John N Findlay Visiting Professor Lydia Patton To Give Public Lecture
The BU Department of Philosophy is excited to announce that our John N Findlay Visiting Professor for Spring 2022, Lydia Patton, will be giving a public lecture next week. The lecture is titled “Making & Breaking Theories: Multimodal Frameworks in Scientific Theory Change,” and will take place on Wednesday, 2/23/2022, in STH B19 from 4 PM – 6 PM. If you are unable to attend in person or would prefer to attend remotely, you can attend via zoom by going to https://tinyurl.com/buphilofindlay.
After the lecture, a reception will be held in the Department of Philosophy in STH 541.
Below, Professor Patton introduces her lecture with an abstract:
“Two accounts of scientific and epistemic investigation are in competition with each other. One is based on the confirmation of scientific theories, and approaches theories as a source of secure, justified truths about reality. Another approach views science as a constantly changing, exploratory, open-ended pursuit, which is always open to being updated if new evidence is uncovered. This approach views science as open to falsification and testing. The conflict between science as a domain of confirmed results and science as a platform for open-ended testing and revision has frequently played a part in accounts of scientific reasoning. This talk will analyze scientific theories as platforms for scientific research, testing, development, and learning. How can theories be flexible enough to allow for their own falsification? Is it possible to compare theories with respect to the same evidence base? Can evidence be accumulated over time and across theoretical frameworks? The paper will conclude with an epistemological analysis of the role of theories as multimodal frameworks, working from specific examples in contemporary science and from the history of science.”
The John N Findlay Visiting Professorship was created by the Board of Trustees on July 6, 1993 in honor of Professor John Findlay, a former faculty member of the Department of Philosophy and outstanding philosopher. The purpose of this chair is to bring an outstanding associate or full professor of philosophy to Boston University for either one semester or a full academic year. Findlay Visiting Professors, in addition to being present in some form on campus for one to two semesters, also teach one course in the Department of Philosophy, create opportunities for community members to spend time with them, and deliver a public lecture at some point in their term.
We hope that you can attend!