*Call for Abstracts: Workshop II: Adverse Allies: Logical Empiricism and
Austrian Economics*
*23.9.-25.9.2025, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria*
The FWF ESPRIT research project “Adverse Allies: Logical Empiricism and
Austrian Economics”, the Institute of Philosophy and Scientific Method (JKU
Linz), the Institute Vienna Circle (University of Vienna), and the Vienna
Circle Society host two workshops in 2025. The organisers seek submissions
for contributed talks for the second workshop. You can find more
information about the workshops here
<https://www.jku.at/en/institute-of-philosophy-and-scientific-method/adverse…>
.
*Deadline for Submissions of Abstracts for Workshop II: 08.06.2025*
Notification of Acceptance: 08.07.2025 at the latest
*Workshop II in Linz: 23.09.-25.09.2025*
Logical empiricism and Austrian economics are arguably the two
internationally most influential intellectual movements with Viennese
roots. The Vienna Circle and the Austrian School have shaped the
development of philosophical, scientific, and political debate in the 20th
century. In the 21st century, logical empiricism has undergone extensive
re-evaluation, while the Austrian School experiences another revival.
Yet, despite numerous connections and interactions between the two
movements, their relationship has captured surprisingly sparse attention in
the historical and philosophical literature. If an account is provided at
all, logical empiricists and Austrian economists are portrayed as
philosophically, scientifically, and politically antithetical groups. Among
the most frequently mentioned contrastive pairs of catchwords are
empiricism vs apriorism, formal methods vs verbal reasoning, and socialism
vs classical liberalism.
Acknowledging the existence of disagreements between logical empiricism and
the Austrian School, recent scholarship has challenged the received view of
antithetical opposition by reconstructing hitherto neglected
compatibilities and similarities between the two movements.
This workshop aims to advance historical as well as systematic discussions
on the relationship between logical empiricism and Austrian economics.
Contributions that fruitfully inform contemporary debates in philosophy,
methodology, politics, or the sciences are particularly welcome.
*Topics for workshop II include but are not limited to:· Karl Menger and
Felix Kaufmann as mediators between LE and AE· common influences: Frege,
Husserl, Kant, Mach, Wittgenstein· non-cognitivism, the fact/value
distinction, and the ideal of value-neutrality· the principle of tolerance
and polylogism· logical tolerance, methodological tolerance, political
liberalism· logicism and the logic of action· naturalism vs antinaturalism,
unity vs disunity of science, scientific pluralism and pseudorationality·
essentialism and its discontents (Menger, Wieser, Neurath, Popper,
Rothbard,…)· defenses of democracy in Viennese Late Enlightenment*
*· expertise, education, and democracy*
*Abstracts should be 300-400 words (including references, if needed) and
submitted here
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe4Oa0v65SfMmKUhTmr88xVx847CuxPpta…>.*
*Scientific Committee: *Alexander Linsbichler (chair), Julian Reiss, Georg
Schiemer, Friedrich Stadler
*Local Organising Committee:* Alexander Linsbichler, Michalis Christou,
Robert Frühstückl, Jakob Gschwandtner, Jonatan Magnusson, Pauline Paulik,
William Peden, Julian Reiss, Evelin Stockinger
*Queries:* Alexander Linsbichler (alexander.linsbichler(a)jku.at)
Both workshops are supported by the Division of Logic, Methodology and
Philosophy of Science and Technology (DLMPST) of the International Union of
History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.
*Alexander Linsbichler*
Institute of Philosophy and Scientific Method (Johannes Kepler University
Linz)
alexander.linsbichler(a)jku.at
Department of Philosophy (
<https://ufind.univie.ac.at/de/person.html?id=47545>University of Vienna)
<https://ufind.univie.ac.at/de/person.html?id=47545>
alexander.linsbichler(a)univie.ac.at
*neu erschienen: Viel mehr
<https://www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com/detail/index/sArticle/57805/sC…>als
nur
<https://www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com/detail/index/sArticle/57805/sC…>Ökonomie
<https://www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com/detail/index/sArticle/57805/sC…>
(Böhlau, 2022)*
Dear all,
we are delighted to invite you to the next installment of the APSE talks
series, as well as to the accompanying reading circle prior to the talk.
The talk will be given by Remco Heesen (LSE).
When: Thursday, 10.04.2025, 15:00 - 17:00
Where: HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien)
The Division of Cognitive Labour under Poisson Productivity
When a community of academics faces a research problem and multiple
methodological approaches to solving it, how much effort should they
devote to each approach to maximise their chances of solving the problem
and minimise the time to a solution? This problem is known as the
division of cognitive labour (DCL). More specifically, Philip Kitcher,
Michael Strevens, and Kevin Zollman have asked whether and to what
extent academics' expectations of credit for solving the problem can act
as an invisible hand to produce an efficient DCL without a need for
top-down planning. Here I revisit this question using a modelling
framework (key ingredient: academic productivity follows a Poisson
distribution) that has more empirical support than Kitcher's, Strevens',
and Zollman's, and is also more flexible in that it can be used to
address broader questions about credit incentives. The somewhat
surprising finding is that in this framework the DCL problem becomes
essentially trivial. I'd like to discuss implications for how we think
about the model and/or the DCL problem.
Reading Circle (1:15-3 PM):
When: right before the talk - Thursday, 10.04.2025, 13:15 - 15:00
Where: same place - HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien)
We will focus our discussion on an article by Kevin Zollman (attached
pdf):
Zollman, K. J. S. (2007). The Communication Structure of Epistemic
Communities. Philosophy of Science, 74(5), 574-587.
https://doi.org/10.1086/525605
As an introduction we suggest this SEP article (especially Chapters 2,
3.1, 4.1 and 4.2):
Šešelja, Dunja, "Agent-Based Modeling in the Philosophy of Science", The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition), Edward N.
Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL =
<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/agent-modeling-philscie…>.
For further reading regarding the topic:
Heesen, R. (2018). Why the reward structure of science makes
reproducibility problems inevitable. The Journal of Philosophy, 115(12),
661-674. https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil20181151239
Kitcher, P. (1990). The Division of Cognitive Labor. The Journal of
Philosophy, 87(1), 5-22. https://doi.org/10.2307/2026796
Thoma, J. (2015). The Epistemic Division of Labor Revisited. Philosophy
of Science, 82(3), 454-472. https://doi.org/10.1086/681768
Best wishes,
Vinzenz Fischer
Dear all,
we are delighted to invite you to the next instalment of the APSE talks
series, as well as to the accompanying reading circle prior to the talk.
The talk will be given by Remco Heesen (LSE).
When: Thursday, 10.04.2025, 15:00 - 17:00
Where: HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien)
The Division of Cognitive Labour under Poisson Productivity
When a community of academics faces a research problem and multiple
methodological approaches to solving it, how much effort should they
devote to each approach to maximise their chances of solving the problem
and minimise the time to a solution? This problem is known as the
division of cognitive labour (DCL). More specifically, Philip Kitcher,
Michael Strevens, and Kevin Zollman have asked whether and to what
extent academics' expectations of credit for solving the problem can act
as an invisible hand to produce an efficient DCL without a need for
top-down planning. Here I revisit this question using a modelling
framework (key ingredient: academic productivity follows a Poisson
distribution) that has more empirical support than Kitcher's, Strevens',
and Zollman's, and is also more flexible in that it can be used to
address broader questions about credit incentives. The somewhat
surprising finding is that in this framework the DCL problem becomes
essentially trivial. I'd like to discuss implications for how we think
about the model and/or the DCL problem.
Reading Circle:
When: right before the talk - Thursday, 10.04.2025, 13:00 - 15:00
Where: same place - HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien)
To get the reading material for the Reading Cycle, please contact
vinzenz.fischer(a)univie.ac.at
Please share this invitation with anyone who might be interested!
Best wishes,
Ella Berger
(on behalf of the APSE unit)
We are happy to invite you to our 5th talk of the Vienna STS Talk Series in 2025S:
[cid:image001.png@01DBA3E6.2B038C60]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/news-events/details/news/futurespace-talk-by-darsh…>
Best wishes,
Katrin Hackl
__________
Mag. Katrin Hackl
Research Support & Communication
Department of Science and Technology Studies
University of Vienna
Universitätsstraße 7 /II/ 6th floor (NIG)
1010 Vienna / Austria
Tel.: 0043-1-4277-496007
[cid:image002.jpg@01DBA3E2.A2A1A300]<https://sts.univie.ac.at/>
Dear all,
our next speakers in the Philosophy of Science Colloquium organized by
the Institute Vienna Circle are Paolo Tripodi and Guido Bonino
(University of Turin), who will give a talk on April 3, 4.45-6.15 pm.
All are welcome!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Philosophy of Science Colloquium TALK: Paolo Tripodi & Guido Bonino
(University of Turin)
ACADEMIC SUCCESS IN AMERICA: ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY AND THE DECLINE OF
WITTGENSTEIN
Philosophy of Science Colloquium
The Institute Vienna Circle holds a Philosophy of Science Colloquium
with talks by our present fellows.
Date: 03/04/2025
Time: 16h45
Venue: New Institute Building (NIG), Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien, HS
3A
Abstract:
There is a rather widespread consensus, among historians of philosophy,
concerning the decline of Wittgenstein amid recent analytic philosophy.
However, the exact import of such a decline, its chronological
development, as well as its causes and several other features, are
difficult to ascertain with the traditional methods of the history of
philosophy. In this talk we apply a distant reading approach, and a
variety of other quantitative methods, to provide a more reliable and
accurate account of Wittgenstein's decline. We focus on a corpus
consisting of the metadata of US PhD dissertations in philosophy from
1981 to 2010 (although other kinds of data are also taken into
consideration), and we try to relate the topic of the dissertation to
the success of the candidate in his/her subsequent academic career. The
results of this analysis, corroborated by other evidence, allow us to
put forth the more reliable and accurate account just hinted at, and at
the same time to suggest - as a contribution to external history of
philosophy - a plausible mechanism at the basis of the decline itself,
notably a process driven by those who controlled the recruitment
policies in the philosophy departments.
This event may be of interest to some!
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Sarah Davies <sarah.davies(a)univie.ac.at>
> Subject: [Rundmail.wissenschaftsforschung] Visual Ethnographies of Science film screening 8 April
> Date: 13. March 2025 at 08:54:35 CET
> To: Mailinglist - Institut für Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung <Rundmail.Wissenschaftsforschung(a)lists.univie.ac.at>, master-sts(a)lists.univie.ac.at
>
> Dear all,
>
> please join us to view films made as part of the course ‘Visual Ethnographies of Science: Investigating knowledge production through media practice’ on Tuesday 8th April from 6.30pm (see flyer attached for full details). Hope to see you there!
>
> Sarah
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Sarah R Davies (Pronouns: she/her/hers)
> Professor of Technosciences, Materiality, & Digital Cultures
> Department of Science and Technology Studies
> University of Vienna
> sarah.davies(a)univie.ac.at <mailto:sarah.davies@univie.ac.at>
>
> * I am sending this email at a time that suits my workflow. I do not expect a response outside of normal working hours *

> _______________________________________________
> Rundmail.Wissenschaftsforschung mailing list
> Rundmail.Wissenschaftsforschung(a)lists.univie.ac.at
> https://lists.univie.ac.at/mailman/listinfo/rundmail.wissenschaftsforschung
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sarah R Davies (Pronouns: she/her/hers)
Professor of Technosciences, Materiality, & Digital Cultures
Department of Science and Technology Studies
University of Vienna
sarah.davies(a)univie.ac.at <mailto:sarah.davies@univie.ac.at>
* I am sending this email at a time that suits my workflow. I do not expect a response outside of normal working hours *
by Initiative to Support Women in Academic Philosophy
Dear all,
Here is a little reminder for the UPSalon Stammtisch (regular's table).
Hope to see u there:
April 1st at 6 PM at Tunnel Vienna, Florianigasse 39, 1080 Wien
Best,
UPsalon
Mail: upsalon.philosophy(a)univie.ac.at
Web: https://upsalon.univie.ac.at
Dear all,
we warmly invite you to the next APSE (Applied Philosophy of Science and
Epistemology) talk and Reading Circle. The talk will be held by Anna
Alexandrova (University of Cambridge).
Talk:
When: Thursday, 03.04.2025, 15:00 - 17:00
Where: HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien)
Title & abstract:
Social Science: A Constructivist Account
What sort of inquiry is social science? This question used to preoccupy
philosophers but fell off their agenda due to a stalemate between
so-called naturalists, who took the ideal to be natural science, and
exceptionalists, who allied social sciences with humanities. I show that
both positions commit the error of contrastivism, namely defining social
science in contrast to these two traditions, which inevitably ends up
caricaturing them. Using recent advances in philosophy, I formulate
constructivism about social sciences, a view that denies an essence to
this inquiry and grounds it in the needs of communities to understand
and improve themselves.
Reading Circle:
When: right before the talk - Thursday, 03.04.2025, 13:00 - 15:00
Where: same place - HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien)
We will focus our discussion on a forthcoming article by Anna
Alexandrova (attached pdf):
Alexandrova, Anna. (forthcoming) "Social Science: A Constructivist
Account"
As introduction to Constructivism, we suggest this article (especially
Chapters 1 and 5):
Bagnoli, Carla, "Constructivism in Metaethics", The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri
Nodelman (eds.), URL =
<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2024/entries/constructivism-metaethi…>.
For further reading regarding the topic:
Anderson, Elizabeth. "Local Knowledge in Institutional Epistemology."
Australasian Philosophical Review (2024): 1-23.
Longino, Helen E. (1990). Science as Social Knowledge: Values and
Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry. Princeton University Press.
Risjord, M. W. (2022). PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE : a contemporary
introduction. (Second edition.). ROUTLEDGE.
Best wishes,
Ella Berger and Vinzenz Fischer, on behalf of the APSE team
by Initiative to Support Women in Academic Philosophy
Dear all,
we hope u had a great start to the new semester!
UPSalon is hosting another Stammtisch or "regular's table" next week and
likes to cordially invite you! People from all stages in their
philosophical studies are welcome, and we are especially excited to meet
new people!
UPSalon are a group of doctoral and post-doctoral researchers; the
initiative aims at creating a space and community in Vienna where
underrepresented philosophers – such as women, trans, inter and
non-binary persons, BIPOC, socioeconomically
disadvantaged people, queer people, and people with disabilities – can
connect on a regular basis. For more information, check out our website:
upsalon.univie.ac.at
Where?
Tunnel Vienna, Florianigasse 39, 1080 Wien
When?
April 1st at 6 PM
We are very much looking forward to meeting all of you!
Do not hesitate to get in touch with any questions you may have.
Best regards,
UPsalon
Mail: upsalon.philosophy(a)univie.ac.at
Web: https://upsalon.univie.ac.at
Dear Colleagues,
Is there a specific tradition in the history of HPS in Poland? Does a
Central European perspective on academic networks help us to reformulate
the concept of counter universities?
We cordially invite you to celebrate a new volume about the tradition of
Science Studies in Eastern and Central Europe with us and two of the
main authors:
*“Organising, Optimising and Concealing Science: On Political
Epistemologies in Central and Eastern Europe”*
with Jan Surman (Prague Academy of Science
<https://www.mua.cas.cz/en/lide/detail-surman>, in person), Friedrich
Cain (University of Vienna
<https://fakzen-thks.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/mitarbeiterinnen/cain-friedrich/>,
in person)
Thursday, 27 March 2025, 11:30-13:00 Uhr CET
Währinger Straße 29, 1.OG, Seminarraum 6
Zoom:
https://univienna.zoom.us/j/66194391940?pwd=c4orxC2pd8jnI5MP5uriEA9hLy86HH.1
Meeting-ID: 661 9439 1940
Kenncode: 871687
After a short introduction of the guests we will disuss two foundational
texts from Polish history of science and knowledge ("science of
science"). For your preparation we would kindly ask you to download the
texts directly from the publishers website, since the whole volume is
available in open access:
Friedrich Cain, Bernhard Kleeberg (Hg.): A New Organon. Science Studies
in Interwar Poland, Mohr Siebeck 2024. (= Historische Wissensforschung 18)
https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/buch/a-new-organon-9783161543159/
We will read the translated texts by:
Ossowska/Ossowski
<https://viewer.content-select.com/pdf/viewer?id=1&id_type=isbn&identifiers=…>(1935):
The Science of Science
Bujak
<https://viewer.content-select.com/pdf/viewer?id=1&id_type=isbn&identifiers=…>(1929):
The Man of Action and the Student
We would also like to draw your attention to two past conferences:
*"(Re)Thinking the University from, in, and beyond (Post-)Socialist
Europe" (2023) *
https://fakzen-thks.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/z_fakzen_thks/Histor…
*The Counter-University. Histories, Movements, and Ambitions (2025)
*https://engerom.ku.dk/english/calendar/2024/the-counter-university/
For those of you interested in these topics, why not subscribe to the
newsletter of HPS.CESEE, the online platform about the *
History and Philosophy of Science in Central, Eastern, and Southestern
Europe*
https://hpscesee.blogspot.com/
This session of the Research Colloqium History of Science and Knowledge
is addressed to the larger public, please feel free to circulate this
invitation.
Kind regards
Sebastian Felten, Nils Güttler and Anna Echterhölter