The project activities were articulated in five Sub-projects over the 5-year period and the core team —consisting of two PhD students, two post-doctoral fellows and the PI —contributed to the delivery of all the activities.
Our first and second Subprojects had as their focus the perspectival nature of modelling in contemporary scientific practice. We looked at two main areas, particle physics and cosmology, where fascinating issues arise about perspectival modelling in the search for new physics beyond the Standard Model.
These two areas raise profound philosophical questions about the role of perspectivism in the search for physical reality. How do scientists go about searching for new physics if their practice is situated within a well-defined scientific perspective (e.g. the Standard model in high energy physics)?
In what sense are scientific models perspectival?
How can perspectival models (including computer simulations) help scientists answer questions about physical reality?
The team did fieldwork at CERN and at the Dark Energy Survey (DES) to acquire first-hand knowledge of some of the methodological challenges and modelling techniques used by physicists to look for supersymmetric particles as well as dark matter/dark energy.
This work resulted in a series of journal articles published by the PI Massimi and the postdoctoral fellow McCoy, as well as a number of press releases in Physics World, Nature Physics, The Guardian and Frankfurter Allgemeine among others.
In addition, we designed and delivered two Edinburgh International Science Festival events (2017 and 2018) on “The Hunt for Supersymmetric Particles” and “Searching for Dark Matter and Dark Energy” in collaboration with colleagues from particle physics and cosmology.
For the remaining three Subprojects, we looked at perspectivism in the history of philosophy, the history of science and finally we built on the work done for all these Subprojects in the final part of the project. The two PhD students, Jacoby and Spagnesi, respectively investigated the role of perspectivism in the Chemical revolution and in the Kantian epistemological tradition. And the second postdoctoral fellow, Cretu, delved into the history of the electron theory and the role of perspectivism in scientific disagreement and scientific instrumentation. Both the strand on modelling and the historical strand on the history of the electron fed into our dissemination strategy that included two summer schools at Edinburgh to over 200 children (P6 and P7) in 2016 and 2018.
We delivered a total of 2 co-edited volumes, one single-authored monograph, one special issue of the European Journal for the Philosophy of Science, and over thirty articles in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters (please see under Publications in www.perspectivalrealism.org).
We also organised three main international conference (in July 2016, Dec 2018, April 2021) and five interdisciplinary workshops plus a range of additional knowledge exchange events. For the full list of activities please see the project website:
https://www.perspectivalrealism.org/category/events/(opens in new window)
