Conference: How do we determine that something is unknowable rather than merely not yet known? - New York, NY, December 2018

该奖项为一次会议提供了部分支持。这是一个跨学科的、为期两天的公开会议，讨论一个重要的科学问题：我们如何确定某些东西是未知的，而不仅仅是未知的？一系列学术学科(包括数学、宇宙学、生物学、医学、经济学、心理学、历史学和哲学)的专家将讨论用于确定一个深层问题无法得到回答的标准，以及这些标准是否在不同领域有所不同。会议将于2019年3月在纽约市新社会研究学院校园举行。这次会议可能会吸引300到400人的大量观众，其中包括公众、媒体、政策制定者以及学生和学者。与会者要讨论的问题是根本性的和长期重要的；这些问题需要不时地重新讨论。2000年10月在哥伦比亚大学举行了一次关于这一特定主题的类似会议；这是一个关于已知、未知和不可知的研讨会；它由阿尔弗雷德·P·斯隆基金会资助。一代人已经过去了，再次解决这些问题既及时又重要。这次会议可能会吸引大量和广泛的听众，它将促进学院内外的对话，并有助于增进公众对重要的社会、知识和政治问题的理解。来自会议的论文将构成《社会研究：国际季刊》的特刊。会议过程将有很好的机会启发和影响定义知识极限的标准的讨论，甚至可能导致这些标准的变化。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award provides partial support for a conference. It is an interdisciplinary, two-day, public conference that addresses an important scientific question: How we determine that something is unknowable rather than merely not yet known? Experts across a range of academic disciplines (including mathematics, cosmology, biology, medicine, economics, psychology, history, and philosophy) will discuss the criteria used to determine that a deep question cannot be answered and whether these criteria differ across fields. The conference is to occur in March 2019 at the campus of The New School for Social Research in New York City. The conference is likely to attract a large audience, from 300 to 400 people, that will include members of the public, the media, and policy makers as well as students and academics. The questions that are to be addressed by conference participants are fundamental and of perennial importance; they require revisiting from time to time. A similar conference on this specific topic occurred at Columbia University in October 2000; it was a workshop on the known, the unknown, and the unknowable; and it was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. A generation has passed, and it is both timely and important to address these questions again. It is likely that the conference will attract a large and broad audience, and that it will foster dialogue within and beyond the academy and serve to enhance public understanding of important social, intellectual, and political issues. Papers from the conference will constitute a special issue of Social Research: An International Quarterly. The conference proceedings will have a good chance of inspiring and affecting the discussion of the criteria that define the limits of knowledge, perhaps even leading to changes in those criteria.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.