Logic List Mailing Archive

"Mathematics as/in Science"

8-10 Dec 2021
Gent, Belgium

CALL FOR PAPERS
Workshop on

MATHEMATICS AS/IN SCIENCE

  Ghent University, 8-10 December 2021


The scope of this workshop

The relationship between mathematics and science continues to be of 
considerable philosophical interest. Within contemporary philosophy of 
science, for example, pinpointing the exact role of mathematics in the 
sciences remains a hotly debated issue. Does mathematics play a mere 
inferential role in that it allows for the derivations of one substantial 
truth from another or is mathematics more than a ?theoretical 
juice-extractor?? Are there distinctive mathematical explanations of 
physical phenomena? Similar questions can be asked about the role of logic 
in science.

These issues connect with discussions within the philosophy of mathematics 
(and the philosophy of logic) concerning the nature of mathematics (or 
logic). Within the philosophy of mathematics, Platonists, nominalists and 
structuralists consider mathematics to be fundamentally different in kind 
from empirical science, while empiricists have argued that mathematics is, 
just like other sciences, fundamentally about aspects of the empirical 
world. Different positions within the debate about the nature of 
mathematics will, arguably, lead to different answers to the question as 
to how mathematics and science are related.

In this workshop we want to focus on how these different philosophies of 
mathematics fare in giving an account of mathematical practice and the 
role of mathematics in scientific practice.

Examples of topics of interest therefore include (but are not restricted 
to):

- How do we get mathematical knowledge?

- What is the role of sensory perception in mathematics?

- Can there be mathematical experiments? If so, how do they relate to 
experiments in other disciplines?

- What is (are) the role(s) of proof in mathematics?

- What is the epistemic role of mathematical communities (dependence, peer 
review, joint commitments, ?)?

- Are there explanations in mathematics? Are mathematical explanations 
similar to scientific explanations?

- Are there distinctively mathematical explanations in science?

- What is the role of aesthetic virtues (beauty, symmetry, simplicity, ?) 
in mathematical practice?

- What role does mathematics play in empirical science?

- Does empirical science play any role in mathematics?

- How can mathematics be successfully applied in empirical science and 
engineering?

We welcome contributions that approach these (and related) topics either 
from a systematic or a historic angle. In other words, we welcome 
contributions that elaborate and defend your own position, but also 
contributions that discuss the views that philosophers and scientists had 
on these topics in the past.

Keynote speakers

Valeria Giardino (Institut Jean Nicod ? Paris)

Victor Gijsbers (Leiden University)


How to submit an abstract
We welcome submissions on any topic that fits into the scope as described above. Send your abstract of 300 to 500 words to: lrr@ugent.be<mailto:lrr@ugent.be> before 18 October 2021.
Notification of acceptance: 25 October 2021.



Venue

KANTL, Koningstraat 18, 9000 Gent, Belgium. We plan this as a purely 
physical workshop, without online participation.

Website
More information about the workshop is available at https://www.lrr.ugent.be/mathematicsscience/. The program will be available around 1 November.



Background

This workshop is organized by the scientific research network Logical and 
Methodological Analysis of Scientific Reasoning Processes (LMASRP) which 
is sponsored by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). All information 
about the network can be found at http://www.lmasrp.ugent.be/. An overview 
of the previous workshops of the network can be found at 
http://www.lrr.ugent.be/.

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