Call for nominations: 2021 Hanneke Janssen Memorial Prize

The Jury would like to issue a call for nominations for the 2021 Hanneke Janssen Memorial Prize, which is awarded annually for the best work in History and/or  Philosophy of Modern Physics, done by a student as a requirement for a Masters Thesis. The prize carries a 2000 euro award. Nominations for this Prize need to be submitted by a supervisor of the nominee before November 14, 2021. We would also like to issue a special encouragement for the nomination of candidates from underrepresented groups. 

Recent winners of the HJMP include Emilia Margoni, Grace Field, Ruward Mulder, James Read, Neil Dewar and Ben Feintzeig.

HAPP Scholarship in the History & Philosophy of Physics

St Cross College, Oxford, offers a three-year fellowship for research students who will begin studying for a DPhil in the History of Physics or a DPhil in the Philosophy of Physics at the University of Oxford in October 2022.

Details may be found via the following link:
https://www.stx.ox.ac.uk/happ-scholarship-physics

Du Châtelet Prize 2021: Elder and Ohnesorge

The winners of the 2021 Du Châtelet Prize in Philosophy of Physics are:

• Jamee Elder, for her paper “On the ‘direct detection’ of gravitational waves”

and

• Miguel Ohnesorge, for his paper “Pluralising measurement”

Jamee Elder completed her PhD at the University of Notre Dame and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Black Hole Initiative, Harvard University. Miguel Ohnesorge is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge. Congratulations to them, and many thanks to everyone who submitted their wonderful papers for this year’s prize.

CFP: Workshop on The Role of Theory Confirmation in Science, Stockholm, 5-7 May 2022

There are two ways of viewing theory confirmation. At a formal level, a theory is taken to be confirmed when collected data agrees with the theory’s predictions. At a pragmatic level, confirmation provides the basis for scientists’ confidence that the confirmed theory provides a viable representation of a set of phenomena and its so far untested predictions in the given context are true. Though the two roles of confirmation are of course related, the precise connection between them is non-trivial. The workshop focuses on the trust-generating role of confirmation with the aim of shedding light on the stated connection. Specific questions to be addressed will include: what are the criteria that turn evidence into empirical confirmation? In which way and to what extent do non-empirical considerations play a role in assessing a theory? What is the role of non-epistemic considerations in theory assessment? To what extent and in which ways does the notion of theory confirmation depend on the research field? The workshop aims to compare perspectives from various scientific disciplines.

Introducing the Möbius Seminars: seminars by philosophers to physicists

Philosophers of physics study the foundational, metaphysical and epistemological aspects of this natural science. Physicists carry their research with the hope of explaining the process occurring in the Universe, decipher its fundamental laws and extract information from experiments and observations. Those respective activities voice for a place enabling the two communities to meet. The Möbius Seminars are a cycle of seminars on philosophy of physics, given by philosophers to physicists. They aim at making the scientific community aware of the investigations and developments occurring in the field of philosophy, and to foster exchange between the two fields. The seminars occur once a month during one hour, with a half devoted to the presentation and the other half to the discussion. They are occurring online via zoom, and any interested party is welcome to join. We are starting a new cycle for the year 2021/22, more information can be found on our website, our Twitter and our Youtube channel (arriving soon). 

CfA: Edited volume in Philosophy of Astrophysics

While cosmology has long attracted attention from philosophers, the rise of philosophy of astrophysics as a distinctive focus of research is relatively new. To be sure, since the 1980s, there has been sporadic attention to astrophysics, but the field has really started to stir in the last decade or so, and now seems to have properly fledged. Work in philosophy of astrophysics has provided substantive contributions to the literature on modeling, simulations, experiments, and natural kinds. This edited volume will, for the first time, collect together a representative sample of work in philosophy of astrophysics.

Submission guidelines

JUNIOR FELLOWSHIP in PHILOSOPHY OF QUANTUM GRAVITY

University of Illinois at Chicago

The philosophy of physics group at the Department of Philosophy at UIC solicits applications for a junior visiting fellowship for advanced PhD students, starting January 2022 or as soon as possible thereafter. The position is funded by the John Templeton Foundation grant ‘Cosmology Beyond Spacetime’.

Candidates must be ABD in a PhD program at an accredited university, working on a dissertation related to the philosophy of quantum gravity or cosmology, broadly construed. The fellowship will provide support for the successful candidate to spend six months away from their home institution to work with the project’s UIC group led by Professor Nick Huggett, and to benefit from interactions with project members and from participation in the project’s activities. The successful candidate will participate in a tutoring program directed by Professor Huggett. They will be expected to participate in weekly group meetings during term, help with the administration and organization of the group’s activities, and contribute to the group’s research and outreach efforts. More information on the project and the research group is available at http://beyondspacetime.net/.

The fellowship is fixed-term for six months, to be negotiated with the successful candidate. The salary is $15,000 for six months. Research funds will be available for travel to relevant conferences and to visit the project’s other group at the University of Geneva. The successful candidate must remain enrolled as a full-time student at their home institution, and will not be admitted into any degree program at UIC. The fellowship will not cover any costs (such as tuition and fees) at the home institution.

Applications must contain a cover letter detailing the pertinent experience and motivation for the position, a CV, a 1-2 page description of the dissertation project, one writing sample, and two letters of reference (sent under separate cover). They should be sent to Professor Nick Huggett at huggett@uic.edu.

Review of the files will begin on October 11, 2021 and continue until the position is filled. Candidates files may be reviewed by qualified members of the Scientific Advisory Committee, and the best qualified candidate will be selected by Professors Huggett and Wüthrich.

Applications from women, minorities, individuals with disabilities and veterans are encouraged.

For more information, please contact Professor Nick Huggett at huggett@uic.edu.

CFA: Editor-in-Chief for Philosophy of Physics

The Philosophy of Physics Society invites applications for the position of Editor-in-Chief of the society’s new journal, Philosophy of Physics. 

The society is in the advanced stages of the creation of an Open Access journal Philosophy of Physics and seeks a founding Editor-in-Chief who will work with the society to establish the journal as the leading venue worldwide for scholarship in the philosophy of physics, broadly construed. 

Call for abstracts for the Online-Workshop “Metaphysics of Physics”, 30 August – 3 September 2021 (Deadline: 8 July 2021)

The Working Group “Philosophy of Physics” (AGPhil) of the German Physical Society (DPG) invites submissions for its annual workshop at the virtual DPG conference, organized by Jena. Contributions on any topic in the philosophy of physics are welcome. The workshop takes place 30 August – 3 September 2021 as an online event (https://smuk21.dpg-tagungen.de/). As part of this event, the AGPhil organizes a small workshop on the “Metaphysics of Physics”. Contributions in this area are especially welcome.

Confirmed speakers

Karen Crowther (Oslo)
Matt Farr (Cambridge)
Kerry McKenzie (UC San Diego)
Christopher Timpson (Oxford)
Alastair Wilson (Birmingham)

20th Annual LMP Conference

JUNE 24 – 25, 2021

Join us for the twentieth annual Philosophy of Logic, Math and Physics (LMP) graduate student conference in philosophy hosted by Western University in London, Ontario, Canada over Zoom. The LMP Graduate Student Conference will bring together philosophers of logic, mathematics, and physics for two days of presentations and discussions with some of the leaders in these fields. We are pleased to announce our keynote speaker this year is James Owen Weatherall from the University of California, Irvine.

Links for registration and the event program can be found at our website: logicmathphysics.uwo.ca.