CENTRE FOR REASONING
2 November - Bert Leuridan (philosophy, Ghent): Outline of a causal-structural account of scientific theories (GS1, 3.30-5pm, Centre for Reasoning)
8 November - Reading group. "The domain of reasons" by John Skorupski (OUP, 2010) (CGAN09b, 11-12, Centre for Reasoning)
Contact Simon Kirchin if you would like to attend.
16 November - Reading group. "Reliable reasoning: induction and statistical learning theory" by Gilbert Harman & Sanjeev Kulkarni (MIT, 2007) (GS1, 3.30-5pm, Centre for Reasoning)
Chapter 3: induction and "simplicity". Led by Bert Leuridan.
22 November - Reading group. "The domain of reasons" by John Skorupski (OUP, 2010) (CGAN09b, 11-12, Centre for Reasoning)
Contact Simon Kirchin if you would like to attend.
29 November - Jon Williamson (philosophy): Deliberation, judgement and the nature of evidence (Rutherford LT2, 12-2pm, Philosophy Seminars)
One kind of deliberation involves an individual reassessing the strengths of her beliefs in the light of new evidence. Bayesian epistemology measures the strength to which one ought to believe a proposition by its probability relative to all available evidence, and thus provides a normative account of individual deliberation. This can be extended to an account of individual judgement by treating the act of judgement as a decision problem, amenable to the tools of decision theory. A normative account of public deliberation and judgement can be provided by merging the evidence of the individuals in question and calculating appropriate Bayesian probabilities and judgement thresholds relative to this merged evidence.
But this formal epistemology for deliberation and judgement lacks substance without an account of how evidence can be merged. And in order to provide such an account, we need in turn an account of what the evidence is that grounds Bayesian probabilities. This paper attempts to tackle these two concerns. After finding fault with several views on the nature of evidence (the views that evidence is knowledge; that evidence is whatever is fully believed; that evidence is observationally set credence; that evidence is information) the paper argues that evidence is whatever is rationally taken for granted. This view has consequences for an account of merging, and it is shown that standard axioms for merging need to be weakened somewhat.
30 November - Reading group. "Reliable reasoning: induction and statistical learning theory" by Gilbert Harman & Sanjeev Kulkarni (MIT, 2007) (GS1, ***4.15-5.30pm***, Centre for Reasoning)
Chapter 4: neural networks, support vector machines, and transduction. Led by Alex Freitas.
6 December - Reading group. "The domain of reasons" by John Skorupski (OUP, 2010) (CGAN09b, 11-12, Centre for Reasoning)
Contact Simon Kirchin if you would like to attend.
6 December - Bert Leuridan (philosophy, Ghent): tbc (Rutherford LT2, 12-2pm, Philosophy Seminars)
13 December - Lorenzo Casini (philosophy): tbc (Rutherford LT2, 12-2pm, Philosophy Seminars)
14 December - Hykel Hosni (Maths, Pisa) - Towards a Bayesian theory of second order uncertainty (GS1, 3.30-5pm, Centre for Reasoning)
2012
17 January - George Darby (philosophy): tbc (Grimond LT3, 12-2pm, Philosophy Seminars)
25 January - Zoubin Ghahramani (engineering, Cambridge) - tbc (GS1, 3.30-5pm, Centre for Reasoning/CCNCS Joint Seminar)
31 January - Julien Murzi (philosophy): tbc (Grimond LT3, 12-2pm, Philosophy Seminars)
8 February - Howard Bowman (computing): Statistical analysis of EEG data using Monte Carlo resampling methods (GS1, 3.30-5pm, Centre for Reasoning/CCNCS Joint Seminar)
22 February - tbc (GS1, 3.30-5pm, Centre for Reasoning)
7 March - Per Laleng (Law): Causation and risk in the law of tort (GS1, 3.30-5pm, Centre for Reasoning)
7 March - Simon Schaffer (History and philosphy of science, Cambridge): tbc (Rutherford seminar room 7, 5pm, History Seminars)
21 March - tbc (GS1, 3.30-5pm, Centre for Reasoning)
3 April - Mauricio Suarez (philosophy, UCM Madrid): tbc (Grimond LT3, 12-2pm, Philosophy Seminars)
5-7 September - Evidence and Causality in the Sciences (ECitS 2012) (tbc, 9-6pm, Centre for Reasoning)
ADMINISTRATION
The centre is directed by David Corfield (who is in charge of the MA in Reasoning) and Jon Williamson (who is responsible for the running of the other centre activities).