Call for Registration: Cyrille Imbert and Mauricio Suárez (online), 22 June, 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm

The IHPST seminar on the epistemology of models organizes a two-talk session on June 22, 2021: 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm (Paris time zone).

We are pleased to welcome Mauricio Suárez (Complutense University of Madrid) and Cyrille Imbert (CNRS - Archives Poincaré).

Here is the link for the meeting:

https://pantheonsorbonne.zoom.us/j/97915179794?pwd=MlpHelBmSWF6TENuS3hJeGZHTnhnUT09

ID of the meeting: 979 1517 9794 Code: 209353

Please find below the titles and the abstracts.

2:00 pm- 3:30 pm - Mauricio Suárez (Complutense University of Madrid) The Complex Nexus of Evolutionary Fitness The propensity nature of evolutionary fitness has long been appreciated and is nowadays amply discussed (Abrams, 2009, 2012; Ariew and Ernst, 2009; Ariew and Lewontin, 2004; Beatty and Finsen, 1989; Brandon, 1978; Drouet and Merlin, 2015; Mills and Beatty, 1979; Millstein, 2003, 2016; Pence and Ramsey, 2013; Sober, 1984, 2001, 2013, 2019; Walsh, 2010; Walsh, Ariew, Mahen, 2016; etc). The discussion has, however, on occasion followed long standing conflations in the philosophy of probability between propensities, probabilities, and frequencies. In this article, I apply a more recent conception of propensities in modelling practice (the ‘complex nexus of chance’, CNC) to some key issues, regarding whether and how fitness is explanatory, and how it ought to be represented mathematically. The ensuing complex nexus of fitness (CNF) emphasises the distinction between biological propensities and the probability distributions over offspring numbers that they give rise to; and how critical it is to distinguish the possession conditions of the underlying dispositional (physical and biological) properties from those of their probabilistic manifestations. 3:30 pm - 5:00 Cyrille Imbert (CNRS - Archives Poincaré) Watch out for ill-conceptualized maps: simulations as secondary, neutral, heterogeneous source of knowledge Whereas philosophers of science have analyzed computer simulations for more than three decades, their epistemological status and how they relate to other sources of knowledge remain unclear. Because simulations do not square well with the traditional division between experimental and theoretical activities, early analysts suggested that they occupy some space in-between theories and experiments. Nevertheless, as Frigg and Reiss (2009) emphasized, it is hard to make clear sense of this idea of in-betweenness. In the present paper, I propose to pursue a methodological stance pioneered by Mary Morgan (2000) within her investigation of "hybrid cases." I adopt a conceptual framework in terms of epistemic sources developed by Robert Audi in epistemology, e.g. to analyze testimony. Then, I investigate more systematically how other sources of knowledge can feed simulations. Because the theoretical side is not much of a problem, I focus on how much simulations can be fed by empirical sources and present rare and hybrid specimens to explore the epistemological space simulations may occupy. The upshot is that, as secondary sources of knowledge, simulations can be fed almost entirely by various sources, provided that these provide the information requested to build-up full-blown computational models. This suggests describing simulations as a (secondary) source of knowledge that is neutral concerning the epistemological types of information that it can process. This also explains why particular token simulations can be so epistemologically heterogeneous. For example, when simulations are fueled empirically (resp. theoretically), one should conclude that they provide derived empirical (resp. theoretical) knowledge. If this is so, trying to locate simulations as a general type of activity somewhere on an epistemological map is a mistake. Because simulations, as a type, are neutral concerning their sources, token simulations can be virtually anywhere on the multi-dimensional map of the epistemological sources that can feed secondary sources of knowledge.

Organizers:

Franck Varenne (franck.varenne@univ-rouen.fr)

Vincent Ardourel ( vincent.ardourel@univ-paris1.fr)

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Vincent Ardourel

IHPST (CNRS - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)