Amanda Nichols (Oklahoma Christian University), Myron Penner (Trinity Western University) In the late 19th century, Sophus Jørgensen proposed structures for cobalt complexes that utilized the more developed bonding principles of organic chemistry and the reigning understanding of valence. Similar t...

Brendan Fleig-Goldstein (University of Pittsburgh) Why might a scientist want to establish a cognitive model as rational or “optimal” in some sense (e.g., relative to some normal environment)? In this presentation, I argue that one motivation for finding optimal cognitive models is to facilitate...

Nicolas Fillion (Simon Fraser University) I discuss epistemologically unique difficulties associated with the solution of mathematical problems by means of the finite element method. This method, used to obtain approximate solutions to multidimensional problems within finite domains with possibly ir...

Archie Fields III (University of Calgary) Recently it has been argued that agent-based simulations which involve using the Prisoner’s Dilemma and other game-theoretic scenarios as a means to study the evolution of cooperation are seriously flawed because they lack empirical support and explanatory...

Benjamin Jantzen (Virginia Tech), Cruz Davis (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Recently, one of us presented a paper on the history of “algorithmic discovery” at an academic conference. As we intend the term, algorithmic discovery is the production of novel and plausible empirical generaliz...

Aleta Quinn (University of Idaho) I teach “environmental philosophy,” “philosophy of biology” and related undergraduate courses. In this poster I reflect on what is/are the purpose(s) of teaching these courses, and in turn how I should teach. I am presenting this paper at a major scientific ...

Ananya Chattoraj (University of Calgary)  Modal reasoning arises from the use of expressions with modal operators like “necessary” or “possibly.” This type of reasoning arises in science through reasoning about future possibilities. Alethic modal reasoning is instantiated in science thr...

Frank Faries (University of Cincinnati) Mechanistic integration, of the kind described by Craver and Darden (2013), is, at first glance, one way to secure sensitivity to the norms of mechanistic explanation in integrative modeling. By extension, models in systems neuroscience will be explanatory to ...

Katherine Valde (Boston University) This poster will contrast the expectations generated by using mechanistic vs. process frameworks in biomedical sciences. A traditional mechanistic framework looks at a system in terms of entities and activities – it looks to finitely characterize the properties ...

Marco Forgione In the present work I argue that the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics displays a holistic machinery that allows one to predict and explain the total amplitude of the quantum system.  The machinery shows that it is not the single path that counts, but rather, it is t...

Cristin Chall (University of South Carolina)  The Standard Model (SM) is one of our most well tested and highly confirmed theories. However, physicists, perceiving flaws in the SM, have been building models describing physics that goes beyond it (BSM). Many of these models describe alternatives...

Yann Benétreau-Dupin (San Francisco State University) This poster presents the goals, method, and encouraging results of the first iteration of a course titled “The Art(s) of Quantitative reasoning”. It is a successful example of a STEAM (i.e., STEM+Arts) teaching experiment that reli...

Dasha Pruss (University of Pittsburgh) A flurry of failed experimental replications in the 21st century has led to the declaration of a "replication crisis" in a number of experimental fields, including psychology and medicine. Recent articles (e.g., Hutson, 2018) have proclaimed a similar crisis in...

Jessey Wright (Stanford University) The turn towards practice saw philosophers become more engaged with methodological and theoretical issues arising within particular scientific disciplines. The nature of this engagement ranges from close attention to published scientific research and archival mate...

Shereen Chang (University of Pennsylvania)  What is the significance of learning conditions for inferences about cognition in general? Consider the case of Alex the grey parrot, who was trained by researcher Irene Pepperberg to use English words in their appropriate contexts. When presented wit...

Mahi Hardalupas (University of Pittsburgh), Alessandra Buccella (University of Pittsburgh)  The Extended Mind Theory of cognition (EMT) claims that cognitive processes can be realized, or partially realized outside of the biological body. Unsurprisingly, proponents of EMT have become increasing...

Daniel Molter (University of Utah), Bryn Dentinger (University of Utah)  Is the Humongous Fungus really the world’s largest organism?  ‘World’s largest organism’ is often referenced in philosophy of biology, where it serves as something of a type specimen for the organism category,...

Martin Zach (Charles University) It has long been argued that idealized model schemas cannot provide us with factive scientific understanding, precisely because these models employ various idealizations; hence, they are false, strictly speaking (e.g., Elgin 2017, Potochnik 2015). Others defend a mid...

Peter Fazekas (University of Antwerp) The mechanistic framework traditionally comes bundled with a levelled view of reality, where different entities forming part-whole relations reside at lower and higher levels. Here it is argued that contrary to the standard understanding and the claims of its ow...

Yoshinari Yoshida (University of Minnesota), Alan Love (University of Minnesota)  Confirmed empirical generalizations are central to the epistemology of science. Through most of the 20th century, philosophers focused on universal, exceptionless generalizations — laws of nature — a...

Walter Veit This paper argues for the explanatory power of EGT models in three distinct but closely related ways. First, following Sugden and Aydinonat & Ylikoski I argue that EGT models are created parallel worlds i.e. surrogate systems in which we can explore particular (evolutionary) mechanis...

Hernan Felipe Bobadilla Rodriguez (University of Vienna) Scientists often resort to computer simulations to explain and understand natural phenomena. Several philosophers of science claim that these epistemic goals are related: Explanations provide understanding. Controversially, while some philosop...

Imran Thobani (Stanford University) The recent development of deep learning models of parts of the brain such as the visual system raises exciting philosophical questions about how these models relate to the brain. Answering these questions could help guide future research in computational neuroscie...

Leonard Finkelman (Linfield College) Nearly all species that have ever evolved are now extinct. Despite its ubiquity, theorists have generally neglected to clarify the concept (Raup 1992). In the most extensive conceptual analysis currently available, Delord (2007) distinguishes three senses by whic...

Philipp Haueis (Berlin School of Mind and Brain) Neural structures with multiple functions make it unclear when we have successfully described what a structure does when it works. Several recent accounts attempt to tackle this problem of multifunctionality differently. Rathkopf (2013) proposes an in...

Jason Kay (University of Pittsburgh)  Humeans in metaphysics have two main desiderata for a theory of laws of nature. They want the laws to be a function of facts about the distribution of fundamental physical properties. They also want the laws to be epistemically accessible to science unaided...

Jeremy Wideman (Dalhousie University) There are two broad views of how to define biological functions. The selected effects (SE) view of function requires that functions be grounded in “the historical features of natural selection” (Perlman 2012), whereas the causal role (CR) view does not (Cumm...

Jens Harbecke (Witten/Herdecke University), Oron Shagrir (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)  At the heart of the so-called "mechanistic view of computation" lies the idea that computational explanations are mechanistic explanations. Mechanists, however, disagree about the precise role that th...

Alexandra Bradner Given the accelerating pace of the biological sciences, there is arguably no more relevant, useful, and appealing course in the philosophical arsenal right now than the philosophy of biology. We are a scientifically illiterate nation, and philosophers of biology are poised to respo...

Nuhu Osman Attah (University of Pittsburgh)  In this presentation I defend the “autonomy thesis” regarding the identification of psychological kinds, that is the claim that what psychological kinds there are cannot be determined solely by neuroscientific criteria, but must depend also on ps...