The Society for Philosophy of Causation
The Society for Philosophy of Causation was founded in Kyoto on June 26th 2023 by the silent agreement of people present in one of the rooms of the Seifuso Villa. A century earlier, the Japanese prime minister held there talks with the queen of Belgium. Only history will tell which of these two events were more consequential.
SPOC’s mission is to promote research in causation. Some of the society’s activities include:
- Annual conference. The first one was in Kyoto in 2023. The second one was in Göttingen in 2024.
- Monthly online meetings, where people present their work in progress.
- A bi-weekly newsletter with news about upcoming meetings, relevant conferences, etc.
- A Discord channel for a more seamless communication. Discord is a free service that can be accessed from the browser, an app installed on your computer, and a smartphone app, and it’s easy to use.
The society is for philosophers, psychologists, linguists, and computer scientists working on causation. There are no fees. To be included in the mailing list and the discord channel, and otherwise count officially as a member, please send an email to spoc@causation.science titled membership. If it’s not immediately clear that you work on causation (e.g., from your personal website, publication record), please describe your interests briefly in the email. This is to filter out bots and spies.
annual conference
Annually, SPOC organizes a conference. The first one was in Kyoto. The second one was in Göttingen.
Gösation 2024
The second annual confernece of the Society for Philosophy of Causation is taking took place in
Paulinerkirche, Papendiek 14, 37073 Göttingen, Germany,
on July 19-21, 2024. The first one
took place in Kyoto, Japan, on June 24-26, 2023. It was widely considered a blast, and the
current one is
expected to be
second one was too.
| Donnerstag, 18. Juli | |
| 19 | Dinner: Zum Szültenbürger Prinzenstraße 7 |
| Freitag, 19. Juli | |
| 11-12 | Jenn McDonald Columbia Universität |
| Deriving Naturalness from Causal Structures | |
| 12-13 | Sander Beckers Universität Amsterdam |
| Causal Models as Generalized Functions | |
| 13-14 | Gauvain Bourgne Sorbonne Universität |
| Causality and Responsibility with Non-Occurrence of Events | |
| 14-15 | Mittagessen |
| 15-16 | Michael Waldmann Universität Göttingen |
| Interpolating Causal Mechanisms: The Paradox of Knowing More | |
| 16-17 | Caitlin Mace Pittsburgh Universität |
| On Dissecting Causal Circuits | |
| 17-18 | Liu Yue Southwest University of Finance and Economics |
| Causal Reasoning as Causal Model Attribution | |
| 19 | Dinner: Café Botanik Karspüle 1B |
| Samstag, 20. Juli | |
| 10-11 | Alexander Max Bauer Universität Oldenburg |
| Experimental Evidence in Favor of the Compositionality Constraint | |
| 11-12 | Tom Wysocki Universität Göttingen |
| Polymorphic Functions for a Better Semantics of Counterfactuals | |
| 12-13 | Reuben Stern Duke Universität |
| Causal Direction in Causal Bayes Nets | |
| 13-14 | Mittagessen |
| 14-15 | Alexander Gebharter Marche Polytechnic Universität |
| A causal Bayes net analysis of dispositions | |
| 15-16 | Gabriel Gil ICIMAF, Havana, Cuba |
| Rethinking the Counterfactual Theory of Causation | |
| 16-17 | Reinoud Pino Universität Amsterdam |
| On The Possibility of Quantum Interventionism | |
| 19 | Dinner: Hans im Glück Goethe-Allee 8 |
| Sonntag, 21. Juli | |
| 10-11 | Luna De Souter Universität Bergen |
| Identifiability and informativeness in regularity theory of causation | |
| 11-12 | Can Konuk École Normale Supérieure |
| Plurals in causal judgment | |
| 12-13 | Julie Goncharov Universität Göttingen |
| Rationalising Statements and Causation | |
| 13-14 | Mittagessen |
| 14-15 | Malcolm Forster Universität Wisconsin-Madison |
| Probability, Causality, and the Dog Bite Example | |
| 15-16 | Simon Stephan Universität Göttingen |
| Reasoning about Actual Causation in Reversible and Irreversible Causal Structures | |
| 16-17 | Xiuyuan An Fudan Universität |
| Brain Regions as Difference-Makers and the Limits of Interventionism | |
| 19 | Dinner: Le Feu Weender Landstraße 23 |
| Montag, 22. Juli | |
| noon | Brunch: Deutsches Theater Bistro Theaterplatz 11 |
APA affiliated sessions
SPOC is affiliated with the American Philosophical Association. As an affiliate, SPOC can organize sessions at APA divisional meetings. The first one will be in New York.
Eastern APA 2025
The first APA affiliated session will be held at the Eastern APA in New York. Please submit an abstract or paper to eastern@causation.science, but please submit only if you can come to New York, register for the meeting, and also contribute to renting the projector. The deadline for submissions is August 11.
calendar
You can subscribe to the SPOC google calendar.
The calendar contains deadlines of interest to SPOC members, such as the deadline for the SPOC confernce, SPOC affiliated sessions at the APA, the three deadlines for the APAs, online talks, deadlines for conferences related to causation, SPOC online talks, or other online talks. If you know of an event that should make its way to this calendar, please post it on the Discord channel, and I'll add it to the calendar.
contact
To contact the society, message Tom Wysocki at spoc@causation.science.
The formal address of the society, as if this ever mattered, is currently:
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Georg-Elias-Müller-Institut für Psychologie
Goßlerstraße 14
37073 Göttingen, Deutchland.