding public policy from the 1940’s through the 1980’s. As the title implies, some things changed while others didn’t. She argues that the concept of “intellectual property” underwent [...]
By Dan Hicks [This is the first of a series of posts on science and the public interest, written by members of the Rotman Institute’s Science, Policy, and Philosophy Working Group.] In the wake of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, contemporary philosophers of science generally recognize that values play a role in [...]
We will be discussing issues concerning embodied and situated accounts of cognition. The plan is to begin with Larry Shapiro's recent book "Embodied Cognition" (2011), following which we will look at other key work in this general area. Shapiro's book offers a good starting point providing the most detailed and up to date overview of [...]
With 50,000 new cases occurring each year in Canada, serious brain injuries place an enormous burden on patients, families, and the healthcare system. Patient outcome after serious brain injury is highly variable. Following a period of coma (unconsciousness) lasting days or weeks, some patients make a good recovery, while others progress into a vegetative or [...]
Causal Powers in Science: Blending Historical and Conceptual Perspectives Each year the Rotman Summer Institute brings graduate students together with exceptional faculty from around the world to focus on a topic of special interest where philosophy and science meet and interact. This year’s Institute brings together philosophers of science and metaphysicians with historians of philosophy [...]
Postdoctoral Fellow Rachael Brown's "Three Kinds of Structuralism" has been accepted for presentation at the Philosophy of Biology at Madison Workshop (POBAM) https://sites.google.com/site/uwpobam/.
Join us this January 24th, for the first talk of the new year at a Rotman special event. Stathis Psillos will revisit this controversy, analyse the wider context in which it took place, examine the role of history of science in the defence of a realist approach to science and draw some significant lessons for the [...]
