News and Events: Conferences

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21-24 October 2008, Foundations of the Formal Sciences VII (FotFS VII): Bringing Together Philosophy and Sociology of Science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

Speaker: S. Fuller (Warwick), Ch. Greiffenhagen (Manchester), H. Kalthoff (Friedrichshafen), J. McAllister (Leiden), R. Tobies (Braunschweig)
Date: 21-24 October 2008
Location: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Deadline: 15 July 2008

Both philosophy and sociology of science aim at understanding the workings of scientific endeavour. Despite their different emphasis and possibly methodology, they deal with the same subject matter. And yet, they seem to be worlds apart. The study of sociology of science is strongly influenced by the continental tradition, whereas the philosophy of science has been the near exclusive playground for analytic approaches. There is also the central issue of the so-called "science wars": the question of the the proper relationship between humanities and natural sciences. In the early days, the sociology of science explicitly set its task as being complementary to that of philosophy, but current sociology of science focuses on social organization, epistemic content and cultural aspects of science, breaking down the barrier respected by their ancestors, resulting in an approach seemingly incompatible and openly at odds with that of philosophy of science.

The good news is that, in the course of the last few decades, steps have been taken towards a (partial) reconciliation. We see our conference FotFS VII as part of this process, bringing sociological aspects into philosophy of science and philosophical aspects into sociology of science, by bringing together researchers from both areas.

For more information, see http://www.math.uni-bonn.de/people/fotfs/VII/. The conference is co-located with the workshop PhiMSAMP-4 (25-26 october 2008).

The Programme Committee cordially invites all researchers to submit their papers for presentation. Deadline for submission: 15 July 2008

Please note that this newsitem has been archived, and may contain outdated information or links.