Responsibilities to Others: 2020 Philosophy Lecture Series
Virtual (register for Zoom link)Our attempts to deal with the effects of COVID-19 have revived significant interest in a question of enduring philosophical interest: what do we owe to each other? This series of public lectures will examine our responsibilities (if any) to others. It will include discussions on the evolution of altruism, on the idea that both [...]
Meredith Schwartz: It Takes Two – Trusting the Public in Public Health Messaging and Policy
Virtual (register for Zoom link)ABSTRACT Much of the existing public health literature describes strategies by which health authorities can build and maintain trust from the public. Typically, this relationship is assumed to be one-directional and instrumental: the public should trust health authorities because this will increase public cooperation and compliance. However, trust is a two-way relationship, and I argue [...]
Christopher Preston: Potholes on the Road to a Synthetic Age
Virtual (register for Zoom link)Join our philosophy of synthetic biology reading group as they host Christopher Preston for a virtual talk on his 2018 book, The Synthetic Age: Outdesigning Evolution, Resurrecting Species, and Reengineering Our World.
Emerging Minds Colloquium Series
Virtual (register for Zoom link)Beginning January 2021, The Rotman Institute of Philosophy will be hosting the 'Emerging Minds' colloquium—a series of virtual talks delivered by members of the Institute and scholars from around the world. We invite you to take part by both presenting and attending, in order to network with others who are completing novel interdisciplinary work [...]
Karen Adolph: Infant Motor development
Virtual (register for Zoom link)The philosophy of cognitive science reading group will host Karen Adolph for a virtual talk on her 2019 paper, Motor development: Embodied, embedded, enculturated, and enabling, co-authored with Justine Hoch. Individuals interested in attending the talk need not participate in the reading group, but will need to register to receive a link to the [...]
Eva Jablonka: Inheritance Systems and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis
Virtual (register for Zoom link)Join us for a virtual talk by geneticist Eva Jablonka (Tel Aviv University) on inheritance systems and the extended evolutionary synthesis. This event will take place via zoom. REGISTER TO ATTEND ABSTRACT There is a debate among evolutionary biologists today about the need to significantly revise the neo-Darwinian model of evolution that was dominant over [...]
Rotman Graduate Student Conference (RGSC2021): Complexity & Explanation
Virtual (register for Zoom link)The Rotman Institute of Philosophy is excited to announce the inaugural Rotman Graduate Student Conference (RGSC2021), taking place on Saturday, May 15 and Sunday, May 16, 2021 over Zoom. We are pleased to announce biologist, Dr. Daniel McShea (Duke University) and Presidential Professor of Philosophy, Dr. Muhammad Ali Khalidi (City University of New York) as [...]
2021 Philosophy of Logic Math and Physics Graduate Student Conference
Virtual (register for Zoom link)The 20th annual Philosophy of Logic, Mathematics, and Physics Graduate Conference will take place on Thursday-Friday, June 24-25, 2021 over Zoom. We are pleased to announce that James Owen Weatherall (University of California, Irvine) will be giving the keynote address. Advance registration is required in order to attend this conference and must be completed [...]
Emergence in Cosmology Workshop
Virtual (register for Zoom link)The early universe is described extremely well by linear perturbations evolving in a simple expanding universe model, described by classical general relativity. An approximately scale invariant spectrum of nearly Gaussian, adiabatic curvature fluctuations accounts for observed anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background as well as baryon acoustic oscillations. But how does this familiar classical [...]
Self-locating Uncertainty in the Cosmological Multiverse Workshop
Virtual (register for Zoom link)Several issues in cosmology have increasingly raised concerns about self-locating uncertainty. It seems to many that to understand how the universe originated and how it is, we need to better understand how to think about where we are in it, or where we should expect ourselves to be. On one hand, considerations of self-locating [...]
Stewardship of Global Collective Behavior
A cohort of research and knowledge exchange networks are co-hosting a journal club discussion on the proposal that the science of collective human behavior should be considered a "crisis discipline." Read the paper and join us for the conversation. Advance registration is required and can be completed on the CAS Lab event page. Event [...]
Race and Racism
Virtual (register for Zoom link)In the past year and a half, race and racism have been at the forefront of many people’s minds because of widespread Black Lives Matter protests and the disproportionately negative impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on certain racialized communities. But the underlying phenomenon is not only recent. For centuries, racialized communities across [...]
Artificial Intelligence, Harm, and You
Virtual (register for Zoom link)To celebrate the official launch of Western's Interdisciplinary Development Initiative exploring the real-world social impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) in Canada and around the world, join us for a virtual panel discussion on the harms algorithms can cause, and the launch of a poster exploring the impacts of AI on the daily life of [...]
Evan Thompson: Consciousness and Dreamless Sleep
Virtual (register for Zoom link)ABSTRACT New research suggests that deep and dreamless sleep may not be a blackout state in which consciousness is absent, but instead a state in which various kinds of conscious states may occur. This lecture will present an overview of current thinking about sleep and consciousness from the perspectives of cognitive neuroscience, the science [...]
Massimiliano Simons: Synthetic biology as a technoscience
Virtual (register for Zoom link)Join the Rotman Synthetic Biology Reading Group for a meeting with Massimiliano Simons for a discussion of his 2021 paper, "Synthetic biology as a technoscience: The case of minimal genomes and essential genes". Individuals interested in attending the talk need not participate in the reading group, but will need to register to receive a link [...]
Stefan Linquist: Genome-Level Ecology
Room 7107 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, London, ON, CanadaJoin the Rotman Synthetic Biology Reading Group for a meeting with Stefan Linquist for a discussion of his research on genome-level ecology. Individuals interested in attending the talk need not participate in the reading group, but will need to register in advance. This will be a hybrid event with in-person or virtual attendance options. [...]
Ann-Sophie Barwich – How Biology Perceives Chemistry: A Causal Analysis of the Stimulus in Olfaction and its Implications for Scientific and Philosophical Theorizing
Room 7107 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, London, ON, CanadaJoin the Rotman Institute of Philosophy for a work in progress seminar with Dr. Ann-Sophie Barwich. Please note this event is intended for an academic audience. For details on the accompanying public lecture, please visit: Ann-Sophie Barwich – The Cinderella of the Senses: Smell as a Window into Mind and Brain. Abstract: [...]
Ann-Sophie Barwich – The Cinderella of the Senses: Smell as a Window into Mind and Brain
Room 1170 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, London, Ontario, CanadaJoin the Rotman Institute of Philosophy for a talk by Dr. Ann Sophie-Barwich related to her recent book, Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind (Harvard University Press, 2020). Pending changes due to the evolving COVID situation, this event is planned to be hybrid, with both in-person and virtual attendance options. Please see below [...]
Rotman Graduate Student Conference (RGSC2022): Models and Idealizations
Room 1170 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, London, Ontario, CanadaThe Rotman Institute of Philosophy is excited to announce the second annual Rotman Graduate Student Conference, taking place on Thursday May 12 and Friday May 13, 2022. We are pleased to announce Philosopher, Dr. Angela Potochnik (University of Cincinnati) and Professor of Astronomy, Dr. Sarah Gallagher (Western University) as our keynote speakers. This will [...]
Dangerous Ideas Seminars
Room 1170 - Western Interdisciplinary Research Building Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, London, Ontario, CanadaBeginning in May 2022, the Rotman Institute of Philosophy will be hosting a monthly 'Dangerous Ideas Seminar'! This seminar is an open forum for scientists and philosophers to share their latest "dangerous idea," with their fellow colleagues. These events are a venue to openly challenge long-held views in science and philosophy, by inspiring lively [...]