Giere Memorial Lecture in Philosophy of Science
MCPS is pleased to announce the Ronald Giere memorial lecture in philosophy of science, made possible by an estate gift from former MCPS director Ronald Giere, who passed away in 2020.
Giere taught in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University (Bloomington) before moving to the University of Minnesota in 1987 as Professor of Philosophy and MCPS Director. He was widely known for his work on models and scientific representation, articulated in books such as Scientific Perspectivism (2006), which emphasized how models are like maps that represent the world based on the conventions and purposes of the scientists who create them. As a result, they always offer particular and limited points of view. Ron edited several volumes in the Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science, such as Cognitive Models of Science (1992) and Origins of Logical Empiricism (1996). He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a long-time member of the editorial board of the journal Philosophy of Science, and past president of the Philosophy of Science Association. Ron’s book Understanding Scientific Reasoning, now in its fifth edition, was designed to impart intellectual skills for understanding and evaluating science; it is still used as a textbook for the undergraduate course PHIL 1005 Scientific Reasoning.
April 12, 2024, 3:45 PM, University Hall, McNamara Center
Michela Massimi
FRSE, FRAS, MAE, Department of Philosophy, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, The University of Edinburgh.
In this Giere Memorial Lecture I go back to Ron Giere’s seminal work on Scientific Perspectivism (2006) to ask what a scientific perspective is, how it differs from Kuhn’s notion of scientific paradigm, and how it captures the situated knowledge of particular epistemic communities. I then clarify the ontology of nature that I see as naturally accompanying the notion of scientific perspective and its implications for how to think of scientific knowledge as a multicultural enquiry.
A recording of this talk is available on the MCPS Youtube channel.
The inaugural lecture took place on April 28, 2022, 4–6 PM, Best Buy Theater, Northrop.
A recording of the lecture can be seen on our Youtube channel
Nancy Nersessian
Regents' Professor of Cognitive Science Emerita, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology and Research Associate, Department of Psychology, Harvard University.
In this talk, I discuss findings from a cognitive-ethnographic investigation of epistemic practices in cutting-edge research labs in the bioengineering sciences. Specifically, I focus on how researchers in these fields create the innovative methods by which to model – in vitro or computationally – complex biological systems. In addition, I discuss what “integration” means in these interdisciplinary communities, where model-building provides the locus of cognitive, social, material, and cultural integration.