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Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2008

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Abstract

Type
Preface
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2008

This volume contains the proceedings of the Royal Institute of Philosophy Annual Conference Kant and Philosophy of Science Today, hosted and organised by the Dept. of Science and Technology Studies, University College London, 2–3 July 2007. The aim of the conference was to explore the far-reaching Kantian legacy in modern debates in philosophy of science. This is an area that has attracted increasing attention in the past two decades, and both the contributors and the articles in this volume testify to the presence of Kantian themes across a significant array of topics: scientific realism and antirealism; pragmatism; unification in physics; symmetries and invariance principles; and the foundations of mathematics. Most articles combine philosophical discussions with historical perspectives about the Kantian legacy in modern physics and mathematics (from Poincaré to Einstein; from Hilbert to Wigner; from Frege to Brouwer).

I would like to thank all the contributors to the volume for their lectures and articles. I am very grateful to my colleagues Hasok Chang and Marcus Giaquinto for sharing my Kantian interests and co-organising the conference. Special thanks are due to Anthony O'Hear and Steve Miller for their endorsement of the conference from the very start. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Royal Institute of Philosophy; the British Academy; the British Society for Philosophy of Science; the Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Studies; and the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MAPS) Faculty at UCL, for having made this event possible.