[Deadline approaching] Workshop: "Philosophical and Technological Reflections on Contemporary Cosmology"

[Maria Martinez-Ordaz]

Online Workshop: "Philosophical and Technological Reflections on Contemporary Cosmology"

When: 28-30 January 2026.
Where: Online (Zoom and streamed on the YouTube channel of the UNAM's Institute for Philosophical Research). 

Submission deadline: 30 November 2025.

Keynote speakers:

• Axel Ricardo De la Macorra Pettersson Moriel (Physics Institute, UNAM)
• Siska De Baerdemaeker (Stockholm University)
• Niels Martens (Descartes Center, Utrecht University) 

Motivation and central questions:
In modern times, cosmology has become one of the most epistemically fertile fields of science. Some of its successes are: addressing the Cosmic Microwave Background and its features (temperature, anisotropies, polarization, etc.); accounting for the chemical elements abundances in the universe; the discovery of the isotropic expansion of the universe; the establishment of a model which synthesizes various observations (SNIFS, BOSS, COBE, etc.)  into a relativistic model (of on overall flat geometry) with predictive power; and much more. In spite of this, there are still some philosophical issues concerning not only cosmology as a science of the universe (Ellis, 2001), but also about the complex interactions between theory and evidence (Smeenk, 2017), and the status of theoretical entities whose evidence has been persistently indirect (Martens, 2022).    

The workshop aims to open dialogue across physics and philosophy. We welcome contributions addressing (but not limited to) the following questions:

• The role and status of different kinds of evidence in cosmology. (What counts as evidence in cosmology? How do models, simulations, and observations interact in cosmological practice?)
• Testability and evaluativeness of cosmological theories (How should we evaluate theories that are only indirectly testable?)
• The status of cosmological entities (What is the status of cosmological entities (such as the multiverse, dark matter, or dark energy)?)
• The status of cosmology as a science (What role does cosmology play in shaping our conception of science, knowledge, and the universe as a whole?)

Submission Guidelines:
Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words (references not included), and they should be prepared for blind review. Abstracts must be sent in PDF format to philcosmo...@gmail.com.  

Submission deadline: 30 November 2025.
Notification of acceptance: 15 December 2025.

Scientific Committee:

Daniel Sudarsky Saionz (UNAM),
Abril Suárez-Ramírez (Arkansas State University, Campus Querétaro),
Lydia Patton (Virginia Tech),
René A. Ortega Minakata (IRyA UNAM, Campus Morelia),
Antonio E. Ferreiro de Aguiar (University of Utrecht),
Otávio Bueno (University of Miami),
Atocha Aliseda Llera (UNAM).

Organizing committee: Andrés E. Vázquez-Quijano, Ana Rosa Pérez Ransanz, Luis Estrada-González.

With the support of the UNAM-PAPIIT project IN406225.

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María del Rosario Martínez-Ordaz

Postdoctoral researcher

www.mariamartinezordaz.com/