Dr. Antonio Piccolomini d Aragona

Kuhn’s theories on scientific revolutions and paradigms, and Lakatos’ theories on scientific research programmes constitute two major contributions to the philosophical reconstruction of the historical-conceptual development of science. Both these approaches have been fruitfully applied to empirical sciences such as physics and chemistry; it is on the contrary much debated whether they can be employed also for the assessment of formal sciences. While the applicability of Kuhn’s and Lakatos’ theories to mathematics is somewhat debated, the issue is instead mostly unexplored when referred to the more specific field of (formal) logic.

In my project, I aim at addressing the topic of a potential Kuhnian and Lakatosian rendering of post-Fregean and post-Hilbertian logic. Although this general question is of course expected to be dealt with as a starting point of my investigation, I shall otherwise endorse a sort of case-wise strategy, trying to draw broad conclusions from smaller but significant samples. In particular, I shall focus on the crucial case-study of the logical opposition between realism and (anti-realist) constructivism. My pivotal claim is the following: logic is currently dominated by a realist Kuhnian paradigm, constituted by the combination of model theory and set theory. Against this, one can detect a (currently) minor but well-established constructivist Lakatosian research programme, which I shall mainly understand as given by the combination of Prawitz’s semantics and Martin-Löf’s intuitionistic type theory. The realist paradigm arose in response to a critical moment in the history of logic, i.e. the discovery of semantic and set-theoretic paradoxes and the proof of limiting results such as Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. This determined the abandonment of previous foundational attitudes, and the adoption of new core-concepts for the analysis of validity and the foundations of mathematics. However, some ingredients from the previous frameworks survived, and merged into a sequence of theories which led to today’s wide field of proof-theoretic semantics.

The proposed approach is expected to have a number of advantages. First, it permits to ground in a philosophical-historical perspective one of the classical themes of philosophy, otherwise addressed in usually metaphysical terms, i.e. the fight between realists and anti-realists. Second, via Kuhn’s influence, the perspective may be also sociological; more specifically, one may understand the competition between theories also as a fight between different “geo-theoretical” traditions, each with its places and “champions”. Third (but the list may not be exhaustive), the research may constitute the first step towards a more ambitious project, i.e. a history of general proof-theory from Gentzen to the present time, a crucial, but so far missing piece in the otherwise variegated tradition of proof-theoretic studies.

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Lauren Cubellis, PhD, MPH

Sheena Bartscherer, MA

This project considers how the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic has shaped possibilities for making sense of data, both in and outside of the sciences. The pandemic has generated an unprecedented situation in which the pressure on data to inform, guide, and correct emerging policy procedures and financial investments is immense. This data is multi-faceted and malleable, sourced from a wide-variety of experts, clinics, and research settings, and moves quickly, influencing institutional responses at state and local levels. Crisis situations can serve to generate innovative and unforeseen possibilities amid great uncertainty, and the consequent negotiation of variable situations demands adaptable forms of risk assessment, and responsive understandings of responsibility and social participation. In this case, scientific and public perspectives regarding the pandemic have become newly plastic when taken up in the context of crisis, foregrounding questions such as: how should changing rates of infection be evaluated? How do policy makers, in consultation with health care providers and scientists, establish meaningful thresholds for response? How do individuals and communities adjust their work and care practices to account for constantly changing information and instructions? One of the critical questions this project will ask is how such data are translated into actionable practice in everyday life, by both researchers and laypersons, and what are the consequences for establishing reliable ways of knowing in the face of protracted uncertainty.

            Drawing on media reports and academic literature, as well as extended interviews and conversations with anthropologists working internationally on questions of risk, temporality, and solidarity, this project addresses the complex task of understanding responses to emerging data and shifting social relations during the Covid-19 pandemic. It considers how the development and distribution of vaccines holds not only epidemiological significance, but also reverberates through social, familial, and professional relationships and differentiates the accessibility of social participation. It examines how risk – imagined differently by scientists, politicians, and individuals – is negotiated in the face of a massive public health crisis and changeable data. It asks how responsibility, and similarly, concepts of social solidarity, are newly shaped in response to these pressures. Finally, it turns a reflexive gaze on the practices of social scientists during this time, interrogating what qualitative methods offer in the face of a crisis at once intensely quantified and deeply social, and questions the boundaries we once held between the self as scientist and the self as participant in life in pandemic times.