International Conference: The Collective Dimension of Science

[Leslie]

All,

I've been asked to circulate details of this conference. Since it
falls well within our interest and has several EPISTEME names
involved, I've agreed to do so.

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International Conference: The Collective Dimension of Science

Nancy, France
date: December 8-10th 2011
(http://poincare.univ-nancy2.fr/TheCollectiveDimensionofScience/?
contentId=8901)

Keynote speakers

- John Greco (Saint Louis University)
- Philip Kitcher (Columbia University)
- Paul Thagard (University of Waterloo)
- John Woods (University of British Columbia)
- Jesus Zamora-Bonilla (UNED, Madrid)

Program Committee

Anouk Barberousse (IHPST, University Paris 1-ENS), Alvin Goldman
(Rutgers), Gerhard Heinzmann (Archives Poincaré, University Nancy 2),
Cyrille Imbert (Archives Poincaré, University Nancy 2), Johannes
Lenhard (University of Bielefeld), Olivier Roy (Ludwig-Maximilian
Universtat, Munich), Roger Pouivet (Archives Poincaré, University
Nancy 2), Jan Sprenger (Tilburg University), John Woods (University of
British Columbia).

Presentation of the conference

The goal of the conference is to discuss philosophical issues related
to the collective aspects of science, especially within computational
science and "big science". While studies within social epistemology
already investigate the social dimension of the production and
validation of beliefs and knowledge, science is not their core object
of study. This conference will be devoted to examining to what extent
a too individualistic and resource-insensitive philosophical
perspective about scientific practices and the making of scientific
knowledge is insufficient and conversely to what extent a focus upon
extended and/or social agents is needed. We wish to create fruitful
interactions between researchers from different fields or subfields
such as philosophy of science, (social) epistemology, epistemic logic,
formal epistemology, philosophy of economics, philosophy of logic but
also mathematics, computer science or cognitive science (especially
distributed cognition).

Though this conference mainly addresses philosophical questions,
submissions in history or sociology of science that are clearly
connected with some of the research questions will also be considered.

The conference language is English.

A few travel grants will be available for students presenting a paper
at the conference. To apply for a travel grant, please send an email
to Cyrille...@univ-nancy2.fr after submitting your abstract and
include a CV with description of status and affiliation.

Organizers
- Anouk Barberousse (CNRS, IHPST - University Paris 1 - ENS) 1
- Cyrille Imbert (CNRS, Archives Poincaré - University Nancy 2)

Information about submissions

We invite submissions of extended abstracts. Submissions should take
the form of an extended abstract of 1000 words. All submissions must
be made electronically through our automatic submission system (see
the submission page) by May 30, 2011 at the latest. Papers should be
suitable for a presentation of around 30 minutes with a 15 minute
question-and-answer session. Decisions will be made by June 30, 2011
and authors notified by the beginning of July. All enquiries about the
call for papers should be addressed to Cyrille...@univ-nancy2.fr.

Questions of interest include, but are not limited to:

- Similarities and differences (definitional, epistemological, etc.)
between individual and collective or computer-based scientific
knowledge
- Description and analysis of collective and/or computational
scientific agents and their capacities
- Role and epistemology of various types of computer (personal
computers, giant computers, parallel computers, etc.)
- How is collective scientific work achieved in practice?
- Scientific understanding within collective and computational science
- Role and modalities of scientific communication within collective
and computational science
- Transmission and diffusion of scientific results: role of images,
formats, summaries, versions of results, etc.
- The epistemology of scientific storage: (open) encyclopedias, public
databases, scientific archives, etc.
- Division and distribution of scientific work, modularity of tasks
and scientific optimality
- Empiricism, conventionalism and pragmatism at the age of collective
and computational science
- Individual and collective scientific rationality
- Tacit knowledge within scientific interactions and practices
- Traditional questions within social epistemology (e.g. expertise,
testimony, judgment aggregation, organization of knowledge
communities, etc.) applied to science
- Comparative approaches between formal and empirical sciences about
the listed topics
- Epistemological issues within “big science” e.g. climate science,
explorative biological research programs (HGP, barcoding of life),
collective science in high-energy physics, etc.

Dates and Deadlines

- May 30 2011: Abstract submission deadline
- June 30 2011: Notification of acceptance
- November 1 2011: Registration deadline
- December 8-10 2011: Conference

Financial support for the conference is provided by the MSH Lorraine,
the Archives Poincaré and the IHPST.