I should have posted this before the actual event, but since the event was so great–actually metaphysicians and philosophers of physics actually talked to one another!–I though I’d post anyway. Particularly as this workshop is intended to be the first of a series. So here is the announcement:
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY
September 13–14, 2013
This workshop series aims to advance collaboration between metaphysicians and philosophers of physics as well as to promote and evaluate the status of metaphysics relative to fundamental scientific research. Each workshop in the series will focus on a narrow, emerging topic of research in fundamental metaphysics (the emergence of ordinary objects in fundamental physical ontologies that lack a space-time framework, the role of symmetries in fundamental metaphysics, and finally, the status of dynamical laws, causation, and change) and bring together leading philosophers working on that topic from two different perspectives (metaphysics and philosophy of physics). The aim is to initiate new connections between these two groups and evaluate their common goals and place within the larger academic community.
Schedule of talks:
Friday, September 13
9:00–10:10 David Albert (Columbia), “Primitive Ontology”
10:25–11:35 Valia Allori (Northern Illinois), “Primitive Ontology and Laws of Nature”
1:15–2:25 Jonathan Schaffer (Rutgers), “Is There an Explanatory Gap Between the Wave and the Pointer?”
2:40–3:50 Karen Bennett (Cornell), “The Nonfundamental”
4:05–5:15 David Chalmers (NYU), “Finding Space in a Nonspatial World”
Saturday, September 14
9:00–10:10 Raul Saucedo (Yale), “Collective Fundamentality”
10:25–11:35 Ned Hall (Harvard), “Ink on Paper”
12:30–1:40 Christian Wüthrich (UC San Diego), “Building Bridges: Potential Lessons from Quantum Gravity”
1:50–3:00 Barry Loewer (Rutgers), “What Gives Direction to Time?”
For more information, please visit
