Welcome to the 45th Annual Graduate Conference at UIUC!
April 5 & 6, 2024
The Department of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) would like to invite you to our 45th Annual Graduate Philosophy Conference. The conference will be held at Gregory Hall in Urbana, Illinois from April 5-6, 2024.
Submissions for the conference are due February 1st, 2024. View the 2024 Call for Papers: CFP
Keynote
Dr. MARCO j. nATHAN*
Title: “Is There a Black Box Problem in the Special Sciences?”
Time: April 6th, 2024
Abstract:
Recent developments in the field of AI – such as the emergence of ChatGPT and analogous “deep learning” algorithms – have brought to the foreground a general philosophical issue. Most scientific models contain black boxes, that is, simplified placeholder constructs that omit or deliberately ignore crucial detail pertaining to underlying mechanistic processes. Does this kind of epistemic opacity constitute a serious methodological shortcoming to be overcome in the natural and social sciences? Or could it merely reflect the symptoms of a methodological approach to science that is unduly focused predominantly, or even exclusively, on explanation?
*Dr. Marco J. Nathan is Professor and Chair at the Department of Philosophy, University of Denver
Sponsors:
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- Department of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- The Graduate Philosophy Organization at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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