Forthcoming Philosophy events

Suffering beyond experience

A Philosophy Colloquium event

Contingency, Mortality, and Human Limits

A Philosophy Colloquium event

Structuralism and Fictionalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics

The abstract character of mathematics raises difficult philosophical questions as to the nature and existence of mathematical entities, such as numbers, functions, sets, groups, graphs, and number systems.  This conference will explore such questions from the perspective of two different traditional approaches, viz. “mathematical structuralism” and “mathematical fictionalism”. The main objective of the conference is to re-evaluate these perspectives and to consider the relationship between them. 

Scripture, God, and Time

Abstract:  The Bible seems to depict God doing some things before others.  Further, it applies past and future tenses to God (“in the beginning was the Word”).  Thus many recent thinkers hold that the Biblical God is in time, and that divine timelessness is foreign to the Bible.  This claim is too simple.  Some texts which seem to depict a temporal God may well not, and on a legitimate reading, one passage in Scripture requires divine timelessness.  The Biblical evidence points both ways, to some extent, and it is a contentious interpretive matter whether to prioritize texts that favor divine temporality or texts that point to timelessness.

The British Society for the Philosophy of Science 2024 Annual Conference

In addition to selected individual talks and symposia, there will be a presidential address from James Ladyman (Bristol), a keynote from Fiona MacPherson (Glasgow) and a plenary panel discussion on Working with Scientists, featuring Marta Halina (Cambridge), Ann C Thresher (Stanford) and James Wakefield (Exeter), and chaired by Adrian Currie (Exeter).