Dates: May 4-5, 2013
Location: Virginia Tech, Pamplin Hall, Rm. 2030

New: See the conference blog for additional discussion, background reading, and travel information.

Special Invited Speakers:
David Danks (CMU), Peter Godfrey-Smith (CUNY), Kevin Hoover (Duke),
Laura Ruetsche (U. Mich.), James Woodward (Pitt)

Virginia Tech Speakers:
Benjamin Jantzen, Deborah Mayo, Lydia Patton, Aris Spanos

Contributed Papers:
Erik Angner (GMU), Hayley Clatterbuck (Wisconsin), Koray Karaca (Wuppertal), Alexandre Marcellesi (UCSD), Elay Shech (Pitt)

• How do scientists’ initial conjectures about the entities and processes under their scrutiny influence the choice of variables, the structure of mature scientific theories, and methods of interpretation of those theories?
• How do methods of data generation, statistical modeling, and analysis influence the construction and appraisal of theories at multiple levels?
• How does historical analysis of the development of scientific theories illuminate the interplay between scientific methodology, theory building, and the interpretation of scientific theories?

This conference brings together prominent philosophers of science, biology, cognitive science, causation, economics, and physics with philosophically minded scientists engaged in research into these interconnected methodological and ontological questions.

Invited and contributed papers will illuminate these issues as they arise in general philosophy of science, in causal explanation and modeling, in the philosophy of experiment and statistics, and in the history and philosophy of science. Click here for more information on conference themes and here for a list of abstracts. We also invite you to download the conference poster.

Organizers: Benjamin Jantzen, Deborah Mayo, Lydia Patton

Assistant logistics organizer: Jean Miller

Sponsors: The Virginia Tech Department of Philosophy and the Fund for Experimental Reasoning, Reliability, and the Objectivity and Rationality of Science (E.R.R.O.R.)