Auditorium D154, Dragvoll Campus, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Friday-Saturday June 15th-16th 2007
Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophical enquiry concerned with the most general and basic features of reality; but what exactly is its status vis à vis natural scientific studies of the world? In the course of the twentieth century, traditional philosophical concepts like time, space and not least mind have been expropriated by natural science, a development which might naturally lead to sceptical doubts about the need for peculiarly metaphysical enquiry. Does the advancement of science and of naturalistic conceptions of various different aspects of reality really threaten metaphysics in this way: do we still need metaphysics? Or do the central ideas of science in fact cry out for metaphysical clarification? If metaphysics is a viable discipline, what exactly is its status? Is it an a priori or a posteriori affair? Is it continuous with or largely disjoint from science? Does it interact with science, and if so how? Is there progress in metaphysics, as there is, we presume, in natural science? The contributors to the workshop have been asked to address themselves to this problem area in their talks.
Contributors:
Hilary Kornblith (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Alexander Bird (University of Bristol)
E. Jonathan Lowe (University of Durham)
Kjetil Audsen (NTNU)
Magne Dybvig (NTNU)
Jonathan Knowles (NTNU)
Ronny Myhre (NTNU)
Truls Wyller (NTNU)
The workshop is organized by the Philosophy Department in cooperation with Vitenskapsteoretisk forum, NTNU.
Requests for further information and registration by latest 21st May (free, includes coffee both days and lunch on Friday 15th June) to Jonathan.Knowles@hf.ntnu.no.
