The Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California, Irvine, is pleased to announce a workshop on mathematical depth, to be held on Friday, April 11 and Saturday, April 12, 2014. The workshop brings together mathematicians and historians and philosophers of mathematics to try to get a preliminary sense of whether or not the notion of ‘mathematical depth’ can play a useful role in our understanding of the nature and practice of mathematics. Speakers have been encouraged to present an example or examples of concepts, theorems, subject areas that they think qualify as deep, or as not deep, and to lay out the particular mathematical features of those examples that lead them to make those judgments. The discussion will be aimed to do several things:

1.  See if there is agreement on which examples are deep and not deep.
2. See if there are commonalities in the kinds of features cited in defense of depth and non-depth assessments in the various examples.
3. Ask whether depth is or isn’t the same as fruitfulness, surprisingness, importance, elegance, difficulty, fundamentalness, explanatoriness, etc.
4. Ask whether depth seems likely to be an objective feature or something essentially tied to our interests, abilities, and so on. (Even natural science is tied to our interests and abilities, in that we might be drawn to certain areas of inquiry by our interests, hampered or helped by certain of our abilities, etc. The question is whether depth is tied to our interests and abilities in some more fundamental way.)

One possible outcome would be: this is a non-starter. Another would be: this is worthy of further study.

Friday, April 11th, 2014

10:00AM – 10:45AM: Breakfast

10:45AM – 11:45PM: James Tappenden

11:45AM – 12:00PM: Coffee Break

12:00PM – 1:00PM: John Stillwell

1:00PM – 1:30PM: General Discussion

1:30PM – 2:45PM: Lunch

2:45PM – 3:45PM: Robert Geroch

3:45PM – 4:00PM: Coffee Break

4:00PM – 5:00PM: Jeremy Gray

5:00PM – 6:00PM: General Discussion

Saturday, April 12th, 2014

10:00AM – 10:45AM: Breakfast

10:45AM – 11:45PM: Andrew Arana

11:45AM – 12:00PM: Coffee Break

12:00PM – 1:00PM: Mario Bonk

1:00PM – 1:30PM: General Discussion

1:30PM – 2:45PM: Lunch

2:45PM – 3:45PM: Alasdair Urquhart

3:45PM – 4:00PM: Coffee Break

4:00PM – 5:00PM: Marc Lange

5:00PM – 6:00PM: General Discussion

Location: Social and Behavioral Sciences Building, 1517 on the University of California, Irvine Campus.

Organizers: Jeremy Heis, Penelope Maddy, Sean Walsh, and Jim Weatherall

Webpage: http://www.lps.uci.edu/node/16463

If you plan to attend or desire more information, please contact mmcnulty@uci.edu.