1-3 July 2013
Paris, France
Call for papers
Please circulate widely -- Apologies for crossposting
CAUSALITY AND EXPERIMENTATION IN THE SCIENCES
CaEitS
Paris, 1-3 July 2013
Organisers: Isabelle Drouet (SND, Paris-Sorbonne University) and Max
Kistler (IHPST, Paris 1 University)
This is the eighth conference in the Causality in the Sciences series of
conferences.
*http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/philosophy/jw/cits.htm*
Causality plays a central role in the sciences. Causal inference (finding
out what causes what) and causal explanation (explaining how a cause
produces its effect) are major scientific tasks in fields as diverse as
astrophysics, biochemistry, biomedical or social sciences. Experimentation
is probably the best way to get at causal knowledge. Relatedly, there has
recently been a diversification of experimental practices in the sciences,
most obviously with the rapid growth of computational science, but also
with the extension of more conventional experimental practices to new
domains, such as e.g. important parts of economics. This raises important
questions: What are the relevant distinctions between different
experimental practices?, or what counts as experimentation today?
Previous conferences in the Causality in the Sciences series have
investigated the relationship between causality and challenging concepts
such as probability or mechanisms. This one will focus on the relationship
between causality and experimentation. This involves questions about the
foundations of the sciences, such as what are the prospects of an
interventionist definition of causation, or is experimentation required for
causal knowledge? But it also involves questions raised by specific
scientific practices, e.g. do computer simulations license the same kind of
causal claims as usual experimental practices do, or what is the scope of
causal conclusions drawn from randomized controlled trials?
These questions are all of important current concern. Much work and money
is spent in developing new experimental practices and it is important to
determine how exactly experiments of different types can contribute to our
causal knowledge and to our capacity to act on the things this knowledge is
about.
**Confirmed Speakers**
Uljana Feest
Francesco Guala
Tamar Kushnir
Gianluca Manzo
Peter Spirtes
Marcel Weber
**Timetable**
-
*1st April 2013*: deadline for submission of titles and abstracts of
papers for presentation at the conference
? Please submit a long abstract (1000 words max).
? Send your abstract in doc, docx, txt, rtf or pdf format.
? To be emailed to Isabelle Drouet (isabelle.drouet@paris-sorbonne.fr) or
Max Kistler (mkistler@univ-paris1.fr)
-
*1st May 2013*: notification of acceptance.
-
*1st June 2013*: deadline for receipt of early-bird registration
? Early-bird registration fees: 30 euros.
? Late registration fees: 60 euros.
? Details of registration and payment are on the website.
-
*1st-3rd July 2013*: conference.
Abstracts will be refereed by the CitS steering committee:
Isabelle Drouet, Phyllis Illari, Bert Leuridan, Julian Reiss, Federica
Russo, Erik Weber, Jon Williamson
together with Max Kistler.
**Further information**
isabelle.drouet@paris-sorbonne.fr