November 2025

Table of Contents:

Letter from President
PSA26 Website and Hotel Information
Calls for Symposia, Papers, Posters
ISC Statement on research funding transparency
PSA Annual Fund Drive reminder
PhilSci Archive - Top 5 Downloads
Upcoming Events

Letter from President

Since my first newsletter, the Union of Concerned Scientists has catalogued more than 500 attacks on science. Accompanying these actions is a relentless storm of harmful rhetoric and disinformation. The recent “compacts” offered by the administration to universities lay bare the administration’s goal of ideological capture of universities and researchers. These assaults on universities transcend political preference and target core features of our field, e.g., academic freedom, access to scientific data, working conditions free of bias. That is the reason why we were an early signatory to a letter to the US Congress objecting to these incursions.

PSA lost our approximately $15,000 share of a long-standing multi-society NSF grant that helped cover costs for individuals to attend our biennial meetings. This loss is upsetting because disbursements from the grant welcomed many to PSA who otherwise would not be present. At the New Orleans meeting, for example, we were able to cover the expenses of all the philosophers in the UPPS session. To make up for this loss, Executive Director Max Cormendy is busy applying for new grants. We have also launched our first-ever fund drive, which allows donors to choose what they want to support. I urge you to consider giving, even if only a modest amount.

The most severe impacts of the attacks on universities will be felt by individual members. Changes sweeping through many US universities are eliminating or down-sizing programs. The PSA leadership is deeply concerned that these actions will negatively impact a substantial number of our members, especially early career and job-insecure who will find diminished opportunities. In response, we’re developing new early career support programs, both for postdoctoral scholars and for members interested in pursuing non-academic jobs. More information is coming soon, but I’d like to thank President-Elect Alan Love and Max Cormendy for spear-heading these initiatives.

As we face today’s threats to the knowledge institutions (e.g. universities, societies, journalism), it’s perhaps helpful to remember that the PSA was founded by many philosophers of science who were escaping fascism and who then were subject to the McCarthy era in the US, which denied visas, confiscated passports, dismissed employees based on ideology, and surveilled citizens. The situation was very different than our current one, but in both we find threats to the knowledge institutions that are part of the backbone of a functioning democracy. While philosophers of science of course produced the full gamut of normal human reactions to these threats — some brave, others not — many understood how important it is that the knowledge institutions be free to play their role in society.

One was Rudolf Carnap, a founder of the PSA. In 1949, my employers, the University of California Board of Regents, imposed a loyalty oath on employees, one that forbid allegiance to communism. Many faculty refused to sign and were dismissed. Invited to give a distinguished lecture at UC Berkeley (with employment prospects) and to be considered for a visiting professorship at UCLA, Carnap replied that he regarded the “peremptory dismissal of eminent scholars…as a shocking violation of academic freedom” and that therefore as “long as these conditions prevail, I am unwilling to accept an honor from the University.” His letter of protest was included in a UC academic senate report on the high costs incurred by imposing the loyalty oath. Throughout his life Carnap valued academic freedom, and indeed, just weeks before his death, he visited Mexican philosophers Rafael Ruiz Harrell, Nicholas Molina Flores, and Eli de Gortari, who were imprisoned for being part of a teacher’s organization sympathetic to student protests. As we face our current predicament, I hope that we can find inspiration in past acts that demonstrate an unwavering support of academic freedom.

Finally, let me end with some good news. PSA Around the World 2025 has concluded and it was a marvelous event. I thank Tomáš Marvan and Magdalena Malecka for organizing and the many committee members and speakers for their time. Today the call goes out for submissions to the biennial conference PSA26 in beautiful San Diego. Matt Haber and Adina Rockies have generously agreed to chair the conference program and the poster committees, respectively. As we have grown, serving on the Program Committee has become an increasingly onerous commitment. We are therefore experimenting with a new reviewing model that employs a vastly larger review committee than in the past. If the mark of a society is the number of otherwise busy members who volunteer their valuable time, then we must be the healthiest. Over 25% of the current membership now serves on one committee or the other. I can’t think of a better sign of a vibrant society, which bodes well for the continued challenges we are likely to face.

Craig Callender

PSA26 Website and Hotel Information

We are excited to share with our members the new website for PSA 2026. Please note that the website is still under construction and will be updated with more and more information as we draw nearer to the event.

You can find information about the hotel where the event will take place here.

Calls for Symposia, Papers, Posters

Call for Symposium Proposals

Submission opens on December 1, 2025 for proposals for symposia to be presented at the PSA2026 meeting in San Diego, California, on November 19-22, 2026. The deadline for submitting symposium proposals is 11:59 pm Anywhere on Earth (UTC -12) on January 15, 2026. If you need to share the submission link or save it for the future, please do - https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/80555/submitter

A call for contributed papers and a call for posters for the poster forum will be issued separately. Decisions will be returned on symposia submissions prior to the deadline for contributed papers. The call for session chairs will be sent out in late summer 2026. The conference will begin at 8:30 am on November 19 and last through 3:00 pm on November 22.

A symposium should involve several presenters, typically 4-5, organized around a topic of interest in the philosophy of science (broadly construed). The PSA2026 program committee is committed to assembling a program with high-quality symposia on a variety of topics and diverse presenters that reflect the full range of current work in the philosophy of science. Symposia that make connections with current science, such as by including working scientists, or that make other connections outside philosophy, such as with history, sociology, or public policy, are warmly invited.

At the time of submission, proposers may choose to have their proposals considered for the Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Caucus Prize Symposium; for more information, please see https://www.philsci.org/awards.php.

The members of the PSA2026 Program Committee are listed here.

Proposals must include sufficient supporting material to enable the program committee to evaluate the quality and interest of the symposium. Proposals for symposia should include:

The title of the proposed symposium
A short descriptive summary of the proposal (100-200 words)
A description of the topic and a justification of its current importance to the discipline (up to 1000 words)
A list of participants with institutional affiliations and e-mail addresses, including any non-presenting co-authors
Titles and abstracts of all papers (up to 500 words for each title and abstract)
Either an abbreviated curriculum vita or short biographical description (up to 1 page) for each participant, including any non-presenting co-authors

Please note that the program committee has been restructured to better accommodate the volume of submissions. On submission, one of 11 areas must be designated:

General Philosophy of Science
AI and Data Science
Earth & Atmospheric Sciences/Chemistry/Other Special Sciences
Math/Computing/Formal Methods (Probability/Statistics/Decision Theory)
Philosophy of Biology
Philosophy of Medicine & Psychiatry
Philosophy of Neuroscience/Psychology/Cognitive Science/AI
Philosophy of Physics
Philosophy of the Social Sciences
Scientific Modeling & Models
Values & Social Aspects of Science

No extensions will be provided; please ensure that you begin the submission process sufficiently early to do all steps (including account creation, even if you have previously created an account). Symposium organizers will be informed of the program committee’s decision prior to the deadline for submitting contributed papers.

Please note that in accordance with current PSA policy regarding multiple presentations:

No previously published paper may be submitted for presentation at the PSA meeting.

Any individual can be a presenting author in only one symposium proposal. Commentators are considered to be presenting authors. If the same person is a presenting author on multiple symposium proposals, then none of them will be reviewed.

No one is permitted to present more than once at each PSA meeting. Thus, if a symposium proposal in which you are a presenting author is accepted, then you cannot also be the presenting author for a contributed paper. (Note that a scholar may appear as co-author on more than one paper or symposium talk but may present at PSA2026 only once.) A poster in the poster forum does not count as being a presenting author.

If one or more participants subsequently withdraws from an accepted symposium, then continued acceptance of the symposium will be contingent on the symposium organizer developing satisfactory alternatives that maintain both quality and coherence of the session.

After the conference, symposium presenters may submit their papers for review for publication in a supplementary issue of Philosophy of Science. The submission deadline for symposium papers will be announced at a later date, but will be roughly one year after the conclusion of the PSA 2026 meeting. Papers will be evaluated for publication individually, and so there is no requirement that all symposium participants later submit their paper. Authors are welcome to post their symposium papers as PSA2026 Conference Papers at philsci-archive.pitt.edu (a publicly accessible digital archive that does not constitute publication for submission purposes).

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools:

We acknowledge the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research
and writing processes. To ensure transparency, we expect any such use to be declared and described fully to readers, and to comply with best practices regarding citation and acknowledgements. We do not consider artificial intelligence (AI) tools to meet the accountability requirements of authorship, and therefore generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and similar should not be listed as an author on any submitted content.

In particular, any use of an AI tool:

to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s)
to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements.
to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript
must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission

All questions about submissions should be directed to the Chair of the PSA2026 Program Committee, Matt Haber, at psa2026@philsci.org. All general inquiries about PSA2026 should be directed to office@philsci.org.

Call for Contributed Papers

Submissions open on December 1, 2025, for contributed papers to be presented at the PSA2026 meeting in San Diego, California, on November 19-22, 2026. The deadline for submitting a paper is 11:59 pm Anywhere on Earth (UTC -12) on March 15, 2026. https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/80351/submitter

A call for poster submissions for the poster forum will be issued separately. Symposium organizers will be informed of the program committee’s decision prior to the deadline for submitting contributed papers. A call for session chairs will be sent out in summer 2026. The conference will begin at 8:30 am on November 19 and last through 3:00 pm on November 22.

Contributed papers may be on any topic in the philosophy of science. The PSA2026 Program Committee is committed to assembling a program with high-quality papers on a variety of topics and diverse presenters that reflects the full range of current work in the philosophy of science.

The members of the PSA2026 Program Committee are listed here.

Please note that the program committee has been restructured to better accommodate the volume of submissions. On submission, one of 11 areas must be designated:

General Philosophy of Science
AI and Data Science
Earth & Atmospheric Sciences/Chemistry/Other Special Sciences
Math/Computing/Formal Methods (Probability/Statistics/Decision Theory)
Philosophy of Biology
Philosophy of Medicine & Psychiatry
Philosophy of Neuroscience/Psychology/Cognitive Science/AI
Philosophy of Physics
Philosophy of the Social Sciences
Scientific Modeling & Models
Values & Social Aspects of Science

The maximum manuscript length is 4,500 words including abstract and footnotes, but not the list of references. If the manuscript includes tables or figures, an appropriate number of words should be subtracted from the limit. Submissions must include a 100-word abstract and a word count. Format and citation style should match those of Philosophy of Science (see https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/philosophy-of-science/information/author-guidelines for details). Submissions should be prepared for anonymous review, with no information identifying the author in the body of the paper or abstract. Reviewing will be “triple-masked,” with neither reviewers nor the area chairs having access to the author’s identity during the review process.

For co-authored papers, the presenting author should provide the abstract and upload the paper.

All contributed papers that are accepted for presentation at PSA26 will be published in the conference proceedings edition of Philosophy of Science. All authors are encouraged to post their accepted papers as PSA2026 Conference Papers at philsci-archive.pitt.edu (a publicly accessible digital archive) prior to the meeting. Authors of accepted papers are expected to present abbreviated versions of their papers at the conference; the paper presentation should take no more than twenty minutes.

The Program Committee expects to announce its decision on papers accepted by the end of May 2026. Final versions of all papers accepted for publication must be resubmitted in early 2027, we are developing this process now and more information will be forthcoming.

Please note that in accordance with current PSA policy:

Papers submitted to PSA2026 may not be published, accepted for publication, or under review at the time of submission, and they may not be submitted elsewhere for publication as they will be published in the PSA2026 supplementary issue of Philosophy of Science.

At most one contributed paper on which you are the presenting author can be submitted.

In particular, any use of an AI tool:

to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s)
to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements.
to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript
must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission
Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article.

General questions about contributed papers should be directed to the Chair of the PSA2026 Program Committee, Matt Haber, at psa2026@philsci.org.To maintain anonymity in the review process, questions about specific submissions should be sent to office@philsci.org, as this address will be monitored by someone not involved in the review process.

Call For Posters

Submissions will open on December 1, 2025 for abstracts for posters to be presented at the PSA2026 meeting in San Diego, CA. The conference will begin at 8:30 am on November 19 and last through 3:00 pm on November 22. The poster forum will be on the evening of Friday, November 20. The deadline for full consideration of poster abstracts is 12pm, Anywhere on Earth, June 01, 2026. There will be no assistance available from the Executive Office past 5pm EDT on June 01, 2026 and any posters that are not submitted by the deadline will not be eligible for consideration.

https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/80352/submitter

Poster abstracts may be on any research topic in the philosophy of science, the teaching of philosophy of science, outreach related endeavors in philosophy of science, public philosophy/science communication and philosophy of science focused grant projects. The PSA2026 poster committee will strive for quality, variety, innovation, and diversity in accepted abstracts, and we are especially interested in work related to teaching, outreach, and public philosophy/science communication not typically represented on the main program.

The members of the PSA2026 Poster Committee are listed here.

The maximum poster abstract length is 500 words, including any references. Submissions should be prepared for anonymous review, with no information identifying the author in the abstract. Reviewing will be “triple-masked,” with neither reviewers nor the poster committee chair having access to the author’s identity during the review process.

Poster abstracts should be submitted to https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/80352/submitter through Oxford Abstracts, a UK-based conference management system. Select PSA2026 Posters as your submission type and follow the instructions given there. At least one author must be available to present the poster at the poster forum. For coauthored or multi-authored abstracts, the presenting author should provide and upload the abstract; non-presenting co-authors may go to the same site to respond to demographic questions.

The PSA policy regarding multiple submissions to PSA2026 and presenting no more than once on the main program does not apply to poster abstracts. Main program participation and poster forum presentation are not mutually exclusive. A presenting author on a contributed paper or participating in a symposium may also submit one poster abstract on a substantially different topic. If the abstract is accepted, then the author may present (or co-present) the poster at PSA2026.

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools:

In particular, any use of an AI tool:

to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s)
to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements.
to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript
must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission

Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article.

General questions about poster abstracts should be directed to the chair of the PSA2026 Poster Committee, Adina Roskies, at psa26posterforum@philsci.org. To maintain anonymity in the review process, questions about specific submissions should be sent to office@philsci.org, which will be monitored by someone not involved in the review process.

ISC Statement on research funding transparency

The International Science Council (ISC), through its Committee for Freedom and Responsibility in Science (CFRS), has issued a position calling for full transparency in research funding. The Council warns that hidden financial links can distort findings, fuel misinformation, and erode trust in science. It urges researchers, institutions, and journals to routinely disclose all sources of support, emphasizing that funding transparency is a simple, low-cost measure to safeguard integrity and uphold science as a global public good: https://council.science/statements/isc-position-on-research-funding-transparency/

PSA Annual Fund Drive Reminder

The Philosophy of Science Association is a vibrant and growing professional organization. Although we continue our distinctive tradition of bringing together the world's leading philosophers, scientists, and thinkers at our biennial meeting and through our journal to explore fundamental questions that shape how we investigate and understand the world, Over the past ten years, the passion and vision of our members have influenced PSA functioning to create important initiatives and augment its reach (e.g., Under-Represented Philosophy of Science Scholars, the DEI Caucus, and PSA Around the World). As science and other institutions come under unprecedented fire, the strategic importance of PSA as a scholarly professional organization engaged in a wide variety of activities becomes even more salient.

For many years, PSA was funded almost completely by journal publishing income and member dues. Although PSA is currently fiscally healthy, our publishing income has decreased and we can’t increase member dues to cover all our expenses, especially rising costs that directly impact biennial meeting expenses. Additionally, funding from longstanding partners, such as the National Science Foundation is no longer reliable. In today’s world, there is strength in having diverse funding streams so that we can not only continue our signature efforts but continue to develop new initiatives that benefit our membership and give us a voice in broader societal conversations.

Building the capacity of our PSA community includes offering opportunities for all our members and partners to contribute. As current Chair of the Fundraising Committee for PSA, I am excited to announce our first ever Annual Fund Campaign. In conjunction with the upcoming launch of our new website and new membership platform and levels, we’re inviting all PSA members to participate. Your contribution will help us maintain and enhance the vital work of our society. Gifts at every level make a difference:

$35 supports the infrastructure for PSA Around the World

$75 advances our initiatives for graduate students and early career scholars

$150 defrays registration costs for a student to attend our biennial conference

$300 contributes to our conference travel fund

Join with me today and help us achieve our goal of $15,000. You can see where we stand currently with our fundraising “thermometer” on our donation page. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.

With Thanks,
Alan C. Love

PSA President-Elect
PSA Fundraising Committee Chair

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:

Potiron, Aline (2025) Beyond the Microscope: Rethinking Microbial Diversity Measurement with the Model-Based Account.

Ardourel, Vincent and Bangu, Sorin (2023) Finite-size scaling theory: Quantitative and qualitative approaches to critical phenomena.

Scerri, Eric (2024) The Born-Oppenheimer approximation and its role in the reduction of chemistry.

Chen, Eddy Keming (2023) Laws of Physics

Leonelli, Sabina and Mussgnug, Alexander (2025) Convenience AI.

Upcoming Events

11/30/2025 - Call for Papers — Journal of Cognitive Science (JCS)

12/1/2025 - CFP: Gametic Politics: Eggs, Sperm, and Gender/Sex in the 21st Century

12/1/2025 - Philosophy of Medicine - call for applications for a new Editor-in-Chief

12/1/2025 - Call for Papers: Irrationality and the Age of AI

12/4/2025 - Public Forum: The Ethics of Cryptocurrency