Here's the third lecture from the Rotman Summer Institute on Foundations of Statistical Mechanics from July 14-20, 2013. Lots more to come. In this lecture, David Wallace discusses statistical mechanics and its machinery. As he notes, it's easy to get the impression, from looking at philosophical and foundational literature on statistical mechanics, that the primary [...]
Here's the second lecture from the Rotman Summer Institute on Foundations of Statistical Mechanics from July 14-20, 2013. Lots more to come. This is the first of three lectures in which Jos Uffink provides a discussion of the development and historical foundations of thermodynamics. This first lecture covers the prehistory, beginning with a discussion of [...]
This is the first lecture from the Rotman Summer Institute on Foundations of Statistical Mechanics from July 14-20, 2013. More will follow at the rate of approximately one per week. In this introductory lecture, Wayne Myrvold discusses thermodynamics. He introduces the theory without presupposing the molecular theory of matter or that thermodynamic systems can be [...]
Further Reflections from the Future Directions in Feminist Phenomenology Conference By Emma Ryman At the Future Directions in Feminist Phenomenology conference, Veronica Vasterling gave a talk titled, “Feminist Phenomenology, Embedded Embodied Cognition, and [Pseudo] Scientific Gender Claims.” She is an Associate Professor in Gender Studies and Philosophy at the Institute for Gender Studies at Radboud [...]
Further Reflections from the Future Directions in Feminist Phenomenology Conference By Katy Fulfer Public attention to assisted death in medical contexts seems to be exploding. In June the Quebec legislature tabled a care-at-the-end-of-life bill that includes provisions for physician-assisted death. In the state of Washington, there was a 17% rise in the number of individuals [...]
With the generous help of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy (especially Rob Read), I've started a new podcast, The Life Of The Mind/Brain, examining issues that arise at the intersection of the cognitive sciences and society. The first episode focuses on the amazing work coming out of Adrian Owen's lab which, as has been mentioned [...]
By Jessey Wright On June 15th and 16th, 2013 the Brain and Mind Institute at the University of Western Ontario hosted a symposium, the seeds for which were sown at the signing of a research agreement between the Royal Society of Canada and the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities less than a year ago. [...]
By Frédéric-Ismaël Banville During the recent PhilMiLCog conference – Western’s graduate conference in philosophy of mind, language and cognitive science, the university welcomed eight graduate student speakers and three keynote speakers: Prof. Edouard Machery (Pittsburgh), Prof. Jacqueline Sullivan (Western- Philosophy) and Prof. Jody Culham (Western- Brain and Mind Institute). As a member of the organizing [...]
On May 25, 2013, I had the chance to chat with Alia Al-Saji, who is an Associate Professor in the department of philosophy at McGill University. Dr. Al-Saji had given a talk at the Future Directions in Feminist Phenomenology conference the previous day, titled “The Power of Hesitation: Interrupting Racializing Habit and Rethinking Agency.” This [...]
Reflections from the Future Directions in Feminist Phenomenology Conference By Emma Ryman and Katy Fulfer Phenomenology is often characterized as getting back to the things themselves, of describing the structures of lived experience by pushing past the assumptions we tend to bring to experience. But what specifically is feminist phenomenology? In an interview with Alia [...]
