Oscar

Daniel Kostić, PhD What is your current role and how did you get here? I am currently an Associate Professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences (IFIS PAN). This is a purely...

In the new @eenphilsci.bsky.social blog I tell my origin story, my current projects, and some of my struggles. eenps.weebly.com/blog/daniel-...

Thank you @annaalexandrova.bsky.social and @gabrieltarziu.bsky.social for inviting me to share it.

#philsci

Allocation from the Icelandic Research Fund for the financial year 2026 | The Icelandic Centre for Research The Board of The Icelandic Research Fund has completed the allocation of grants for new research projects for 2026. A total of 414 valid applications were received, 70 of which were funded, or 17%.

Some professional news: I'm delighted to share that I've been awarded a "grant of excellence" from the Icelandic Research Fund (Rannís). This is the largest type of research grant that's available in Iceland; only a couple of these are awarded each year across all disciplines.

Wow, amazing, Alejandro! Looking forward to reading this!

I am elated & humbled that my upcoming monograph (mitpress.mit.edu/978026205282...) was chosen as one of the #openaccess titles for Spring 2026. Thanks to @mitpress.bsky.social's Direct to Open (D2O) model & the hundreds of participating libraries that make it possible! #philsky #HPS #evosky #HPbio

Matthew J. Brown: "What is Pragmatist About the New 'Pragmatist' Philosophy of Science?" Philosophical pragmatism has been enjoying a renaissance in philosophy of science. Brown will bring this recent work into conversation with classical pragmatism to explore the question: What makes a philosophy of science pragmatist? The recent work is in some respects more faithful to the classical pragmatist tradition than earlier appropriations of i pragmatism, but it also differs in emphasis in ways that are problematic. Brown does not argue that there is some single, essential character of philosophical pragmatism, nor does he try to sort the “true pragmatists” from the pretenders. Rather, he attempts to articulate the value of the new pragmatist philosophy of science while also indicating valuable resources from the pragmatist tradition that have yet to receive their proper due, particularly concerning the interplay of science and values. Matthew J. Brown is the Jo Ann and Donald N. Boydston Chair of American Philosophy and Director of the Center for Dewey Studies at SIU. His research areas include the history of 19th and 20th century philosophy and the history and philosophy of science. He is the author of Science and Moral Imagination: A New Ideal for Values in Science (2020) and is currently editor-in-chief of HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science.

Now on YouTube! See Matthew J. Brown’s lunchtime talk, “What is Pragmatist About the New ‘Pragmatist’ Philosophy of Science?”

Link to Video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_KQ...

Link to Center for Dewey Studies YouTube Channel:
www.youtube.com/@DeweyCenter

ERC PhD studentship: The Ethics and Philosophy of Science of Machine Learning | Scholarships and Student Funding | Student Administration This is a four-year ERC funded PhD studentship (starting in September 2026).

Good news - we have a new ERC-funded 4-year PhD Studentship at the University of Edinburgh, based in Philosophy and our Centre @technomoralfutures.bsky.social, supervised by Dr Emily Sullivan; the project applies philosophy of science to assessing ML's epistemic & social value. Apply by 16 March!

Annual Conference | 2026 | BSPS The BSPS Annual Conference takes place on 21–23 July 2026 at the University of Leeds

Decisions for symposia at the BSPS have now gone out. But you’re still in time to submit an abstract for an individual presentation! www.thebsps.org/news/bsps-an...

Ah, that’s very exciting! Please do keep me in the loop for that!

Promotional poster for the XIV Workshop on Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences. The poster features a dark green background with stylized yellow and red floral illustrations around the edges. Large yellow text announces the workshop title. The event will take place 18–19 June at UNED, Edificio de Humanidades, Paseo de la Senda del Rey 7, Madrid. The keynote speakers listed are Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda (KU Leuven), Enara García (SDU), and José Antonio Pérez-Escobar (UNED). The poster highlights a Call for Abstracts (CfA) with an extended deadline of 1st February. Contact information is provided at xivpbcs@gmail.com

Final days to submit an abstract to #PBCS2026! If you are an early-career scholar looking for a supportive environment to discuss your work & meet international peers, consider applying! Another plus this year: The workshop will be in Madrid! sites.google.com/view/xivpbcs... #HPbio #philsci #philsky

This looks amazing, Matteo!! What an amazing panel of commentators on a great book!

So thrilled this is coming up in just 3 days!

Sharing the updated poster for the Athens roundtable on Reconsidering Historical Epistemology (Feb 2).

Happy to send the Webex link to anyone who’d like to join online — just message me.

Join us tomorrow for Featured Former Fellow with Christopher Hill: "A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori."

This is an online only lecture. Scan the QR code or visit https://www.centerphilsci.pitt.edu/event/featured-former-fellow-christopher-hill/ for the Zoom link.

Deadline approaching!👇

#philsci

The deadline for the Society for Study of Measurement conference has been extended to January 31st! 👇
#philsci #histsci

I can't believe it! Super excited to start this project, and very grateful to the ERC for the vote of confidence!

Coming later this year: The Reality of Structure and The Structure of Reality ed by Fred Muller

Springer, open access

With contributions by the likes of Kerry McKenzie, James Ladyman, Laura Felline & myself, finally nailing down an answer to the question ‘wtf is structure?!’

#philsci

Thank you, Mike! I appreciate the kind words a lot!

Thank you, Mauricio! Yes, indeed. It was nice to have this special issue to submit to with all the good stuff to build on in Humphreys's work.

Thank you, Anna! That's very nice. Humphreys is one of those philosophers that I always learn something new from when I read him, so I'm happy to be able to build on his work.

This was also really fun to write because it brought me back to work I did in an essay under the supervision of Simon Schaffer when I was an MPhil student.

I propose that instruments can extend and improve pragmatic understanding when functionally intelligible, analogous to @henkderegt.bsky.social's notion of theoretical intelligibility. Understanding is gained when scientist improve instrumental and practical ability to interact with the world.

I argue that the role of instruments in science challenges theory-oriented and explanation-centric accounts of understanding, while fitting well with pragmatic understanding, focusing on the skill necessary to perform epistemic activities (building on @miikeessttuuart.bsky.social's work especially)

New paper just published in Synthese: Instrumental Understanding link.springer.com/article/10.1...

In this paper I start developing an account of pragmatic understanding fit for an epistemology of scientific instruments, drawing especially on Davis Baird's Thing Knowledge. #philsci #philsky

I love them!

Current Workshop CFA: 8th Scientific Understanding and Representation (SURe) annual workshop   Call for abstracts        We invite authors to submit abstracts of up to 750-words for the upcoming...

Final CFA for the 8th Scientific Understanding and Representation (SURe) annual workshop, which will take place May 27-29, 2026, at the IFIS PAN in Warsaw.
Submission deadline: 20 January 2026.
More info: shorturl.at/AUoye
@philsci.bsky.social @eenphilsci.bsky.social @epsaphilsci.bsky.social

Home - CSHPS/SCHPS Call for Papers:

Canadian Society for the History & Philosophy of Science (CSHPS) invites submissions for annual meeting, to be held in Halifax June 4-6, 2026. Submission Deadline: Monday January 19, 2026
Submission Portal: forms.gle/GVq5SZuLv1yE...
Webpage
cshps.ca
#HPS

Our special issue with @martinkusch.bsky.social is finally complete and here’s at long last our introduction. I pitched the idea to him in 2019! Thank you for your patience and generosity, Martin. I am proud of this manifesto and hope colleagues will join us in rethinking this old debate #philsci

Having lived in Norway, Scotland, and worked in Iceland, I’ve never felt as cold as living in Cambridge. There’s just something that gets into your bones when going outside in the slightly cold, wet air after not being able to warm up inside because of lack of insulation.

Join us for a talk by @ufeest.bsky.social entitled "Operationism and Exploratory Research in Psychology" on Friday 9, 4pm CET at eu02web.zoom-x.de/j/3634599978...

www.philos.uni-hannover.de/de/feest

I think a similar thing to @noamchompers.bsky.social: that people tend to think that if the vehicles that produce scientific understanding are *false* (idealising, abstracting, distorting) then scientific understanding must (or can be) non-factive.