Modalities in Science: Metaphysical Perspectives

University of Geneva

31 August – 1 September 2022

Conference venue: Bâtiment des Philosophes, room 211

PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME

Wednesday, 31 August 2022

09:45 – 10:00                   Welcome

10:00 – 11:00                    Till Grüne-Yanoff (Stockholm)

                                              "The Role of Models in Modal Modeling"

11:00 – 11:30                      Coffee break

11:30 – 12:30                      Robert Michels (Lisbon)

                                              "Permissive Dispositionalism"

12:30 – 14:30                    Lunch break

14:30 – 15:30                   Tarja Knuuttila (Vienna) & Andrea Loettgers (Vienna)

                                              "The Combinatorial Possibilities of Synthetic Biology"

15:30 – 16:30                   Alastair Wilson (Birmingham)

                                              "Four Grades of Modal Involvement"

16:30 – 17:00                   Coffee break

17:00 – 18:00                    Rami Koskinen (Vienna)

                                             "Spaces of the Biologically Possible"

19:00                                  Conference Dinner

Thursday, 1 September 2022

10:00 – 11:00                    Johannes Jaeger (Vienna)

                                              "Adjacent Possibles: the Co-Emergence of Local Possibilities in

                                              Agential Systems"

11:00 – 11:30                      Coffee break

11:30 – 12:30                      Salim Hirèche (Geneva)

                                              "Laws, Natural Modality, and the Existence of Natural Entities"

12:30 – 14:30                    Lunch break

14:30 – 15:30                   Marcel Weber (Geneva)

                                              "Modeling Modality: The Case of Evolvability in Evo-Devo"

15:30 – open ended      Drinks and farewell

Organizers: Fabrice Correia, Marcel Weber, Joshua Babic, Luis Bordo García

Chairpersons: Claudio Calosi, Raphael Scholl, Albert Solé, Emma Tieffenbach

Financial support by the Fondation Mlle Marie Gretler, the Philosophy Department, University of Geneva and the European Research Council, project "Possible Life – The Philosophical Significance of Extending Biology (LIFEMODE)." Grant no 818772 (PI: Tarja Knuuttila).