Sydney Centre for the Foundations of Science

• Professor Rachel Ankeny, The University of Adelaide
• Professor Stephen Garton, The University of Sydney
• Professor Stephan Hartmann, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
• Professor Susan Lindee, University of Pennsylvania
• Professor Gerard Milburn, The University of Queensland
• Professor John Norton, University of Pittsburgh

• Professor Warwick Anderson
• Professor Peter Anstey
• Professor David Braddon-Mitchell
• Associate Professor Alan Chalmers
• Professor Stephen Garton
• Emeritus Professor Stephen Gaukroger
• Professor Paul Griffiths
• Dr Daniela Helbig
• Professor Duncan Ivison
• Professor Ian Kerridge
• Professor Mike Michael
• Associate Professor Kristie Miller
• Associate Professor Dominic Murphy
• Associate Professor Hans Pols
• Maureen O'Malley
• Professor Nicolas Rasmussen
• Professor Dean Rickles
• Professor Nick Smith
• Dr Karola Stotz

Visiting professors

• Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith, The University of Sydney
• Professor Stephan Hartmann, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
• Professor Philip Pettit, Princeton University
• Professor Nicolas Rasmussen, The University of NSW

Research fellows

• Dr Victoria McGeer, Princeton University
• Professor Helen Regan, University of California Riverside
• Dr Zach Weber, University of Otago

Affiliates

• Professor Huw Price, University of Cambridge
• Dr Victor Boantza, The University of Sydney

‘Robert Boyle’s blasphemous thoughts’: A public lecture by Professor Michael Hunter

Thursday 30 May 2019
Click here for more information

Themes from the work of Carla Rita Palmerino on Natural Philosophy

4–5 February 2019

Speakers

• Professor Peter Harrison, The University of Queensland
• Emeritus Professor Stephen Gaukroger, The University of Sydney
• Associate Professor Alan Chalmers, The University of Sydney
• John Schuster, The University of Sydney
• Keith Hutchison, The University of Melbourne
• Laura Kotevska
• Dr Luciano Boschiero, Campion College
• Professor Peter Anstey, The University of Sydney
• Catherine Abou-Nemeh, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ
• Professor Carla Rita Palmerino, Radboud University, The Netherlands

Definitions in early modern natural philosophy, logic and mathematics

Friday 13 April 2018

Sponsored by the Sydney Centre for the Foundations of Science

Agenda

• Definitions as principles in early modern natural philosophy
  Professor Peter Anstey, The University of Sydney
• From Pascal to Arnauld and Nicole: definitions in Port Royalist works
  Laura Kotevska, The University of Sydney
• Logic in definitions and the search for the definition of continuity
  James Franklin, The University of NSW
• Newton's definitions
  Kirsten Walsh, The University of Nottingham

MuST10: Causation and complexity
10th Munich-Sydney-Tilburg Conference in the Philosophy of Science

1-3 March 2017, The University of Sydney

Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich
Sydney Centre for the Foundations of Science, University of Sydney
Tilburg Centre for Logic, Ethics and Philosophy of Science, The University of Tilburg

In collaboration with the Centre for Complex Systems, The University of Sydney. This international conference series focused on philosophical issues in the sciences that can be addressed using exact reasoning and which have some potential policy relevance. The conference brought together philosophers and scientists to explore these topics.

Keynote speakers

• Emeritus Professor Stuart Kauffman, University of Pennsylvania
• Professor Anne-Marie Grisogono, Australian National University
• Professor Kevin Korb, Monash University
  

Download conference program (PDF/128KB)

Download abstracts (PDF/2.2MB)

Science and nature in the long 18th century

19 August 2016, The University of Sydney

The workshop examined a broad range of issues pertaining to the study of nature in Germany from the renouvellement of the Berlin Academy in the 1740s to the writings of Hegel in the early 19th century. Disciplinary boundaries and interrelations to specific writings in natural philosophy were also investigated, and we engaged with the thought and writings of Maupertuis, Formey, Kant, Schelling, Fichte and Hegel.

Philosophical and historical dimensions of biological individuality

18-21 July 2016

The problem of what constitutes a biological individual is an old one, but philosophers and historians recently have refreshed and transformed the conceptual field. This winter school explored similarities and differences between the individual of evolutionary theory and the organismal or physiological individual posited in developmental biology or modern immunology. We asked how the individual of natural selection might be related to, or distinguished from, physiological concepts such as the immunological self or other temporally framed entities. 

The fortunes of the speculative sciences in the early modern period

30 October 2015

In the 17th century the status and classification of the speculative sciences underwent significant change. Natural philosophy, for example, moved from being a speculative science to an experimental or practical science. In some quarters there was hostility to ‘speculative philosophy’ and a general devaluing of the epistemic status of the speculative sciences. We examined the causes and implications of such changes, the defenders of the speculative sciences, and the various reconfigurations of this category in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Aviation Cultures Mk II: Technology, culture, heritage

10–11 December 2015
The University of Sydney and the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences 

Aviation has been an important aspect of Australian life for more than a century, yet we've only just begun to explore its cultural impact. From science to sociology, fashion to fiction, this event offered a truly national approach to interpreting the technologies, cultures and collections that embody Australia’s aviation heritage.