Enno Fischer

Flexible or Rigid? A Functionalist Approach to Epistemic Standards Epistemic standards have attracted some attention in recent discussions in social epistemology and philosophy of science. Yet these discussions typically lack a more general approach to what standa...

Standards like 'A4 paper' make life easier, but some situations call for custom solutions. Our new article explores the tension between rigidity and flexibility in 'epistemic' standards—rules for what we can justifiably claim to know.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
#philsci #philsky

Screenshot of a journal article titled "Two ontogenetic challenges to trait individuation" by Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda, published in Synthese (2025) 205:219. The abstract reads: "Trait individuation is an epistemically indispensable and heuristically fruitful practice in biological science. However, important ontological issues transcend an epistemology-only reading of what trait individuation entails (e.g., adaptation and homology), prompting scholars to advance models and frameworks to grapple with this problem. Here, I articulate two challenges that arise when advancing theories and frameworks to tackle trait individuation: the synchronicity and the diachronicity challenges. The synchronicity challenge involves specifying the traits an organism has at a given moment in ontogeny, whereas the diachronicity challenge involves understanding the causal processes that drive trait individuation in development and tracing these units across time. To delve deeper, I introduce extant functionalist and structuralist perspectives on trait individuation and evaluate how they address both challenges. Overcoming these challenges is necessary for such accounts to fulfill their theoretical promise of individuating the traits that organisms have in an ontologically sound way."

“Traits” are central units of biological analysis—but how should they be individuated, and relative to which ontogenetic frame of reference? In my new paper, I argue that answering this isn’t easy—and matters more than it seems. 📃👇 link.springer.com/article/10.1... #philsci #HPBio #evosky #evodevo

Rationally warranted promise: the virtue-economic account of pursuit-worthiness - Synthese Pursuing a scientific idea is often justified by the promise associated with it. Philosophers of science have proposed various ways of unpacking this idea of promise, including more specific indicator...

How do economic concepts relate to the promise of foundational research? In our new paper, we propose an account of scientific pursuitworthiness that spells out talk of 'costs' and 'benefits' in terms of theoretical virtues.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
#philsci #philsky #HPS

Job ad for position in DFG project: "Progress through Principles: An Epistemology of Foundational Assumptions Guiding Contemporary Physics"

Apply to join a team of wonderful colleagues at Philosophy at TU Dresden. I am advertising a 3-year PhD position in philosophy of science/philosophy of physics as part of the DFG project 'Progress through Principles', deadline 28.06.2024. For details: tinyurl.com/3eb2f667
#philsci #philsky

Call for papers announcement from the European Journal for Philosophy of Science, published by Springer. The special issue is titled 'The Pursuitworthiness of Experiments Across the Sciences,' with guest editors Enno Fischer (TU Dresden) and Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda (KU Leuven). The new deadline for submissions is 30 June 2025.

What makes a particular #experiment 'pursuitworthy'? Do criteria differ across scientific fields? @ennofischer.bsky.social & I have extended the deadline for submissions to our topical collection on these issues. Please help us spread the word! 👇 tu-dresden.de/gsw/phil/iph... #philsci #philsky #HPS

New GWP (German Soc for Phil of Sci) Executive Committee (2025-28), left to right: Michael Jungert (Managing Director), Enno Fischer (Treasurer), Lena Kästner (Vice President), Mathias Frisch, Anna Leuschner, Axel Gelfert (President). (Not pictured: Simon Friederich, JGPS representative) #philsci 👍

The life cycle of scientific principles—a template for characterizing physical principles - Synthese Scientific principles can undergo various developments. While philosophers of science have acknowledged that such changes occur, there is no systematic account of the development of scientific princip...

How do physical principles develop? We show that there are 5 processes: prehistory, elevation, formalization, generalization and challenge. For some principles these work better than for others. What does that tell us about such principles? See here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#PhilSci

Call for Papers for special issue of @epsaphilsci.bsky.social on
“The Pursuitworthiness of Experiments Across the Sciences”
Guest Editors: @ennofischer.bsky.social & @afabregastejeda.bsky.social
Deadline: 30 April 2025
#PhilSci

Guiding principles in physics - European Journal for Philosophy of Science Guiding principles are central to theory development in physics, especially when there is only limited empirical input available. Here I propose an approach to such principles looking at their heurist...

Whence the heuristic power of physical guiding principles such as correspondence and naturalness? In this article I argue that it arises from the way guiding principles integrate principles of nature and action principles. #philsci #philsky #Physics link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Promotional image announcing the call for papers for the topical collection "The Pursuitworthiness of Experiments Across the Sciences" to be published in the European Journal for Philosophy of Science (Guest Editors: Enno Fischer and Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda). The call for papers runs from November 1, 2024 to April 20, 2025.

How do we judge whether a particular experiment is 'pursuitworthy'? What factors need to be considered? @ennofischer.bsky.social & I are receiving submissions exploring these & related questions for a topical collection in EJPS! Please help us spread the word! tu-dresden.de/gsw/phil/iph... #philsci

Das Institut für Philosophie @tudresden.bsky.social hat eine sog. Lektor*innen-Stelle im Angebot, für Fachdidaktik der Philosophie und Ethik. 100%, 12 SWS, unbefristet.
Deadline: 06.12. -- Gerne teilen! Wir sind ein sehr nettes, junges Institut (hab ich gehört 😏) #philsky

The SOCRATES group – Social Credibility and Trustworthiness of Expert Knowledge and Science-Based Information – invites applications for senior fellowships and postdoctoral fellowships (2-12 months) at Leibniz University Hannover, Germany. More info here: www.socrates.uni-hannover.de/en/opportuni...

ROTO fellow @afabregastejeda.bsky.social will edit a topical collection in the European Journal for Philosophy of Science together with @ennofischer.bsky.social. Anybody working on pursuitworthiness of experiments in science, look at the CfP here: tu-dresden.de/gsw/phil/iph...

Promotional image announcing the call for papers for the topical collection "The Pursuitworthiness of Experiments Across the Sciences" to be published in the European Journal for Philosophy of Science (Guest Editors: Enno Fischer and Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda). The call for papers runs from November 1, 2024 to April 20, 2025.

What makes a particular scientific experiment 'pursuitworthy? @ennofischer.bsky.social and I are very excited to edit a topical collection on this issue for the EJPS! Get in touch with us if you are interested & please help us spread the word! CfP 📢👇 tu-dresden.de/gsw/phil/iph... #philsci #philsky

We are excited to announce the next ROTO workshop: "Flora in Focus: Tracing the Roots of Plants in History, Philosophy & Society". It will bring together a fantastic group of philosophers, historians, and scientists! 28-29 November 2024! rotoworkshop2024.wixsite.com/flora
#philsci #philbio #histsci

SWIP-Jahrestagung Strukturelle Ungerechtigkeit Die diesjährige Tagung der Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP Germany) wird von Tamara Jugov, Viktoria Knoll und Jana Stern zum Thema "Strukturelle Ungerechtigkeit" an der TU Dresden organisiert. Z...

Herzliche Einladung zur SWIP Jahrestagung 2024 in Dresden, @tudresden.bsky.social, zum Thema 'Strukturelle Ungerechtigkeit'

Freitag, 08. November // ab 13 Uhr // Keynote: Katharine Jenkins (Glasgow)

Anmeldung bis 25.10 // Infos: tud.link/rdvju1

#philsky
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Join a team of wonderful colleagues at Philosophy at TU Dresden. I am advertising a 3-year PhD position in philosophy of science, deadline 28.06.2024. For details see the official job ad: tinyurl.com/24rwtdsy
#philsci #philsky #philosophy #histsci #philtech #hpsbio

I am really excited to announce an edited volume that I have prepared with my dear colleagues Jan Baedke, Guido Prieto & Greg Radick: “The Riddle of Organismal Agency: New Historical and Philosophical Reflections,” coming out soon! www.routledge.com/The-Riddle-o... #philsci #HPBio #philsky #histsci

Bodies of evidence: The ‘Excited Delirium Syndrome’ and the epistemology of cause-of-death inquiry “Excited Delirium Syndrome” (ExDS) is a controversial diagnosis. The supposed syndrome is sometimes considered to be a potential cause of death. Howev…

"Excited Delirium Syndrome" is a problematic diagnosis applied to deaths involving police violence. Here Saana Jukola and I analyze the epistemic conditions of forensic medicine that make the diagnosis so problematic: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#philsci #philsky #hpsbio #histsci

Congratulations, Stefano!

Broken brakes and dreaming drivers: the heuristic value of causal models in the law - European Journ... Recently, there has been an increased interest in employing model-based definitions of actual causation in legal inquiry. The formal precision of such approaches promises to be an improvement over mor...

The driver failed to brake, but the brakes were broken anyway. What’s the cause of the accident?

See my new article discussing the heuristic roles that causal models can play for solving such legal cases with complex causal structure. doi.org/10.1007/s131...

#PhilSci #philsky #LawSky

New year, new paper with @simonlohse.bsky.social on @natureportfolio.bsky.social HSSC!

Looking back at epistemic battles during the COVID-19 pandemic, we present pluralism and contextualism as key ways to improve evidence-based policy.

doi.org/10.1057/s415...

#philsci #philsky #stssky

The promise of supersymmetry - Synthese Supersymmetry (SUSY) has long been considered an exceptionally promising theory. A central role for the promise has been played by naturalness arguments. Yet, given the absence of experimental finding...

Is supersymmetry a promising theory? Here is a new philosophical analysis of naturalness arguments for SUSY showing that some of these arguments have been overstated from the start. #PhilSci #HistSci #philsky #metascience #Physics link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Before the year ends, explore the December issue of JGPS! An obituary for Laudan, the dispute on scientific realism, quantum jumps, categorical monism, evolutionary perspectives on cooperation, functional approaches to causation, modal empiricism & more #philsci! 👇 link.springer.com/journal/1083...

The promise of supersymmetry - Synthese Supersymmetry (SUSY) has long been considered an exceptionally promising theory. A central role for the promise has been played by naturalness arguments. Yet, given the absence of experimental finding...

Is supersymmetry a promising theory? Here is a new philosophical analysis of naturalness arguments for SUSY showing that some of these arguments have been overstated from the start. #PhilSci #HistSci #philsky #metascience #Physics link.springer.com/article/10.1...

S2 Ep 11 - Hasok Chang on Epistemic Iteration - The HPS Podcast - Conversations from History, Philos... Our very special guest today is Hasok Chang. Hasok is Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and his research focuses on 'taking the most obvious items of scient...

"We get this instinct that true science must start from a firm foundation. Time and again, that's what I see NOT happening in the practice of science. We start from where we stand. The foundation is never indubitable, the foundation is provisional."

Hasok Chang in our latest ep. Out Now!

#PhiSci 🧪

Mathias Frisch (left) and Torsten Wilholt (right) sitting in front of a bookcase

An outstanding achievement: Our colleagues Torsten Wilholt and Mathias Frisch have been awarded the Science Award of Lower Saxony 2023 (Wissenschaftspreis Niedersachsen)! www.uni-hannover.de/de/universit...

Our #SOCRATESgroup @UniHannover started work 6 weeks ago! Over the course of 4 years, fellows from all over the world will engage in interdisciplinary exchange on scientific credibility & trust in science at this #DFG funded #CentreforAdvancedStudies
t1p.de/t8skq

Join us this Thursday for the next talk in the ROTO lecture series! Alkistis Elliott-Graves (Bielefeld University) will discuss the epistemic success criteria of "applied predictions" in ecological research. Please register in this link 👇 rotorub.wordpress.com/roto-lecture... #PhilSci #HPBio

Hello, BlueSky! We are a forum for original research and discussion in #philsci since the publication of our first volume back in 1970. Our scope encompasses both general #philsci & the philosophies of special sciences. We hope to connect with many scholars and strengthen the #philsci community!