9 April 2008
Tilburg, The Netherlands
********************************************************************* One-day workshop REDUCTION, EMERGENCE AND PHYSICS Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science 9 April 2008 http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/tilps/physics2008/ ********************************************************************* Physics is arguably the most fundamental science we have. It accounts for a large range of natural phenomena from the very small, at the level of sub-atomic constituents of matter, to the very large, at the level of galaxies located light-years far away from Earth. Furthermore, it offers the best examples of reduction, thus occupying a special position in the philosophical debate of reductionism in science. Yet, the jury is still out concerning the unification of our best physical theories. Case studies can elucidate how the theories of physics relate to each other, whether they are (mutually) reducible and what role emergence plays in all this. This workshop envisages contributions by both physicists and philosophers of physics. The aim is to address and discuss in detail the issues of reductionism, inter-theoretical relations and emergence as they arise in statistical mechanics and quantum theory. A special focus is on the most important challenge for contemporary physics, the unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity in the framework of quantum gravity. The participants are Craig Callender (UCSD), Dennis Dieks (Utrecht), Roman Frigg (LSE), Claus Kiefer (Cologne), Klaas Landsman (Nijmegen), and Jos Uffink (Utrecht). Gerard 't Hooft (Utrecht) will give the keynote address. The workshop is organized by Giovanni Valente (Maryland/Tilburg). There is no registration fee. However, interested participants are kindly asked to send a registration email to Giovanni Valente (gvalente@umd.edu) by 1 April. The workshop precedes the three-day Sydney-Tilburg conference "Reduction and the Special Sciences" with William Bechtel (UCSD), Craig Callender (UCSD), Paul Griffiths (Sydney), Kevin Hoover (Duke) and Philip Pettit (Princeton) as the invited speakers and 32 contributed papers. For the program (and the registration details; deadline: 20 March) of the conference, click http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/tilps/RSS2008/