Table of Contents: - Hempel Award Call (Reminder)
PSA 2024 Election -
Short Reads by Grads
- DEI Caucus Jobs
- Prize in Phil Sci & Race Call
- UPSS Session Call
- PSA24 Call for Posters Open
- PSA24 Sponsors
- PhilSci Archive - Top 5 Downloads
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Calendar of Events & Calls for Papers - Upcoming Dates
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Hempel Award Call (Reminder) |
Nominations may now be made for the 2024 Hempel Award, a biennial award recognizing lifetime scholarly achievement in the philosophy of science. The Hempel Award is named in honor of Carl Gustav Hempel (1905-1997), one of the twentieth century’s leading philosophers of science and an active PSA member for over fifty years. The award will be presented prior to the PSA Presidential Address at PSA2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana, November 16, 2024.
The Prize Committee for the Hempel Award consists of the current PSA Governing Board or its designated subcommittee. Nominations for the Hempel Award should include a full CV and between three and five detailed letters of support; the latter should address the nominee’s scholarly achievements, construed broadly to include not only the specific research of the nominee but also the nominee's larger impact on the scholarly community of philosophers of science (including training and mentorship, public outreach, professional work for the Philosophy of Science Association, and other community-building activities). Self-nominations will be accepted. Nominees and nominators should be members of the Philosophy of Science Association. Current Governing Board members may not participate in a nomination.
Nominations must be submitted electronically to office@philsci.org no later than May 31, 2024. Questions about the Hempel Award should be directed to Max Cormendy, PSA Executive Director, at director@philsci.org. Members who wish to renominate a candidate from the previous round can send a note to Executive Director Max Cormendy. No additional materials will be required, but the nominator may add to the file should she or he so wish. |
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The 2024 PSA Election is now open. All full and retired members are eligible to cast their votes for 2 Governing Board positions as well as PSA President. All election information and a link to the ballot will be sent to the email that you used to sign up for your PSA membership. The email will come from our election platform, Simply Voting. Please check your junk mail if you have not received notification in your primary inbox. The election will close on June 1st, 2024 and you will receive several automated reminders from Simply Voting. The best way to stop these reminders is to cast your votes.
If you find that you have not received the link to vote and you believe you should have, please reach out to office@philsci.org. If your membership has lapsed and you renew or if your status has changed from student member to full member, you will need to reach out to be manually added to the list of electors.
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The PSA is pleased to share its seventh installment of Short Reads by Grads. Ryan McCoy is a PhD candidate in philosophy at the University of Kentucky. His research largely falls within the philosophy of science and environmental ethics. In particular, he is interested in how transdisciplinary and community-based approaches to climate research can improve our understanding of climate change at regional and local scales, as well as how to best navigate differences in epistemic and value commitments between academic researchers and local communities.
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Review of John Forge’s The Responsible Scientist (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008) By Ryan McCoy
In The Responsible Scientist John Forge argues against what he calls the standard or “narrow view” of moral responsibility for scientists. On this view, scientists are morally responsible only for the intended outcomes of their research. In contrast, Forge argues for what he calls the “wide view” of moral responsibility whereby scientists are responsible both for the outcomes that they intend, as well as those that they foresee or should foresee.
In Part 1 Forge discusses the distinction between pure and applied research. Using case studies from the Manhattan Project, he argues that distinguishing between the two depends on the context and not the content of the research. For example, Enrico Fermi’s work on self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions helped to both initiate the manufacture of plutonium and confirm theoretical work in nuclear physics. What makes Fermi’s work applied is its context within the Manhattan Project. Absent from this context we might alternatively view it as pure. Forge’s overarching point is that scientists bear responsibility for outcomes regardless of if this research is intended to be pure or applied.
Parts 2 and 3 further develop two notions of responsibility: backward-looking and forward-looking. Backward-looking responsibility concerns attributions of moral responsibility for past events. Here, responsibility is ascribed on the basis of whether research outcomes were foreseen, or should have been. Contrariwise, forward-looking responsibility concerns what scientists should do. Using Bernard Gert’s ‘common morality’, Forge argues that scientists have the responsibility to conduct research that does not cause harm, and should be encouraged to do research that prevents it. Using the case of weapons research, he argues at length that such research cannot be morally justified in this view, since it provides the means to do harm. Forge follows this with a discussion of collective responsibility in Part 4 where he outlines the conditions under which a group or collective can be held morally responsible.
The Responsible Scientist is a well-written and engaging book that brings together literature from philosophy of science, philosophy of technology, and moral theory. Moreover, its overarching argument that scientists need be concerned with the social and moral dimensions of research outcomes is commendable. However, one might argue that Forge’s wide view depends on a notion of foreseeability that remains underdeveloped. Again, the wide view stipulates that scientists are responsible for outcomes that they intend, as well as those they foresee or should foresee. And yet, how do we fairly assess in hindsight which outcomes should or should not have been foreseen by researchers? One worry here is that without some standard or criteria for foreseeability, the scope of responsibility for outcomes can be adjusted to be either too strict or too lax. Given that foreseeability is central to distinguishing the wide view of responsibility from the narrow, one might expect that more be given to grapple with such issues. While this notion of foreseeability is in need of further elaboration and argument, the book undoubtedly provides a useful framework for researchers and students alike to discuss the issue of moral responsibility within scientific research.
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The DEI Caucus is looking for a webperson to help manage our online presence. This position involves a light workload, and serves the Caucus's mission of promoting equity and inclusion in the PSA. Interested parties should email the Caucus co-chairs Kino Zhao (kino_zhao@sfu.ca) and Cailin O'Connor (cailino@uci.edu).
The DEI Caucus is also looking for nominations for the role of senior co-chair to serve the term 2025-2028. The senior co-chair of the Caucus works with the junior co-chair doing crucial work to support inclusion and equity in the PSA. For more information and to nominate, visit: https://forms.gle/KzAtJKAuto88D2ZT7, self nominations strongly encouraged.
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Prize in Philosophy of Science & Race |
The PSA Underrepresented Philosophers of Science (UPSS) Initiative invites nominations for the Prize in Philosophy of Science & Race. This prize is awarded biennially by the Philosophy of Science Association for the best book, article, or chapter published in English that integrates philosophy of science with discussions of race,
ethnicity, and/or racism. Eligible publications must be published within five years prior to the prize year/PSA meeting year. Recipients will receive the award and a $500 cash prize made possible through generous donations to the UPSS initiative. The Prize will be awarded in person at the PSA 2024 Biennial Meeting awards ceremony.
Eligibility
- Any book, article, or chapter on any topic that integrates philosophy of science with
discussions of race, ethnicity, and/or racism
- Published within five years prior to the prize year/PSA meeting year (2019-2024)
- Author must be a current PSA member. (If you are not yet a member, you may join here.)
- Co-authored publications welcomed, but prize will only be awarded to authors who are current members of the PSA. For co-authored entries, submitting author(s) should include a brief statement of their role in, or contributions to, the publication.
Nominations for this prize must include a brief rationale for why this publication is worthy of the prize and an electronic copy of the publication. Self nominations are welcomed. Nominations and all materials must be submitted here by June 15th , 11:59 PM Anywhere on Earth. Please contact office@philsci.org with any questions.
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PSA UPSS Session Call for Abstracts |
All UPSS scholars participating in the UPSS Mentoring Program who are current graduate students or within 3 years of receiving their PhD are eligible to submit a paper for presentation in the UPSS Session at the PSA Biennial Meeting. UPSS scholars work with their mentors to refine a paper for presentation on any topic in the philosophy of science. If you do not yet have a mentor, please click here, and indicate that you would
also like assistance developing a talk to present at the PSA Biennial Meeting. Co-authored papers are permitted only if all co-authors are participants in the UPSS Mentoring Program. Papers co-authored with an UPSS mentor are only allowed if the mentee is the first author and PSA session presenter.
Your Submissions must include a 1,000-word abstract (word count does not include references). Abstracts should be prepared for blind review. A second, short abstract of no more than 100 words should also be submitted for inclusion in the PSA program if accepted. The UPSS Session submission form also asks you to provide a brief diversity statement explaining how your participation would contribute to increasing diversity and advancing the mission of the UPSS Initiative. Please click here to submit your materials.
Abstracts will be reviewed by a subcommittee of the UPSS Committee. Deadline for submitting abstracts to be considered for UPSS PSA Session at the upcoming PSA 2024 meeting in New Orleans is August 1 st , 2024, 11:59 PM Anywhere on Earth. The top three submitted abstracts will be selected for presentation at the biennial meeting. A fourth alternate will be invited to serve as UPSS Session Chair.
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PSA24 Posters Call Now Open |
We are looking forward to hosting the 2024 Philosophy of Science Association Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. Call for Posters is now open - we can't wait to see your fantastic submissions.
Call for Posters open until June 1, 2024 |
The PSA is pleased to announce its first round of PSA24 sponsors for the upcoming biennial meeting in New Orleans: Emerald Sponsors: University of California Irvine, Logic & Philosophy of Science
Platinum Sponsors: Ann Johnson Institute
Gold Sponsors: Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Philosophy Arizona State University, Centre for Biology and Society, Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science Silver Sponsors: The Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
The Institute for Practical Ethics, University of California San Diego Simon Fraser University, Department of Philosophy Bronze Sponsors:
The Center for Public Engagement with Science, University of Cincinnati
Our sponsors help make the PSA biennial meeting possible. Thanks to them, not only are we able to have a high quality meeting but we are also able to keep conference registration more accessible for students. If you are interested in becoming a PSA24 sponsor, please reach out to director@philsci.org. |
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PhilSci Archive - Top 5 Downloads |
PhilSci-Archive is the official preprint repository for the PSA and the best place to host your philosophy of science preprints. It offers a free, stable, and openly accessible archive for scholarly articles and monographs. With PhilSci-Archive, researchers can search the open-access repository and get curated alerts about new work delivered to their inboxes. Many journals encourage authors to post preprints on archives like the PhilSci-Archive in order to increase readership, and historical data suggests that posting to the archive increases a published paper's citation rates (see https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/20778/). Visit philsci-archive.pitt.edu today to create a free account and post your preprints.
The most downloaded preprints for the last 6 months of articles deposited in the previous 2 years are:
Cobb, David (2022) Empiricism in the Philosophy of Science
Wiggleton-Little, Jada and Callender, Craig (2022) Screening Out Neurodiversity
Chen, Eddy Keming (2023) Laws of Physics
Andrews, Mel (2023) The Devil in the Data: Machine Learning & the Theory-Free Ideal.
Shkliarevsky, Gennady (2023) The Emperor with No Clothes: Chomsky Against ChatGPT. |
Calendar of Events & Calls for Papers - Upcoming Dates |
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