Philosophy of Science of Decision Making

SEMINAR SCHEDULE

September 12, 2025 

DON ROSS

Title: “Integrating the economics of networks with quantitative sociology”

Keywords: Agency, network models, influence propagation, information flow, game theory, utility functions

Abstract: One way of framing the general problem of unifying economic and sociological models is that economists assume agency, often to strongly idealised and empirically unrealistic degrees, while sociologists often idealise agency away. This long-observed barrier to unification is arguably too abstract to matter much (except to philosophers). When we focus specifically on network models, we see this difference again, but along with it a complementary duality that gives rise to a truly urgent scientific problem. The latest wave of sociological modelling of complex contagions (e.g., Centola 2018) has discovered, on theoretical and empirical grounds, that non-epistemic influence propagates most efficiently via clustered strong ties in peripheral sub-networks, rather than via week ties from hubs. Meanwhile, in game-theoretic models of networks, the more traditionally understood efficiency properties – formerly agreed on between sociologists and economists – endure. We can understand this as indicating fundamentally different dynamics separating influence propagation from information flow. This gives rise to a classic form of scientific conundrum. Most social change phenomena involve propagation of both influence and information. Thus outputs of network activation are net products of forces pushing in opposite directions, with structures that promote influence impeding information flow and vice-versa. Empirical adequacy thus depend on factorising theory that we don’t yet have. Here the traditional barrier to integration of sociology and economics emerges as a real practical problem: the sociological network models involve no agency, while the economic models assume immovable agency based on fixed utility functions. In this talk, I describe a new technical methodology for (i) incorporating agency into models of influence propagation, and (ii) allowing utility functions to shift under influence, while (iii) preserving the power of established game-theoretic solution concepts.

September 26, 2025 

ARMIN SCHULZ

Title:  “Agency: The Case for an Eliminative Pluralism "

 Keywords: Agency, scientific pluralism, eliminativism, economics and biology, conceptual analysis

Abstract: Concepts of agency are invoked in explanations, models, theories, and predictions in many different sciences, from evolutionary biology to computer science and economics. In order to understand and assess the work in these sciences, therefore, it is crucial to understand these appeals to “agency.” To make progress in this, this paper makes the case for three interrelated conclusions. First, the best way to understand the question about the nature of agency is as an account that lays out defensible scientific uses of the concept of agency—not a purely metaphysical-philosophical account, or a purely interpretationist account. Second, the paper seeks to show that there is not one right answer about what an agent is—that is, we should be eliminativists about the general concept of agency. Third, though, it also shows that this should not be conflated with the view that anything goes as far as agency is concerned: in specific scientific contexts, such as economics and biology, there are more and less defensible views of agency in that context. That is, we should be scientific pluralists about agency.  

October 10,2025 

CAMILLA COLOMBO

Title: "Choice automation as choice deferral: rationality and autonomy"

Keywords: Choice automation, choice deferral, decisional enhancement, cognitive offloading, intrinsic value of choice, autonomy

October 24, 2025

MAGDA OSMAN

Title: “Judged unconscious manipulation and free choice are not neatly associated, at least not when we look at folk beliefs”

Keywords: Free choice, unconscious, causal attributions, agency, identity

November 7, 2025 

ALIYA RUMANA

Title: "Rationality's role in rational analysis"

Keywords: Rational analysis, rationality, model calibration, data accommodation, overfitting

November 21, 2025 

JOSÉ L. BERMÚDEZ

Title: “On the rationality of framing”

Keywords: Framing, rationality, frame-sensitive reasoning, ultraintensionality

December 5, 2025

CONRAD HEILMANN

Title: “Intrapersonal conflict resolved”

Keywords: Intrapersonal choice, weakness of will, choice over time, temporal discounting

December 19, 2025 

ANGELICA KAUFMANN

Title: “Commitment in non-human animals”

Keywords: Commitment, choice, non-human animals, comparative ethology

January 9, 2026 

WIM DE NEYS

Title: "The smart System 1: Advances in dual process theorizing"

Keywords: Dual process theory, System 1, System 2, intuitive vs. deliberate thought, system interaction

January 23, 2026

MALVINA ONGARO

Title: “Sustainable approaches for the effective management of natural risks”

Keywords: Risk management, uncertainty, natural hazards, cost-benefit analysis, multi-criteria analysis

February 6, 2026

MAGDALENA MALECKA

Title: “Heterodox economics and decision theory”

 Keywords: (coming soon)

February 20, 2026

LUKAS BECK

Title: "Dispositions, representations, and social norms"

Keywords: Preferences, social norms, representation, explanation

March 6, 2026 

ENRICO PETRACCA

Title: “Four shades of embodied rationality”

Keywords: Embodied rationality, ecological rationality, embodied cognition, extended cognition

March 20, 2026 

MATTEO COLOMBO

Title: "Inference and association in (neuro)cognitive systems"

Keywords: Inference, association, response hypothesis, basal cognition, ecological rationality, neurocognitive systems