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Logic and Philosophy of Science Group Talk (Caspar Jacobs, Pittsburgh)

Thursday April 28, 2022, 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Head shot of Caspar Jacobs in front of a string of lights

The Logic and Philosophy of Science Group is pleased to welcome guest speaker Caspar Jacobs, a postdoctoral associate in the Department of History and Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Jacobs’s main research areas lie with philosophy of physics and philosophy of science. He is also interested in the metaphysics of quantities, and in early modern history and philosophy of science. He completed a DPhil in Philosophy at the University of Oxford, with a dissertation focused on the interpretation of symmetry-related models.

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Talk Title

Are Models Our Tools, Not Our Masters?

Talk Abstract

It is often claimed that one can avoid the kind of underdetermination that is a typical consequence of symmetries in physics with the claim that symmetry-related models represent the same state of affairs (Leibniz Equivalence). But recent commentators (Dasgupta 2011; Pooley 2020; Pooley and Read 2021; Teitel 2021) have responded that such claims about the representational capacities of models are irrelevant to the issue of underdetermination, which concerns possible worlds themselves. In this essay I distinguish between two versions of this objection: (1) that a theory’s formalism does not (fully) determine the space of physical possibilities, and (2) that the relevant notion of possibility is not physical possibility. I offer a refutation of each of these objections.

About the Logic and Philosophy of Science Group

One of six departmental Research Interest Groups, the Logic and Philosophy of Science Group hosts talks on logic, general philosophy of science, and philosophy of the particular sciences, as well as talks in allied areas such as formal epistemology, decision theory, and the metaphysics of science.

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Details

Date:
Thursday April 28, 2022
Time:
3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
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Venue

Online

Organizer

Logic and Philosophy of Science Group
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