20 - 21 June 2022, Conference "Engineering the Concept of Collection", Oslo (Norway) & Virtual

The history of mathematics and philosophy have seen many different concepts of collection: a set (understood as a gathering into one of previously available objects), a class (understood as defined by its membership condition, not by its members), a mereological sum, etc. Indeed, even a plurality (i.e. many objects) and a concept can be seen as a collection, since it makes sense to talk about their members (or instances). These observations raise some general philosophical-mathematical questions. What concepts of collection do we have? Which, if any, of these concepts should we use? Or should we '(re-)engineer' one or more concepts of collection to produce concepts that are fit for purpose?

Alongside these longstanding debates about the nature of collections, there are also questions of how exactly each conception should be made precise. Recent attempts to make sense of the ontology of combinatorial sets, for example, have proposed very different pictures of what they are like. This is especially clear in the debates on the nature of our thought concerning 'the'€™ universe of sets.

The workshop will be hybrid (in-person and online). Registration is free but is required to attend the workshop.