John Pemberton`s homepage

John Pemberton is an Associate at the Centre for Philosophy of the Natural and Social Sciences at the LSE (since 1994), a Research Associate on the Powers Structuralism project at Corpus Christi in Oxford, and an Associate of the Centre for Humanities Engaging Science and Society (CHESS) at Durham University.

Current research:

My current research focuses on developing an actor-process ontology: the world exhibits surviving processes (actor-processes) which are physical (i.e. spatially located) and can act together with certain other actor-processes to being about changing in that other actor-process and/or itself. Examples of actor-processes are entities we take to be things, e.g. beating hearts, pendulums, and hydrogen atoms. An actor-process is then (unless it is basic) the acting together of its parts (also actor-processes) to bring about the next stage of the process at each stage. ‘Acting together’ is roughly having mutually activated Aristotelian powers.

This recent research has developed out of long-standing work with Nancy Cartwright focused on nomological machines (causation, powers, and laws of nature) which continues as a major strand of my research. Nomological machines are configurations of features with powers which give rise to change processes and hence regularities which we record as laws (here we remain agnostic on the nature of the features which ground powers). My development towards a process view is strongly influenced by Aristotle's ontology of change and his account of the form-matter hylomorphism (as explicated by Anna Marmodoro).  

Main topics:

Process, powers, changing, change, causation, configuration, arrangement, laws.

(Papers are available on my Academia webpage.)

Recent writings

Here are the first two of a series of papers on actor-processes and related issues:

• Individuating processes. The paper focuses on the individuation aspects of material originally presented at the Taiwan conference on Scientific Individuation as 'Things are material processes', and subsequently at Egenis, Exeter University as 'Things are power-processes'.

• Powers license possibilities used in contemporary sciences. Originally presented at the Real possibilities, determinism and free will conference in Konstanz, 18-21 March 2015.

     Other papers on this topic which I am busy drafting are:

• Causation is processual not relational presented at the Uniformity of nature conference in Edinburgh on 30th May 2015 (originally titled 'Power process causation' -  power point slides from my talk are available on the conference website).

•  Power composition and actor-processes - the solution to the special composition question.

    A related forthcoming presentation (with paper to follow):

• What is the manifestation of a power? at the Powers, dispositions and the new essentialism conference taking place in Beirut on 29 April - 1 May 2016.

Joint papers with Nancy Cartwright:

Ceteris paribus laws need machines to generate them (2014). Pemberton & Cartwright. Erkenntnis special issue: Semantics and pragmatics of ceteris paribus conditions.

Aristotelian powers: without them, what would modern science do? (2013). Cartwright & Pemberton. In Powers and capacities in philosophy: the new Aristotelianism. Edited by J. Greco and R. Groff. Routledge.

Slides from a recent presentation jointly authored with Nancy Cartwright: Science powers: how Aristotelian are they?

Here is a podcast of a recent presentation to the Powers Structuralism project:

Manifestation of powers - timing and continuity - and here are the accompanying slides

Other recent papers:

Integrating mechanist and nomological machine ontologies to make sense of what-how-that evidence

Causal explanation is mechanist

Previous papers linking to work in finance and economics:

Why ideals in economics have limited use in Idealization XII: Correcting the model, idealization and abstraction in the sciences. Edited by Martin Jones and Nancy Cartwright. Poznan Studies in the philosophy of the sciences and the humanities.

The methodology of actuarial science. British Actuarial Journal, volume 5, part I, no. 21. April 1999.

Email: j.pemberton@lse.ac.uk