Department of Philosophy - University of Missouri-Columbia

 MOPS Workshop

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Missouri Philosophy of Science Workshop

The next Missouri Philosophers of Science (MOPS) Workshop will be held on March 11th and 12th, 2011. All sessions will be held in the Life Sciences Center on the MU campus [map/directions].

Outside participants include Denis Walsh and Robert Batterman. (Batterman will also speak to the MU Philosophy Department Colloquium on March 11 at 3:00pm in 105 Strickland Hall.)

Workshop participants from Missouri include: *Robert Northcott (UMSL), *Anna Alexandrova (UMSL), *Frederick Eberhardt (Wash.U), *Kate Kendig (Missouri Western State University), Kent Staley (SLU), Dana Tulodziecki (UMKC), Paul Weirich (MU), Andrew Melnyk (MU), Philip Robbins (MU), Christopher Pincock (MU), André Ariew (MU).

*Indicates a participant committed to giving a workshop talk.

Anyone who would like to participate in the workshop should contact Collin Rice crdv3@mail.missouri.edu, indicating whether they need help finding accommodations.

View Detailed Schedule (pdf)

MOPS is supported by the Benjamin Endowment, which is dedicated to the memory of A. C. Benjamin, distinguished former member of the department and pioneer philosopher of science.

A. Cornelius Benjamin was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1897 and died in Columbia, Missouri in 1968. He received his graduate training at the University of Michigan. He served in academic appointments at the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago and was a Guggenheim Fellow at the Sorbonne and Cambridge before joining the University of Missouri in 1945 to occupy the John Hiram Lathrop Chair in Philosophy, where he remained until his retirement in 1966.

Professor Benjamin had a long and productive career as teacher and philosopher. He was a pioneer in philosophy of science as it emerged as a distinct discipline following the Second World War. Reflecting his roots in American pragmatism, he was interested not only in the logical structure of science, but in the impact of scientific discoveries on human life. He was deeply appreciative of the intellectual integrity and utility of science, but at the same time he was conscious of its limits and the possibilities for its abuse. To sort out these matters is the responsibility of philosophers of science, whether they be philosophers or scientists.

Benjamin's books included The Logical Atomism of Bertrand Russell (University of Illinois Press, 1927); The Logical Structure of Science (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd., 1936); An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937); Operationism (Springfield, IL, Thomas Publishing, 1955); and Science, Technology, and Human Values (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1965).

Philosophers of science whose visits to the University of Missouri were funded by the Benjamin endowment include:

  • W.V.O. Quine
  • Carl Hempel
  • Stephen Toulmin
  • Thomas Kuhn
  • Larry Laudan
  • Lewis White Beck
  • Donald Davidson
  • Wilfrid Sellars
  • Jaakko Hintikka
  • Jerry Fodor
  • Elliott Sober
  • Philip Kitcher