- E-mailSorin.Bangu@uib.no
- Phone+47 55 58 29 48+47 981 99 964
- Visitor AddressSydnesplassen 12/13, 3. etg.BergenRoom314A
- Postal AddressPostboks 78055020 BERGEN
For a while now I've been working in three areas, connected by my interest in investigating the nature of mathematics. My view is that progress on this can be made by understanding its roles in science (especially in physics) and in everyday life.
In addition to occasionally writing on general topics in philosophy of science (e.g., explanation, understanding, prediction), I have tackled certain issues in philosophy of physics (e.g., idealization in statistical mechanics, symmetry, emergence, fundamentality, etc.) I try to understand the 'more-is-different' idea and its ramifications. A common theme is the role of the mathematical formalism in discovering / inventing theories in physics, as well as in expressing, or even shaping, the actual physical content of a theory.
In the philosophy of mathematics, I continue to work mainly on issues related to the applicability of mathematics. This includes indispensability arguments, the 'unreasonable effectiveness' issue, also topics having to do with the role of mathematics in formulating explanations of physical phenomena, the credibility of various metaphysics of mathematics (realism/platonism, nominalism, fictionalism), the conceptual foundations of set-theory, etc. A new angle on the connection between mathematics and the world is an attempt to evaluate how the experimental evidence gathered by cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists is relevant for the philosophical debates on the nature of mathematical (and logical) knowledge.
My interests in the history of analytical philosophy concentrate on the views of later Wittgenstein. My focus is on his take on modality, in particular in relation to mathematics and logic. The basic question here is what does this thinker (as well as others, e.g., Quine) make of the claim that certain facts can't be otherwise than they are.
Topics in theoretical philosophy.
BOOKS
- Naturalizing Logico-Mathematical Knowledge: Approaches from Philosophy, Psychology and Cognitive Science. (Routledge, 2018) Edited collection of essays, 306p.
- The Applicability of Mathematics in Science: Indispensability and Ontology. (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012) Monograph, 252p.
ARTICLES (for complete list and copies see my personal website)
- Hard and Blind: On Wittgenstein’s Genealogical View of Logical Necessity. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Forthcoming. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/phpr.12661
- Phase Transitions. The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Physics. Eds. E. Knox and A. Wilson. Routledge. Forthcoming.
- Discontinuities and Singularities, Data and Phenomena: For Referentialism. Synthese. 196: 1919–1937 (2019) In the special issue Infinite Idealizations in Science. Eds. L. Ruetsche, P. Palacios, S. Fletcher, E. Shech. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-018-1747-2
- Later Wittgenstein and the Genealogy of Mathematical Necessity. In Wittgenstein and Naturalism. Eds. K. Cahill and T. Raleigh. Routledge, 2018. Pp. 151-73
- Indispensability, Causation and Explanation. Theoria. 33(2): 219-32 (2018). In the special issue Updating Indispensabilities: Hillary Putnam In Memoriam. Ed. Mary Leng. https://www.ehu.eus/ojs/index.php/THEORIA/article/view/17619/17827
- The "Miracle" of Applicability? The Curious Case of the Simple Harmonic Oscillator. (Co-author Robert Moir). Foundations of Physics. 48(5): 507-525 (2018) In the special issue Philosophical Aspects in the Foundations of Physics. Eds. Miklos Redei, Harvey Brown, Klaas Landsman. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10701-018-0152-5
- Book reivew. Marc Lange Because Without Cause (Oxford Univ. Press, 2017) British Journal for Philosophy of Science. BJPS Review of Books. (2017) http://www.thebsps.org/2017/12/marc-lange-because-without-cause/
For the complete list of my masterpieces please see my personal website above.
Annual Bergen Philosophy of Science Workshop
Univ. of Bergen, Dept. of Philosophy
Sydnesplassen 12-13, Bergen
2019 (link to abstracts)
Thursday 29 Aug.
11.15 Coffee & Welcome. Prof Steinar Bøyum, Head of Dept.
11.30 - 13 Denis Walsh (Toronto)
The Developmental Imperative
Lunch (Christie Cafe)
14.30 - 16 James Ladyman (Bristol)
What if anything is fundamental about physics?
16.15 - 17.45 Patricia Palacios (Salzburg)
Intertheoretic Reduction in Physics Beyond the Nagelian Model
19.00 Dinner
Friday 30 Aug.
9.45 Coffee
10.00 - 11.30 Axel Gelfert (Berlin)
Explanation and Exploration in the Science of Pattern Formation
11.45 - 13.15 Laura Franklin-Hall (NYU)
Why are some kinds historical and others not?
2018 (link to abstracts)
Thursday 24 May
12.55 Welcome. Prof. Reidar Lie, Head of Dept.
13.00 - 14.30 P. Kyle Stanford (UC Irvine)
A Difference that Makes a Difference: Howard Stein on Realism, Instrumentalism, and Intellectually Nourishing Snacks
14.45 - 16.15 Kirsten Walsh (Nottingham)
Inventing Units of Measurement: Causal Reasoning in Newton's Optics
16.30 - 18.00 Dirk Schlimm (McGill)
Towards a cognitive and pragmatic account of notations for propositional logic
19.30 Conference dinner
Friday 25 May
10.00 - 11.30 Mark Colyvan (University of Sydney and the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich) Analogical Reasoning via Mathematical Models
11.45 - 13.15 Adrian Curie (Cambridge)
How are moa like sheep? Pursuit and value in science
13.15 - 15.00 Lunch break
15.00 - 16.30 Julie Zahle (Bergen)
Data, Epistemic Values, and Multiple Methods in Case Study Research
16.30 - 18.00 Alan Baker (Swarthmore)
Mapping Mathematics to the World
18.30 Henrik Pub
2017 (link to abstracts)
Wed. 31 May
13.30 Welcome. Coffee
13.45-14.45 Stathis Psillos (Univ. of Athens)
Laws and Powers in the Frame of Nature
14.45-15.45 Alexander Bird (Univ. of Bristol)
Is there meta-scientific knowledge? Against both the no-miracles argument and the pessimistic induction
Coffee
16.00 - 17.00 Gordon Belot (Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
Gravity and GRACE: Does Underdetermination Undermine Objectivity?
17.00 -18.00 Laura Ruetsche (Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
Renormalization Group Realism: An Unduly Skeptical Review
Coffee
18.15-19.15 Michael Baumgartner (Univ. of Geneva / Univ. of Bergen)
Boolean difference-making: A modern regularity theory of causation
19.15-20.15 Eleanor Knox (King's College London)
Spacetime Functionalism
2016 (link to abstracts)
Tue. 14 June
9.50 - 10.00 Coffee & Welcome
10.00 - 11.15 Carl Hoefer (ICREA / Barcelona)
Current Great Theory Realism
11.30 - 12.45 Stephanie Ruphy (Grenoble)
Pluralist challenges to a science-based metaphysics
Lunch @ Christie Cafe
15.00 - 16.15 Jamie Tappenden (U. Michigan, Ann Arbor)
Frege, Carl Snell and Romanticism; Fruitful Concepts and the 'Organic/Mechanical' Distinction
16.30 - 17.45 Sam Schindler (Aarhus)
Prediction and testability
18.00 - 19.15 James Conant (Chicago)
Thomas Kuhn on Problems and Puzzles
2015 (link to abstracts)
Thursday 4 June
14.00 – 15.00 Mark Steiner (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem)
The Silent Revolution of Wittgenstein in the Philosophy of Mathematics, 1937
15.15 –16.15 Catherine Wilson (York Univ. UK)
The 'Hard Problem' of Consciousness: Scientific Explanation and Philosophical Ineffability
16.30 – 17.45 Juha Saatsi (Leeds Univ.)
Emergence and Explanation
19.00 Conference dinner
Friday 5 June
9.30 - 10.30 Mary Leng (York Univ.)
Mathematical Realism and Naturalism
10.45 – 11.45 Anjan Chakravartty (Notre Dame Univ.)
Property Ontology in Fundamental Physics
11.45 – 12.15 Lunch
12.15 – 13.15 Øystein Linnebo (Univ. of Oslo)
Mathematics and Inference to the Best Explanation
2014 (link to abstracts)
Thursday 5 June
14.45 Coffee. Welcome from the Chair, Prof. Reidar Lie
15.00 - 16.00 Robert Batterman (Pittsburgh)
Minimal Model Explanations
16.00 - 17.00 Michael Moreau (Tromsø)
Mr. Fit, Mr. Simplicity and Mr. Scope: from Social Choice to Theory Choice in Science
17.00 - 18.00 Dennis Dieks (Utrecht)
Emergence, Reduction, Underdetermination and Explanation in Recent Quantum Gravity Research
Friday 6 June
9.45 Coffee
10.00 - 11.00 Mauricio Suarez (London / Madrid)
Propensities, Chances, and Experimental Statistics
11.00 - 12.00 Mark Sprevak (Edinburgh)
Fictionalism about Neural Representations
12.00 - 12.30 Lunch
12.30 - 13.30 Anouk Barberousse (Lille / Paris)
Bayesian Methods in Climate Modeling
Thursday 20 June
12:45 Coffee
Welcome, Philosophy Dept. Chair Prof. Reidar Lie
13:00 - 14:00 Margaret Morrison (Univ. of Toronto)
Inconsistent Models: Problems and Perspectives
14:15-15:15 Wendy Parker (Durham Univ. UK)
Simulation, Measurement & the Construction of Global Climate Datasets
15:15 - 15:30 Coffee break
15:30 - 16:30 Michal Walicki (Univ. of Bergen, Institute of Informatics)
The holism of truth and paradox
(joint work with Sjur Dyrkolbotn)
Friday 21 June
9:45 Coffee
10:00 - 11:00 Alexander Paseau (Oxford Univ.)
Knowledge of Mathematics Without Proof
11:15 - 12:15 Rani L. Anjum (Norwegian Univ. of Life Sciences UMB)
Causation, Powers and Probability (joint work with Stephen Mumford)
12:15 - 13:00 Lunch
13:00 - 14:00 Colin Howson (LSE)
The Importance of Being Bayesian
FRIPRO-FRIHUMSAM senior research grant co-held with K. Cahill (Univ. of Bergen) awarded by the Norwegian Research Council, 2019-2023. Title: Mathematics with a Human Face. Set Theory within a Naturalized Wittgensteinean Framework