Please join us for a talk, Wednesday November 11th. Join us at UIC or video conference at Geneva (details under ‘Speakers’ above), or via YouTube livestream (also above – click on ‘all activities’ once you get to our channel): 9.15am Chicago time.

• Wednesday November 11th 2015 at UIC — Kerry McKenzie (UC San Diego): Against Brute Fundamentalism

Abstract: “The claim that the fundamental is ‘brute and inexplicable’ is recited almost reflexively in philosophy.  But this ‘brutalist’ stance toward the fundamental seems to lie in increasing tension with what physicists claim to aspire to.  In this talk, I argue that those aspirations of physicists are not only reasonable, but that there is a sense in which they are already realized. In so doing, I hope to show that the idea that everything can be explained need not be tainted with rationalist overtones, but also to underline how qualified any claim of this nature must ultimately be.” In terms of technical difficulty, this talk ranks 3/5