Lecture
Institute for Philosophy Opening Academic Year 2026-2027
- Date
- Thursday 3 September 2026
- Time
- Location
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 0.03
On Thursday, 3 September 2025 the Institute of Philosophy will celebrate the opening of Academic Year 2026-2027. All staff, students, and members of the wider philosophical community are cordially invited to attend the presentations.
| 16:00 | Opening & Welcome |
Susanna Lindberg |
| 16:10 |
Speech |
Mio Päeren |
| 16:25 | Lecture |
Caspar Jacobs |
| 17:00 |
Drinks & Bites |
Faculty Club - Brasserie |
Abstract
“As If!”: What Are Cosmic Coincidences?
Perhaps the most famous argument for scientific realism, the thesis that our current best scientific theories are approximately true, is that it would be a ‘cosmic coincidence’ if those theories were false yet all observable phenomena behave ‘as if’ they are true. One can find instances of same type of argument in many more specific scientific debates, too: the geocentric vs heliocentric model of the solar system, the fine-tuning of the universe for life, the horizon problem in cosmology, and even sceptical scenarios in epistemology. In this talk, I will analyse what it means for an hypothesis or explanation to make it seem ‘as if’ another hypothesis or explanation is true, and show why this indeed provides justification not to believe the explanation in question.