Upcoming Events
Conference: Physics, Time and Agency
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference has been postponed until next Summer, 2021. More info will be provided as soon as it becomes available.
Dates: 6th−7th July 2020
Location: Dublin, Ireland (Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin)
Speakers: Craig Callender (UCSD), Jenann Ismael (Columbia), Natalja Deng (Yonsei), Stephanie Rennick (Glasgow), Alison Fernandes (Trinity College Dublin), David Albert (Columbia), Huw Price (provisional; Cambridge)
See the conference website for full details and a Call for Abstracts.
Physics tells us much about the nature of time, but it doesn’t explain why time seems to have a direction, or why time seems to ‘flow’. In response, researchers have paid increasing attention to how agents are situated in time. For example, Ismael and Callender argue that the reason we think of the future as a realm of possibilities is because of how we model time in deliberation and in action. ‘Agent-based’ (Price, Fernandes) and ‘physics-based’ (Albert) accounts of causation use features of how we deliberate to explain why causal relations are directed towards the future. But there is no consensus on the role agency should play in these explanations, or on the upshots for our broader understanding of time. For example, if agency is used to explain causal asymmetry, does this imply that causal asymmetry is objective (Albert), or a matter of our perspective (Price)? This conference will debate the role of agency in physical accounts of time, and will use this debate as a basis to explore the role of agency in accounts of scientific relations more broadly: including causation, laws and chances.
Organisers: Alison Fernandes (Trinity College Dublin), Daniel Deasy (University College Dublin), under the auspices of the Irish Society for the Philosophy of Time.
Acknowledgments: The conference is organised by the Irish Society for the Philosophy of Time. The organisers gratefully acknowledge funding support from the Mind Association; the British Society for Philosophy of Science; the Department of Philosophy (Trinity College Dublin); the Arts and Social Sciences Benefaction Fund (Trinity College Dublin); and UCD School of Philosophy (University College Dublin).
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference has been postponed until next Summer, 2021. More info will be provided as soon as it becomes available.
Dates: 6th−7th July 2020
Location: Dublin, Ireland (Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin)
Speakers: Craig Callender (UCSD), Jenann Ismael (Columbia), Natalja Deng (Yonsei), Stephanie Rennick (Glasgow), Alison Fernandes (Trinity College Dublin), David Albert (Columbia), Huw Price (provisional; Cambridge)
See the conference website for full details and a Call for Abstracts.
Physics tells us much about the nature of time, but it doesn’t explain why time seems to have a direction, or why time seems to ‘flow’. In response, researchers have paid increasing attention to how agents are situated in time. For example, Ismael and Callender argue that the reason we think of the future as a realm of possibilities is because of how we model time in deliberation and in action. ‘Agent-based’ (Price, Fernandes) and ‘physics-based’ (Albert) accounts of causation use features of how we deliberate to explain why causal relations are directed towards the future. But there is no consensus on the role agency should play in these explanations, or on the upshots for our broader understanding of time. For example, if agency is used to explain causal asymmetry, does this imply that causal asymmetry is objective (Albert), or a matter of our perspective (Price)? This conference will debate the role of agency in physical accounts of time, and will use this debate as a basis to explore the role of agency in accounts of scientific relations more broadly: including causation, laws and chances.
Organisers: Alison Fernandes (Trinity College Dublin), Daniel Deasy (University College Dublin), under the auspices of the Irish Society for the Philosophy of Time.
Acknowledgments: The conference is organised by the Irish Society for the Philosophy of Time. The organisers gratefully acknowledge funding support from the Mind Association; the British Society for Philosophy of Science; the Department of Philosophy (Trinity College Dublin); the Arts and Social Sciences Benefaction Fund (Trinity College Dublin); and UCD School of Philosophy (University College Dublin).
Previous Events
Public Lecture: The Problem of the Direction of Time
Monday 23 September 2019
7 – 9pm, Neill Lecture Theatre, Trinity Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin
David Albert, Frederick E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University will deliver a public lecture on the philosophy and physics of time.
Our everyday experience of being in the world is swarming with vivid and obvious and innumerable distinctions between the past and the future. Paper burns but never un-burns, sugar dissolves in coffee but never spontaneously separates out of it, we have memories and records of the past but not of the future, we are convinced that by acting now we can affect the future but not the past, and so on. But there seems to be no trace of such a distinction anywhere in the fundamental microscopic laws of nature. And the tension between these two facts has been sitting at the heart of our scientific picture of the world for more than a century now. And the question of what to make of that tension, and what to do with that tension, has come to be called the problem of the direction of time. That problem, and various attempts at solving it, will be the topic of this talk.
Organisation
A. Fernandes, Department of Philosophy, Trinity College Dublin
Kindly supported by the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Trinity College Dublin and the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.
Monday 23 September 2019
7 – 9pm, Neill Lecture Theatre, Trinity Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin
David Albert, Frederick E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University will deliver a public lecture on the philosophy and physics of time.
Our everyday experience of being in the world is swarming with vivid and obvious and innumerable distinctions between the past and the future. Paper burns but never un-burns, sugar dissolves in coffee but never spontaneously separates out of it, we have memories and records of the past but not of the future, we are convinced that by acting now we can affect the future but not the past, and so on. But there seems to be no trace of such a distinction anywhere in the fundamental microscopic laws of nature. And the tension between these two facts has been sitting at the heart of our scientific picture of the world for more than a century now. And the question of what to make of that tension, and what to do with that tension, has come to be called the problem of the direction of time. That problem, and various attempts at solving it, will be the topic of this talk.
Organisation
A. Fernandes, Department of Philosophy, Trinity College Dublin
Kindly supported by the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Trinity College Dublin and the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.
International Workshop: It's a Matter of Time
Friday 10 May – Saturday 11 May 2019
Friday venue: National University of Ireland (49 Merrion Square East)
Saturday venue: Room 5012, Arts Building, College Green, Trinity College Dublin
Dublin, Ireland
Naomi Corlett (University College Dublin) - Humeanism and the Open Future
Cord Friebe (University of Siegen) - Future's Becoming Possible
Florian Fischer (University of Siegen) - Persistence and the Interesting Kind of Stability
Martin Pickup (University of Oxford) - Change and Reality's Fragmentation
Alison Fernandes (Trinity College Dublin) - Why Do We Deliberate on the Future?
Luca Banfi (University College Dublin) - What's Wrong with the Presentism/Eternalism Debate?
Bahadir Eker (University of Tübingen) - Temporal Ontology vs. Temporal Ontogeny: Putting A-Theories into Perspective
Daniel Deasy (University College Dublin) - A-Theories, Post-Prior
This workshop is organized by the ISPT (Irish Society for Philosophy of Time) in collaboration with SPoT (Society for Philosophy of Time), with additional support from the School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, and the Philosophy Department, Trinity College Dublin.
Organisation
D. Deasy (UCD); A. Fernandes (TCD); F. Fischer (U. of Siegen)
Friday 10 May – Saturday 11 May 2019
Friday venue: National University of Ireland (49 Merrion Square East)
Saturday venue: Room 5012, Arts Building, College Green, Trinity College Dublin
Dublin, Ireland
Naomi Corlett (University College Dublin) - Humeanism and the Open Future
Cord Friebe (University of Siegen) - Future's Becoming Possible
Florian Fischer (University of Siegen) - Persistence and the Interesting Kind of Stability
Martin Pickup (University of Oxford) - Change and Reality's Fragmentation
Alison Fernandes (Trinity College Dublin) - Why Do We Deliberate on the Future?
Luca Banfi (University College Dublin) - What's Wrong with the Presentism/Eternalism Debate?
Bahadir Eker (University of Tübingen) - Temporal Ontology vs. Temporal Ontogeny: Putting A-Theories into Perspective
Daniel Deasy (University College Dublin) - A-Theories, Post-Prior
This workshop is organized by the ISPT (Irish Society for Philosophy of Time) in collaboration with SPoT (Society for Philosophy of Time), with additional support from the School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, and the Philosophy Department, Trinity College Dublin.
Organisation
D. Deasy (UCD); A. Fernandes (TCD); F. Fischer (U. of Siegen)
Morning Workshop: Time in Mind
Monday 28 January 2019
10 am—12:45pm, Boardroom, National University of Ireland (49 Merrion Square East) Dublin, Ireland
To celebrate the visit of Kristie Miller and David Braddon-Mitchell to Ireland, the Irish Society for the Philosophy of Time is hosting a morning workshop in Dublin. Topics of the workshop include time; mind; temporal asymmetries; preferences for hedonic goods; mental content; and qualia.
Kristie Miller (University of Sydney) - Hedonic and Non-Hedonic Bias Toward the Future
David Braddon-Mitchell (University of Sydney) - Qualia and Causal Conditionalism
Organisation
D. Deasy (UCD); A. Fernandes (TCD)
Kindly supported by the School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, and the Philosophy Department, Trinity College Dublin.
Monday 28 January 2019
10 am—12:45pm, Boardroom, National University of Ireland (49 Merrion Square East) Dublin, Ireland
To celebrate the visit of Kristie Miller and David Braddon-Mitchell to Ireland, the Irish Society for the Philosophy of Time is hosting a morning workshop in Dublin. Topics of the workshop include time; mind; temporal asymmetries; preferences for hedonic goods; mental content; and qualia.
Kristie Miller (University of Sydney) - Hedonic and Non-Hedonic Bias Toward the Future
David Braddon-Mitchell (University of Sydney) - Qualia and Causal Conditionalism
Organisation
D. Deasy (UCD); A. Fernandes (TCD)
Kindly supported by the School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, and the Philosophy Department, Trinity College Dublin.
