Charlotte Werndl

Research

Current work:

My current work centres on several issues: First, I am working on papers about determinism and indeterminism. In particular, I am interested in results showing that there is observational equivalence between deterministic and indeterministic models, and I aim to clarify whether these results show that there is underdetermination. Second, I am working on the question of what constitutes evidence in climate science (with K. Steele). Third, several of my papers are on the foundations of statistical mechanics (joint work with R. Frigg). In particular, we aim to explain why gases, liquids and solids approach equilibrium, and to clarify in which sense thermodynamics can be reduced to statistical mechanics. Fourth, I am interested in how to understand probabilities in evolutionary theory, what role determinism and indeterminism plays in biology how we can conceptualise reduction in the biological sciences. Fifth, I am working on a historical paper about John von Neumann's contributions to mathematics (with M. Redei).

Ph.D. research:

My PhD thesis dealt with chaotic dynamical systems -- systems that are deterministic but nevertheless show irregular and unpredictable or even random behaviour. My thesis centred on three topics. First, I examined definitions in ergodic theory, and I asked what they tell us about the justification of definitions in mathematics and, in particular, about Lakatos's account of mathematics. Second, I investigated different kinds of unpredictability, and I clarified the special kind of unpredictability shown by chaotic systems, namely that for predicting any event all sufficiently past events are approximately probabilistically irrelevant. Third, I treated the question whether deterministic and indeterministic models can be observationally equivalent. I proved results that, in certain cases, there is observational equivalence. On this basis, I criticised the extant  philosophical literature on observational equivalence.