First Principles in Science: Their Epistemic Status and Justification (10-11 June 2016)
Idea and Motivation
What is the epistemic status of first principles in science and how do scientists justify them accordingly? These are the central questions that will be discussed at this workshop. So far, discussions about first principles and their justification in science have focused largely on the natural sciences. For example, philosophical debates around Poincaré’s conventionalism or the relativized a priori are usually grounded in concrete case studies from physics. Yet, first principles occupy an equally important, yet controversial, role in other natural and as well in the social sciences, where their status and epistemic role raise similar concerns, economics and psychology being only two cases in point. For example, it has been widely discussed that economic theories rest upon first principles of human behavior that have long been fiercely defended by economists and justified in various different ways. Yet, at the same time, they have been attacked and in some cases even replaced by behavioral economists. The workshop aims at renewing the existing discussions on the status and justification of first principles in sciences by expanding them to cases beyond physics into economics, psychology, biology and chemistry. This will help us to better understand the way in which first principles are used and justified in the natural and the social sciences alike, and thereby address more general questions concerning the way in which knowledge is produced in these disciplines.
Program
Day 1 (10 June, 2016)
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 09:15 - 09:30 | Registration |
| 09:30 - 09:45 | Welcome |
| 09:45 - 10:45 | Michael Stöltzner: "Axioms as First Principles: The Case of Mathematical Physics" Chair: Catherine Herfeld |
| 10:45 - 11:15 | Coffee Break |
| 11:15 - 12:00 | Milena Ivanova: "The Evolution of Constitutive Principles" Chair: Catherine Herfeld |
| 12:00 - 12:45 | Sam Fletcher: "The Principle of Stability" Chair: Catherine Herfeld |
| 12:45 - 13:45 | Lunch (on your own) |
| 13:45 - 14:30 | Matteo Colombo: "Explanatory Pluralism: an Unrewarding Prediction Error for Free Energy Theorists" Chair: Matt Farr |
| 14:30 - 15:30 | Liz Irvine: "Measurement and Introspection" Chair: Matt Farr |
| 15:30 - 16:00 | Coffee Break |
| 16:00 - 16:45 | Catherine Stinson: "Grounding Inferences from Model Organisms" Chair: Seamus Bradley |
| 16:45 - 17:45 | Samir Okasha: "Evolutionary Theory and the Strategy of Endogenization: On the Role of First Principles in Evolutionary Biology" Chair: Seamus Bradley |
| 18:30 | Workshop Dinner |
Day 2 (11 June, 2016)
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 10:00 - 11:00 | Kevin Hoover: "First Principles, Fallibilism, and Economics" Chair: Catherine Herfeld |
| 11:00 - 11:30 | Coffee Break |
| 11:30 - 12:15 | Alexander Linsbichler: "Justifying the Fundamental Axiom of Austrian Economics – What Rothbard Could Have Done, But Didn’t Do" Chair: Milena Ivanova |
| 12:15 - 13:00 | Paul Teller: "Evaluating First Principles on the Basis of What?" Chair: Milena Ivanova |
| 13:00 - 14:00 | Lunch (on your own) |
| 14:00 - 14:45 | Marco Giovanelli: "'Prinzipienfuchser'. Historical-Philosophical Considerations on Einstein's 'Principle-Strategy'" Chair: Sam Fletcher |
| 14:45 - 15:30 | Attila Grandpierre: "The Significance of First Principles of Science" Chair: Sam Fletcher |
| 15:30 - 16:00 | Coffee Break |
| 16:00 - 17:00 | Robin Hendry: "Elements and (First) Principles in Early Modern Chemistry" Chair: Milena Ivanova |
| 17:00 - 17:30 | General Discussion and Closing |
Acknowledgment
The workshop is supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship.
Photo Credits
Header background: Zeppelin, "Aufwärts!". Some right reserved (desaturated from original). Source: www.piqs.de.