Logic List Mailing Archive

FotFS VIII: History and Philosophy of Infinity

20-23 Sep 2013
Cambridge, England

Call for Papers.

FotFS VIII: History and Philosophy of Infinity
20-23 September 2013
Cambridge, England

Submission website: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=fotfs8

Submission deadline:		31 May 2013.
Notification:			20 June 2013.
Accommodation booking deadline:	15 July 2013.
Registration deadline:		31 August 2013.
Conference:			20-23 September 2013.

***Keynote Speakers.*** Haim Gaifman (Columbia University, U.S.A.), Catherine 
Goldstein (Institut de Mathematiques de Jussieu, France), Christian 
Greiffenhagen (University of Nottingham, England), Luca Incurvati (University 
of Cambridge, England), Matthew Inglis (Loughborough University, England), 
Charles Parsons (Harvard University, U.S.A.), Michael Potter (University of 
Cambridge, England), Christian Tapp (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany), Pessia 
Tsamir (Tel Aviv University, Israel), Dina Tirosh (Tel Aviv University, 
Israel), Jean Paul Van Bendeghem (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium).

***Conference Theme.*** The concept of infinity has fascinated philosophers and 
mathematicians for many centuries: e.g., the distinction between the potential 
and actual infinite appears in Aristotle's Physics (in his treatment of the 
paradoxes of Zeno) and the notion was implied in the attempts to sharpen the 
method of approximation (starting as early as Archimedes and running through 
the middle ages and into the nineteenth century). Modern mathematics opened the 
doors to the wealth of the realm of the infinities by means of the 
set-theoretic foundations of mathematics.

Any philosophical interaction with concepts of infinite must have at least two 
aspects: first, an inclusive examination of the various branches and 
applications, across the various periods; but second, it must proceed in the 
critical light of mathematical results, including results from 
meta-mathematics.

   The conference History & Philosophy of Infinity will emphasize philosophical, 
empirical and historical approaches. In the following, we give brief 
descriptions of these approaches with a number of questions that we consider 
relevant for the conference:

   In the philosophical approach, we shall link questions about the concept of 
infinity to other parts of the philosophical discourse, such as ontology and 
epistemology and other important aspects of philosophy of mathematics. Which 
types of infinity exist? What does it mean to make such a statement? How do we 
reason about infinite entities? How do the mathematical developments shed light 
on the philosophical issues and how do the philosophical issues influence the 
mathematical developments?

   Various empirical sciences deal with the way we as finite human beings access 
mathematical objects or concepts. Research from mathematics education, 
sociology of mathematics and cognitive science is highly relevant here. How do 
we represent infinite objects by finite means? How are infinite objects 
represented in the human mind? How much is our interaction with infinite 
concepts formed by the research community? How do we teach the manipulation of 
infinite objects or processes?

   Infinity was an important concept in philosophy and theology from the ancient 
Greeks through the middle ages into the modern period. How did the concepts of 
infinity evolve? How did questions get sharpened and certain aspects got 
distinguished in the philosophical debate? Did important aspects get lost along 
the way?

***Submission.*** The Scientific Committee of FotFS VIII is cordially inviting 
all researchers to submit proposals for presentations covering either 
historical or philosophical aspects of infinity, or dealing with empirical 
investigations of infinity in relation to the historical and philosophical 
aspects. The submission deadline is 31 May 2013.

Please submit the proposals for presentations via our EasyChair submission site 
at https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=fotfs8. A proposal should 
consist of a descriptive title and an abstract of 200 to 500 words. Do not 
submit a full paper and mark the "abstract only" checkbox of EasyChair for 
submission. Please make sure in your abstract how your presentation will relate 
to the theme of the conference.

After the conference (as is the tradition for conferences in the series 
Foundations of the Formal Sciences), we will publish a post-proceedings volume 
in the book series Studies in Logic (College Publications, London). All authors 
of papers presented at FotFS VIII will be encouraged to submit a full version 
of their presentation. All submissions will be refereed according to the 
standards of high-quality journals of the field. The deadline for submission of 
these papers will be in December 2013.

***Scientific Committee.*** Brendan Larvor (Hatfield, U.K.), Benedikt Löwe 
(chair; Amsterdam, The Netherlands & Hamburg, Germany), Peter Koellner 
(Cambridge MA, U.S.A.), Dirk Schlimm (Montreal, Canada).

FotFS VIII is sponsored by the ESF network INFTY: New frontiers of infinity and 
the Division for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science of the 
International Union for History and Philosophy of Science (DLMPS/IUHPS).