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Simon Graf

Simon Graf

  • Email: prsgr@leeds.ac.uk
  • Thesis title: The ontology of scientific groups, and the role and character of rationality in interpreting their collective attitudes
  • Supervisor: Professor J Robert G Williams, Dr Haixin Dang; Dr Andrew Peet

Profile

I am a 3rd year PhD student and researcher at the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, having joined the ERC-funded project Group Thinking: New Foundations in September 2020. My current research is concerned with the ontology of epistemic and scientific groups, and the role and character of rationality in interpreting their collective attitudes. In my doctoral thesis, I aim to bring together different approaches to the analysis of epistemic groups from a socio-ontological, as well as from a traditional philosophy of science background.

Besides my current focus in social epistemology, I am interested in general questions in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mathematics, and the integrated history and philosophy of these subjects. In particular, I am excited about the contemporary and historical debate around scientific realism, the role and character of scientific and mathematical thought experiments, as well as conceptual shifts and scientific progress.

Publications (Peer reviewed):

  • (2021) “The Epistemology of Groups by Jennifer Lackey.” [Book Review] Perspectives: International Postgraduate Journal of Philosophy (9), 380-387. https://philpapers.org/archive/GRARTE-5.pdf.

Talks and Presentations:

  • (2022) Internal: “Epistemic Continuity: A Plea for a United Epistemology” Grounds Seminar at the University of Leeds.
  • (2022) External: “Uniqueness, Permissivism, and Self-Fulfilling Beliefs.” Conference for Young Analytic Philosophy (SOPhiA 2022) at the University of Salzburg.
  • (2022) External: “Epistemic Divergence.” Social Ontology 2022 organized by the International Social Ontology Society (ISOS) at the University of Vienna.
  • (2022) Internal: “Uniqueness, Permissvism and Self-Fulfilling Beliefs” Philosophy Seminar at the University of Leeds.
  • (2021) External: "Epistemic Divergence and Time Slice Rationality." Conference for Young Analytic Philosophy (SOPhiA 2021) at the University of Salzburg.
  • (2021) External: “The Independent Epistemic Agent Account of Group Justification” Social Ontology 2021 organized by the International Social Ontology Society (ISOS) at the University of California, San Diego.
  • (2021) Internal: “On the Relationship between Propositional and Doxastic Group Justification.” Philosophy Postgraduate Research Seminar at the University of Leeds.
  • (2020) Internal: “Becoming in Spacetime: The Metaphysics of Light Clocks and Proper Time in Special Relativity.“ Philosophy Postgraduate Research Seminar at the University of Leeds.
  • (2020) External (postponed): “Playing the Game of Rationality: Language Games and Puzzle Solving in Epistemic Communities.” Symposium Philosophy of Play at the University of Zagreb.
  • (2019) External: “Beyond Infinity: Dialethism and the Ontology of the Transfinite.” Conference for Young Analytic Philosophy (SOPhiA) at the University of Salzburg.
  • (2019) Internal: “Paradoxes of the Infinite.” At the Interdisciplinary Colloquium "Wissen und Realität im Netzwerk von Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft" at the University of Graz.

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Research interests

  • philosophy of science
  • social epistemology
  • integrated history and philosophy of science

Qualifications

  • MA Philosophy, University of Graz, 2020
  • MA research certificate: History and Philosophy of Science, University of Graz 2020
  • BA Philosophy, University of Graz, 2018

Research groups and institutes

  • Centre for Theoretical Philosophy