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 [...]
Rotman Postdoc Dan Hicks reviews two anthologies that cover ethical issues in our food system. Both anthologies are intended for "food ethics" courses, and discuss such issues as food security, animal welfare, and biotechnology. Before coming to Western, Hicks developed and taught a food ethics course at the University of Notre Dame. Hicks finds that [...]
Rotman Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy of Physics, Science and Theoretical Physics, Keizo Matsubara was published in Synthese for his article titled Realism, Underdetermination and String Theory Dualities earlier this year. String theory promises to be able to provide us with a working theory of quantum gravity and a unified description of all fundamental forces. [...]
Rotman Institute Post-doctoral Fellow in Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Science, Rachael Brown has been accepted for publication in Biological Theory for her paper titled Identifying Behavioral Novelty. Although there is no in-principle impediment to an EvoDevo of behavior, such an endeavor is not as straightforward as one might think; many of the key terms [...]
Check out Michela Massimi's talk on Prespectival Realism: The talk was part of the Rotman Lecture Series (Nov 8th, 2013)
Before the lecture, Professor Oreskes sat for an interview with Martin Vezér. In this video, she discusses topics in the philosophy of climate science, including issues in the epistemology and of science, history of climate science, the politics of climate change, and other subjects related to her (and Eric Conway’s) book, Merchants of Doubt. After [...]
by Wayne Myrvold Rotman Institute Post-doctoral Fellow in Philosophy of Science Kerry McKenzie has published a review of Colin McGinn's book, Basic Structures of Reality: Essays in Meta-Physics in Mind. To my mind, the review is of interest not only for what it says about the book in question, but for the larger questions it [...]
by Reuven Brandt The Supreme Court of Canada recently issued a ruling about the unilateral removal of life support by physicians. The case centers on Mr. Rasouli, who is minimally conscious, requires life support and, according his physicians, has little chance of recovering. Doctors sought to have Mr. Rasouli removed from life support against the [...]
