Presentation

Simulation is a creative and epistemologically-delicate process that has attracted a growing attention since the 1990s, both in the natural and the social sciences. The crucial role of simulation in theorizing, modelling, and understanding complex systems, and its increasing use for decision-making in concrete problems and/or public policy, has catapulted the philosophy of simulation to a whole new level of attention. At the same time, a huge community of researchers are utilizing simulation with a set of tools, methods, and concepts, in an intense cross-disciplinary atmosphere, with obvious interest in investigating the conditions for the successful use of simulation. The recognition that progress in the science of simulation must be go hand in hand with the analysis of its epistemological status has been an important motive for the EPOS workshops since 2004.

The first EPOS workshop, organised by Ulrich Frank and Klaus Troitzsch in 2004 at the University of Koblenz, Germany, was successful in bringing together researchers from the social, natural and computational sciences, as well as philosophers of science, to debate and elaborate on epistemological perspectives of simulation. The results of the meeting were published, after a further reviewing process, in a special issue of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (volume 8(4), 2005).

The second EPOS workshop, organised by Flaminio Squazzoni in 2006 at the University of Brescia, Italy, amplified this constructive atmosphere, where it became clear the positive and constructive outcome that the encounter of researchers and philosophers of science produces. The articles were collected by Squazzoni, Troitzsch, and Frank after a further reviewing process, and are expected to be published in 2008.

This third EPOS workshop, to be held in Lisbon, Portugal, on October 2-3, 2008, aims to continue this lively atmosphere. Moreover, it can only benefit from the evident growth of contributions in the literature on the methodology and epistemology of simulation since the first meeting in 2004. Once more, we hope to create an atmosphere of constructive debates on methodological and epistemological aspects of simulation, which are predicted to be of primary importance to the science of simulation in the coming years.

This meeting is also organised in coordination with the Fifth Conference of the European Social Simulation Association. This will bring together researchers engaged in a wide range of applied simulation, who were invited to submit their contributions on epistemological perspectives to this workshop in Lisbon.