From April 11 to 12, 2026, the conference “Social Ontology and Empirical Inquiry – Conflicts and Connections” will take place at the University of Pittsburgh. The conference page reads:
We are pleased to announce a two-day interdisciplinary workshop hosted by the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, focusing on the intersection of social metaphysics and empirical research in the social sciences.
The workshop aims to foster dialogue between philosophers and social scientists who are interested in the nature of social reality and in how conceptual and empirical approaches to understanding it can be fruitfully integrated.
Social scientists and philosophers have long sought to clarify what it means for entities such as races, genders, institutions, and social structures to exist and to act. Meanwhile, empirically-oriented social scientists have developed increasingly sophisticated methods for measuring, modeling, and explaining such phenomena. This workshop will bring these conversations together to explore the conflicts and connections between conceptual–theoretical frameworks and empirical–methodological practices in the study of the social world.
Organizing Committee
- Kareem Khalifa, UCLA
- Edouard Machery, University of Pittsburgh
- Mark Risjord, Emory
- David Thorstad, Vanderbilt
Confirmed Keynotes
The program will include keynote talks and panels by both philosophers and social scientists, including scholars such as:
- Petri Ylikoski (University of Helsinki)
- Brian Epstein (Tufts University)
- Aliya Saperstein (Stanford University)
- Issa Kohler-Hausmann (Yale Law School)
Guiding Questions
- What kinds of things are social entities – individuals, groups, institutions, norms, and categories such as race and gender?
- How can such entities be both socially constructed and real?
- What is the relationship between social ontology and social measurement?
- How should metaphysical theories about the nature of the social world inform, or be informed by, empirical research designs?
- Do social explanations involve forms of causation, mechanism, or structure that differ from those in the natural sciences?
- How can philosophical analysis of social kinds enrich empirical debates about classification, comparability, and operationalization?
Format
The workshop will include:
- 30-minute contributed presentations (20 minutes presentation + 10 minutes Q&A)
- Keynote lectures by invited speakers
- A roundtable discussion on future directions in social ontology and empirical research