CamPoS (Cambridge Philosophy of Science) is a network of academics and students working in the philosophy of science in various parts of the University of Cambridge, including the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and the Faculty of Philosophy. The Wednesday afternoon seminar series features current research by CamPoS members as well as visitors to Cambridge and scholars based in nearby institutions. In the 2023–24 year, CamPoS is being organised by Anna Alexandrova (HPS) and Neil Dewar (Philosophy).
Seminars are held on Wednesdays in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science.
Easter Term 2024
24 April, 3.00–4.30pm
Cheryl Misak (University of Toronto)
Margaret MacDonald's 1937 pragmatism
Margaret MacDonald may be remembered as a founder of the journal Analysis and a note-taker (along with Alice Ambrose) in Wittgenstein's classes in the mid-1930s. But she is also one of Britain's two most important pragmatists, the other being Frank Ramsey. This paper traces MacDonald's sophisticated pragmatism about the relation between our thoughts and the world, and about induction, hypotheses, and laws of nature. It shows that she made the important pragmatist distinction between knowledge that and knowledge how and argues that she should be returned to centre stage in the history of philosophy.
8 May, 1.00–2.30pm
Cristian Larroulet Philippi (Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge)
Quantifying the human: values in measurement or measuring value?
22 May, 3.00–5.00pm
Author meets critics on Inference and Representation: A Study in Modeling Science (University of Chicago Press, 2024) by Mauricio Suárez of Universidad Complutense de Madrid