Category: Philosophy of Science

Organized by the research project “Appearance and Reality in Physics and Beyond,” this year’s “Method and Convergence” conference will take place at the University of Helsinki from June 25 to 27, bringing “together thinkers exploring philosophical methodology from different viewpoints. The focus is on the question of what kind of methodology could foster progress in philosophy, and on the question of how philosophy could foster progress in science.” Experimental philosophy is also taken into account (see below).

Abstracts for presentations can be submitted until March 15. The call reads:

Method and Convergence 2025 conference brings together thinkers exploring philosophical methodology from different viewpoints. The focus is on the question of what kind of methodology could foster progress in philosophy, and on the question of how philosophy could foster progress in science, as characterized below, after the sumission instructions. However, we welcome contributions about all important aspects of philosophical methodology.

Abstract submission

Submit your max. 1 page abstract using this template (link can also be found below).

Send your abstract to avril.styrman(at)helsinki.fi by March 15 2025. You will be informed of the approval of your speech in the conference by March 31. After the conference, each speaker may submit an article to the conference proceedings.

The conference team will arrange the peer review process of the articles. The articles accepted by the conference team will be submitted to Acta Philosophica Fennica, whose editors will review the articles independently of the conference team.

• Download the abstract template here

How can philosophy foster progress in science?

We invite case studies about ways in which philosophy has fostered progress in special sciences, and about ways in which philosophy could foster scientific progress.

How can scientific methods foster progress in philosophy?

The 20th and 21st century philosophical literature and the PhilPapers 2009 and 2020 surveys show that philosophy lacks processes that efficiently yield consensus on solutions to long-standing problems and preferences among competing theories (Chalmers 2009; Slezak 2018; Dellsén et al. 2024). In this sense, philosophy differs significantly from the special sciences. Sometimes the non-convergence into consensus stems not from the topics themselves, but from the methods of analysis. This raises the question of whether scientific methods could foster science-like convergence in philosophy, enabling more systematic accumulation of results and increasingly complete answers to fundamental questions, much like sciences where historical debates become irrelevant (Gutting 2016, pp. 323–5). This leads us to strongly interrelated naturalist themes.

Methodology and progress of philosophy

We invite case studies about what kind of progress has taken place in philosophy, and what kind of progress has been absent, and what kinds of methods, alone or together, could foster progress in the field. Although the focus is on the interplay of philosophy and science, we welcome insights about any known (and yet unknown) philosophical methods such as phenomenology, pragmatism, conceptual analysis, hermeneutics, analysis of language, discourse analysis, transcendental method, and thought experiments.

– Evaluation criteria of philosophical theories. We seek contributions that examine criteria for philosophical theories, preferably with case examples demonstrating how such criteria guide theory selection. From the naturalist viewpoint, we may ask whether science provides criteria that could make the selection between rival philosophical theories with the same function more objective and unequivocal than, for instance, plain intuition and reflecting equilibrium? The frequently cited virtues of scientific theories include accuracy, explanatory depth, internal consistency, ontological simplicity and unity, diachronic virtues (or fruitfulness over time), and external coherence (consistency and inferential relations with background knowledge or other well-regarded theories) (Kuhn 1977; McMullin 1982, 2014; Keas 2018). Brenner’s (2017) defense of simplicity as a criterion in metaphysics exemplifies this approach.

– Invention of ontological commitments. Ontological commitments are indispensable in the buildup of metaphysical theories, and we need the element of discovery if we want new sciences to emerge from philosophy. We invite contributions examining the invention or induction of new ontological commitments (Norton 2021; Schurz and Hütteman 2024; Arenhart and Arroyo 2021), as well as those addressing how strongly philosophers should adhere to ontological commitments of contemporary scientific theories, given Kuhn’s view that science advances through paradigm shifts.

– From pluralism to syntheses. The Vienna Circle Pamphlet dictates: “The goal ahead is unified science. The endeavor is to link and harmonize the achievements of individual investigators in their various fields of science.” However, the opposite trend has dominated philosophy since logical positivism: system-building has given way to analyzing details. In contrast, in many other areas of science and life, it is considered natural to build functional totalities out of parts. We invite submissions exploring how to better leverage the wealth of detailed philosophical investigations by counterbalancing specialization with unification. For instance, Ingthorsson (2019) argues that multiple theories of truth can be considered complementary views instead of considering them as rivals. Can you make a similar argument concerning other sets of theories or views that are typically considered as rivals?

– Philosophical theories as axiomatic systems. We invite submissions exploring ways to clarify concepts and to unify detailed aspects of topics by formulating metaphysical theories as axiomatic systems (De Jong and Betti 2010), with ontological commitments as primitive axioms/postulates, concepts defined in terms of them, and semantics mapped to them. In logic, an axiomatic system is expressed in a formal language and typically coupled with a proof system. However, a philosophical theory does not always need to be formal and typically does not require an explicit proof system, no more than Euclid’s Elements and Newton’s Principia did.

– Causal-mechanical explanations in philosophy. Mechanisms are entities and activities organized such that they are productive of regular changes from start or set-up to finish or termination conditions (Machamer et al. 2000). The core idea of mechanistic accounts is that causation is the activities of compound parts of organized wholes that produce changes in either whole and/or parts (Ingthorsson 2024). Causal-mechanical explanation and the axiomatic method play together very well. For instance, Newtonian mechanics is an axiomatic system that postulates hypothetical laws of nature that function in the context of an overall mechanism, namely, Keplerian Solar System. We invite contributions about the role of causal-mechanical explanations in metaphysics, or similar non-causal-mechanical explanations in metaphysics, such as in Trogdon (2018).

– Experimental philosophy typically investigates philosophical questions through methods of behavioral and social science. What kind of progress has taken place in different domains of experimental philosophy, such as rational thinking and moral judgment, mean? For instance, has experimental philosophy enhanced conceptual analysis and how? How has experimental philosophy influenced non-experimental philosophy? Are empiricists overlooking any philosophical tools that could enrich their interpretation of experimental results?