Talks

2023

2022

Populations, individuals, and induction in nineteenth-century medical epistemology. Colloquium at TU Berlin, May 16.

2021

Taking evolution seriously in the philosophy of medicine. Symposium of the Graduate School for Health Sciences (University of Bern), Schloss Münchenwiler, November 24.

2020

Case Studies and Historical Evidence in HPS. Turning the mirror: from scientific pluralism to pluralism in HPS, University of Exeter, January 8–9.

2019

Taming the catch-all. Colloquium in Philosophy of Science of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, November 13.

Unwarranted assumptions. Continuity, Improvement, and Innovation in Experimental Methodology, University of Indiana at Bloomington, October 30–31.

Scenes from a Marriage: On the confrontation model of history and philosophy of science. 16th Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Prague, August 6.

Unwarranted assumptions: Claude Bernard and the growth of the vera causa standard. Meeting of the Consortium for the History and Philosophy of Biology, IHPST, Paris, May 24–26.

Again, Method! Workshop at Indiana University Europe Gateway, Berlin, March 14.

2018

One is the loneliest number: Can n-of-1 studies help in personalizing medicine? The epistemology of single cases: philosophical and medical issues, University of Bologna, December 7.

Bridging the gap between populations and individuals: an epistemic strategy from cancer biology. The Philosophy of Cancer, University of Bordeaux, October 15–17.

Spot the Difference: Causal contrasts in scientific diagrams. Science as a FACTory, University of Vienna, October 4–6.

Discussant at The Conceptual Legacy of “On Growth and Form”, University of St. Andrews, June 14–16.

Scenes from a Marriage: On the confrontation model of history and philosophy of science. LEAHPS: Learning from Empirical Approaches to HPS, Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, April 6–7.

2017

Forget about Karl Popper! The hierarchy-of-hypotheses approach: Exploring its potential for structuring and analysing theory, research and evidence across disciplines, Hanover, Germany, July 19–21.

Beyond the Bad Lot. Ampliative Reasoning in the Sciences, University of Ghent, May 18–19.

2016

Spot the difference: Causal contrasts in scientific diagrams. Representing scientific results: Forms of knowledge, University of Kassel, November 18–19.

Justifying the method of historical case studies: A phylogenetic approach. PSA 2016, Atlanta, GA, November 3–5 (with Samuel Schindler).

Against what method? Feyerabend meets biological practice. Many methods – one biology? International workshop at the LMU Munich, October 21–22.

Historical Cases as Model Organisms. 8th Quadrennial International Fellows Conference of the Pittsburgh Center for Philosophy of Science, Lund, Sweden, July 11–13 (with Samuel Schindler).

Unwarranted assumptions: The neglect of the vera causa principle. 8th Quadrennial International Fellows Conference of the Pittsburgh Center for Philosophy of Science, Lund, Sweden, July 11–13.

Spot the difference: Causal contrasts in scientific diagrams. Sixth Conference of the Society for Integrated History and Philosophy of Science (&HPS6), Edinburgh, July 5.

Stability without stasis: Ambition and modesty of realism about true causes. Conference of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice, Glassboro, NJ, June 19.

Unwarranted assumptions: Historical epistemology of the vera causa principle. Oberseminar Wissenschaftsgeschichte, LMU Munich, April 28.

Rethinking the relationship between history and philosophy of science. What can the Philosophy of Biology learn from the History of Biology? Utrecht University, The Netherlands, March 19–20.

Presume It Not: True causes in the search for the basis of heredity. Scientific Realism and the Challenge from the History of Science. Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, USA, February 19–21 (with Aaron Novick).

2015

Best explanation or true cause? The case of Darwin’s pangenesis. Perspectives for the history of the life sciences: New themes, new sources, new approaches, LMU Munich, October 30–November 1.

The argument from the good lot: Unconceived alternatives and 20th century genetics. CamPoS, University of Cambridge, October 14.

The argument from the good lot: Unconceived alternatives and 20th century genetics. EPSA 15, Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf, September 23–26.

Confronting philosophical concepts with historical cases. Testing philosophical theories against the history of science, University of Oulu, Finland, September 21–22.

Truth re-nomination and the Lotka-Volterra model. Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Helsinki, August 3–8.

Measurement and the method of difference. The Making of Measurement, Cambridge, UK, July 23–24.

The argument from the good lot: Scientific realism and 19th century bacteriology. Center for Philosophy of Science Lunchtime Talk, Pittsburgh, February 24.

2014

Confronting philosophical concepts with historical cases. Center for Philosophy of Science Lunchtime Talk, Pittsburgh, November 4.

Towards a Methodology for Integrated History and Philosophy of Science. Integrated History and Philosophy of Science – &HPS5, Vienna, June 26–28, with Tim Räz and Kärin Nickelsen.

Discovery from a Causal Point of View: Oxidative Phosphorylation. Causality in the Biological Sciences, University of Cologne, January 17.

2013

Towards a methodology for integrated history and philosophy of science. The philosophy of historical case studies, University of Bern, November 21-22, with Tim Räz.

The proximate-ultimate distinction and a whiff of adaptationism (Comments on Chapter 3). Workshop with Karen Neander: “The Natural and the Normative”, University of Fribourg, July 5.

Integration, Regulation and Health (Comments on Marcel Weber). Workshop “After Functionalism: Realization, Embodiment and Biofunctions”, University of Lausanne, July 1.

A Tale of Two Puzzles. Department of Ecology & Evolution, University of Lausanne, June 12, with Tim Räz.

Does the Consensus View of Idealization Have Legs? Workshop with Uskali Mäki: “From False Models to Truth?”, University of Bern, April 10.

2012

Confessions of a Complexity Skeptic (Comments on Max Urchs). ESF Workshop on Causation, Dispositions and Probabilities in Physics and Biology, Lausanne, November 22–24.

Realism from a causal point of view. Special colloquium on “Realism and Method”, Bern, July 19 (co-organized with Adrian Wüthrich).

Inference to the Best Explanation in the Catch-22. “Evidence and Explanation” workshop of the Episteme Group at the University of Geneva, April 25–26.

2011

Causality and Mechanisms in Philosophy of Science. International workshop, Bern, November 24–25 (co-organized with Kärin Nickelsen). See my brief workshop report in The Reasoner, March 2012, pp. 41–42.

Why do we model? (with Tim Räz, University of Lausanne). European Philosophy of Science Association Conference in Athens, Greece, October 5–8.

Oxidative Phosphorylation and the Logic of Discovery. Plants & People Conference 2011, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Potsdam-Golm, Germany, September 5–7.

Causal Inference, Mechanisms and the Semmelweis Case. 14th International Congress of Mathematics, Logic and Philosophy of Science, Nancy, France, July 19–26.

2010

2008

2006

2005