The Distinguished Speaker Series invites distinguished scholars to present their work in the history and philosophy of science. The Allan Franklin New Ideas Speaker Series invites junior scholars to present their work in the history and philosophy of science. It is named in honor of Allan Franklin, for his decades of unparalleled contributions to the history and philosophy of science. Dr. Franklin is best known for his work on the methods of physics.

Upcoming Schedule:

  • Friday, December 1, 2023, 3:15pm: Allan Franklin New Ideas Speaker, Isaac Wilhelm (National University of Singapore), "Typicality First"
    Instances of the law of large numbers are used to model many different physical systems. In this paper, I propose and defend a non-standard interpretation of those instances of that law. Roughly put, according to this interpretation, the law of large numbers is best understood as being about typicality. In particular, the content of that law, when used to model physical systems, is that the probability of an event typically---rather than probably---approximates the frequency with which that event occurs.
  • Friday, February 9, 2024, 3:15: Distinguished Speaker, Katherine Brading (Duke) TBA
  • Friday, April 12, 2024, 3:15pm: Distinguished Speaker, Cailin O'Connor (UC Irvine) TBA