Call for Papers: Formal Ethics 2012 at MCMP, LMU Munich

May 8, 2012

Call for Papers

Formal Ethics 2012
Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

The application of formal tools from logic and rational choice theory to the analysis of ethical concepts and theories is a rapidly growing field of research. It has shed new light on a variety of concepts that are central to ethical theory, such as freedom, responsibility, values, norms, and conventions. We invite submissions to Formal Ethics 2012, to be held at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy on October 11th to 13th, 2012. The workshop aims to bring together researchers at the crossroads of ethical theory and formal methods.

Aside from the contributed talks, the workshop will feature keynote addresses from:

John F. Horty (University of Maryland-College Park)

Simon Huttegger (University of California, Irvine)

Gerhard Schurz (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf)

Martin van Hees (University of Groningen)

Instructions for submission.

Authors should send an extended abstract (1000 words max, pdf or postscript format) together with their name, institutional affiliation(s) and current position(s) to the Organizing Committee (organization@formalethics.net) with “Submission” in the email subject line.

Travel grants for graduate students.

We especially encourage graduate students to submit. A number of travel grants for up to 500 Euro are available. If you want to apply for a grant, please say so in your submission.

Important dates.

Deadline for submissions: 15.06.2012.
Notification of acceptance: 10.07.2012.
Workshop: October 11th to 13th, 2012.

Organizing Committee.

Albert J.J. Anglberger (MCMP)
Norbert Gratzl (MCMP)
Olivier Roy (MCMP)

Contact and further information.

Email: organization@formalethics.net
Web: http://www.formalethics.net

Submitted by Olivier Roy

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Schervish on Strictly Proper Scoring Rules for Incentive-Compatible Elicitation

April 10, 2012

Mark Schervish, Professor and Head of the Department of Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University, will deliver a Games and Decisions lecture, “Incentive-Compatible Elicitation,” on Wednesday, April 11, 2012, at Carnegie Mellon University.

Schervish joined the Department of Statistics in 1979 after earning a doctoral degree in statistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master’s degree in applied mathematics from the University of Michigan. His research interests in statistics are broad, spanning problems concerning foundations, methodology, theory, and applications. In addition to numerous articles, Schervish is author of Theory of Statistics (Springer) and co-author of Rethinking the Foundations of Statistics (with Teddy Seidenfeld and Jay Kadane; CUP) and Probability and Statistics (with Morris H. DeGroot; Addison-Wesley). What follows is an abstract of his Games and Decisions lecture.

Strictly proper scoring rules have been advertised as tools that allow the elicitation of various aspects of subjective probability distributions by providing the proper incentives to induce agents to honestly report their beliefs. We give a brief overview and report some results that raise some questions about the ability to implement the incentive structure as intended. The results extend to all statistical decision problems and raise issues that should be addressed whenever applying statistical decision theory in practice.

Games and Decisions Group
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University

Wednesday, April 11, 2012
12:30-1:30 pm   Baker Hall 135

As usual, all are invited to attend. To ensure that we can accommodate all lunchtime guests, please contact Teddy Seidenfeld or Kevin Zollman to signal your intention to attend.

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Posted by Arthur Paul Pedersen

Does Fitelson Have an Ace up His Sleeve?

April 4, 2012

Branden Fitelson, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, will deliver a colloquium lecture, “Accuracy, Coherence, and Evidence,” on Thursday, April 5, 2012, at Carnegie Mellon University. Having studied mathematics and physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fitelson continued his studies at the same university to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy under the supervision of Malcom Forster, earning his doctorate in 2001 for his thesis, Studies in Bayesian Confirmation Theory.  What follows is an abstract of his lecture.

I will begin by rehearsing the traditional story about the relationship between accuracy norms (i.e., the truth norm), coherence norms (i.e., the deductive consistency norm), and evidential norms (i.e., a weak Lockean evidentialist thesis) for full belief. Then, I will discuss Ramsey-style reasons for being skeptical about an analogous story about partial belief (viz., credence). Next, I will describe an alternative story about the relationship between accuracy norms and coherence norms for credences (due to de Finetti, Joyce, and others). Finally, I will explain how an analogous story about full belief leads to an interesting new coherence norm that is weaker than deductive consistency, but much more intimately connected with evidential norms. Time permitting, various implications and applications of this new approach will be discussed. This is joint work with Kenny Easwaran.
 
 

Philosophy Colloquium
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Reception.
4:00-4:35 pm   Doherty Hall 4301

Lecture.
4:45-6:00 pm   Baker Hall A53

As usual, all are invited to attend.

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Posted by Arthur Paul Pedersen

New Science – New Risks

March 29, 2012

New Science – New Risks

Friday & Saturday, 30-31 March 2012

Center for Philosophy of Science
817 Cathedral of Learning
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA USA

Everyone welcome. Registration is requested but not required.
To register, contact rubus@pitt.edu.

     Friday Afternoon     

 1:00 Paul Slovic, Decision Research, Eugene, Oregon

Compassion collapse: A modification of Prospect Theory’s value function
 1:45 Lara Buchak, Department of Philosophy, University of California at Berkeley

Risk and tradeoffs
 2:30 Otávio Bueno and Robin Neiman, Department of Philosophy, University of Miami

Two types of uncertainty in clinical trials
 3:15 Coffee
 3:45 Roger Stanev, Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia

The assessment of efficacy and safety data by data and safety monitoring boards
 4:30 Simone Duca, Department of Philosophy, Ruhr University of Bochum

State-minimax regret: A new strategy for cautious introspective wishful thinkers
 5:15 Melissa Finucane, East-West Center, Honolulu

Changing Risk Paradigms

     Saturday Morning     

 8:30 Breakfast
 9:00 Paul Weirich, Department of Philosophy, University of Missouri-Columbia

Two types of risk
 9:45 Jeffrey Helzner, Department of Philosophy, Columbia University

Are reports concerning the death of Homo economicus greatly exaggerated?
10:30 Coffee
11:00 Brian Hill, École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris

Confidence in beliefs and decision making
11:45 Sofia Kaliarnta and Sabine Roeser, 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology, Delft University of Technology

Moral emotions and risk politics: An emotional deliberation approach to risk
12:30 Lunch

     Saturday Afternoon      

 2:00 Baruch Fischhoff, Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University                               

Disclosing uncertainty
 2:45 Eric Desjardins, Gillian Barker and Spencer Hey, Rotman Institute of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario

Uncertainty, resilience and robustness in adaptive ecological       management
 3:15 Coffee
 3:45 Eric Winsberg, Philosophy Department, University of South Florida

Risk and uncertainty in the use of global climate models
 4:30 Teddy Seidenfeld, Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University

About some limitations of pairwise comparisons

Program Committee

Nils-Eric Sahlin (Chair), Lund University

Melissa Finucane, East-West Center, Honolulu

John D. Norton, University of Pittsburgh

Teddy Seidenfeld, Carnegie Mellon University

Paul Weirich, University of Missouri-Columbia

Sponsors

The Harvey and Leslie Wagner Foundation

Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh

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Posted by Arthur Paul Pedersen

Distributions as Programs, and Limitations on Automating Probabilistic Inference

March 27, 2012

Daniel Roy, Newton Fellow at the University of Cambridge, will deliver a Games and Decisions lecture, “Distributions as Programs, and Limitations on Automating Probabilistic Inference,” on Wednesday, March 28, 2012, at Carnegie Mellon University. What follows is an abstract of his Games and Decisions lecture.

When is Bayesian reasoning possible? And when is it efficient?

In this talk we will explore a computational perspective on these questions, investigating the class of computable probability distributions and exploring the fundamental limitations of using this class to describe and compute conditional distributions. In addition to describing a computable distribution having a noncomputable conditional distribution, and thus demonstrating the impossibility of automating generic probabilistic inference with algorithms (even inefficient ones), we will highlight some positive results showing that computing conditional probabilities is possible in the presence of additional structure like exchangeability and noise (both of which are common in hierarchical Bayesian models), and also some results about the efficiency of computing conditional probabilities.

This theoretical work bears on work in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence on formal “probabilistic programming” languages (which enable the specification of complex probabilistic models) and their implementations (which can be used to perform automated Bayesian reasoning), and also provides a fresh take on foundational questions about conditional probability.

Games and Decisions Group
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University

Wednesday, March 28, 2012
12:30-1:30 pm   Baker Hall 135

As usual, all are invited to attend. To ensure that we can accommodate all lunchtime guests, please contact Teddy Seidenfeld or Kevin Zollman to signal your intention to attend.

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Posted by Arthur Paul Pedersen

Second Call for Papers: Logic Workshop at Buenos Aires

March 26, 2012

Second Call for Papers

Logic Workshop at Buenos Aires
A Tribute to Horacio Arló-Costa

SADAF, the Argentine Society for Philosophical Analysis, is organizing a Tribute to Horacio Arló-Costa, to take place in Buenos Aires, August 2nd to 4th, 2012.

Confirmed speakers:

Verónica Becher (Universidad de Buenos Aires)

John Collins (Columbia University)

Paul Egré (Jean Nicod Institute)

Jeff Helzner (Columbia University)

Kevin Kelly (Carnegie Mellon University)

Rohit Parikh (City University of New York)

Paul Pedersen (Carnegie Mellon University)

Fernando Tohmé (Universidad Nacional del Sur)

To be confirmed:

Cristina Bicchieri (University of Pensylvannia)

Alberto Moretti (SADAF-Universidad de Buenos Aires-CONICET)

Gladys Palau (Universidad de Buenos Aires)

We call for contributions in any area of philosophical logic, including (but not limited to) epistemic and modal logic, ampliative reasoning, belief revision, conditional logic, game theory and decision theory, among other topics.

We invite submissions for 40-minute presentations. Submissions should take the form of a 1000/1500-word abstract. They should be sent by e-mail in an attached file in pdf format to info@sadaf.org.ar. Authors’ names and affiliations should be given only in the text of the e-mail message. The abstracts will be blind reviewed by an international scientific committee. English and Spanish will be the official languages of the conference. However, we encourage contributors to provide the audience with an extended abstract, presentation, handout or full paper in English during the Conference.

Deadline for reception of submissions:  April 30th, 2012

Communication of acceptance/rejection: May 30th, 2012

For further particulars, please check the SADAF website at www.sadaf.org.ar or contact us by sending an e-mail to info@sadaf.org.ar.

Organizing Committee: Eduardo Barrio, Eleonora Cresto, Sandra Lazzer, Diana Pérez.

Scientific Committee: Verónica Becher, John Collins, Paul Egré, Jeff Helzner, Alberto Moretti, Gladys Palau, Rohit Parikh, Fernando Tohmé.

About SADAF

SADAF, the Argentine Society for Philosophical Analysis, is a non-profit organization devoted to research in philosophy. It was founded in 1972, and at present it counts with more than two hundred members, many of which are either faculty members or advanced students at various universities in Argentina and abroad. SADAF offers seminars and colloquium series, and hosts different kinds of academic meetings all year round. Since 1981 it is also home of Análisis Filosófico, a biannual, peer-reviewed journal of philosophy. Horacio Arló-Costa was an active member of SADAF while he lived in Argentina, and kept close ties with our institution after leaving the country. More information in Spanish in www.sadaf.org.ar

Submitted by Eleonora Cresto

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Visual Spatial Constancy and the Modularity of Mind

March 21, 2012

Wayne Wu, Assistant Professor and Associate Director of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, will deliver a philosophy colloquium lecture, “Visual Spatial Constancy and the Modularity of Mind.” What follows is an abstract of his lecture to be delivered Thursday, March 22, 2012, at Carnegie Mellon University.

In this talk, I will propose a mechanism for visual spatial constancy in human vision: why the world appears spatially stable despite eye movement. The proposed mechanism underscores two forms of informational exchange: between the two anatomically separable streams of the cortical visual system and between thought and vision. The likely existence of such exchange puts pressure on claims regarding the modularity of vision. I will discuss how we should understand the modularity thesis and why spatial constancy might be an instance where intention (thought) informationally penetrates visual experience. The talk will be accessible to a broader audience.

Philosophy Colloquium
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Reception.
4:00-4:35 pm   Doherty Hall 4301

Lecture.
4:45-6:00 pm   Baker Hall A53

As usual, all are invited to attend.

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Posted by Arthur Paul Pedersen

Common Belief, Revision, and Backward Induction

March 6, 2012

Patricia Rich of the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University will deliver a Games and Decisions lecture, “Common Belief, Revision, and Backward Induction,” on Wednesday, March 7, 2012, at Carnegie Mellon University. What follows is an abstract of her Games and Decisions lecture.

Whether rationality and common belief in rationality among the players of centipede games jointly entail the backward inductive outcome has long been argued without consensus. Arguments that these conditions are not sufficient often turn on the claim that there is no justification for supposing that players with initial common belief in rationality would retain such beliefs upon witnessing an unexpected move by an opponent. I will describe one of the more compelling such arguments, due to Stalnaker, who argues that we should use our best theory of belief revision, AGM, to determine which belief changes during a game are rational given the players’ prior beliefs. Stalnaker claims that the AGM axioms do not justify any special assumptions about how players revise from initial common belief in rationality, so that — critically — rational players may decide that their opponents are irrational if those players make non-backward inductive moves; departures from backward induction are therefore permissible. I disagree, arguing that while the content of the common belief (i.e. rationality) does not justify any additional assumptions about belief revision, the structure of common belief does, in accordance with the principles of AGM; I will employ Grove’s revealing sphere-based modelling of AGM to demonstrate this. I then prove a general theorem: Given my proposed constraint on rational belief revision, for all finite, n-player, extensive form, perfect information games with a unique backward induction solution, if there is initial common belief in rationality, then the backward inductive outcome is guaranteed. Further, if the longest branch of the game tree has n+1 decision nodes, initial n’th level mutual belief in rationality suffices for the result.

Games and Decisions Group
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University

Wednesday, March 7, 2012
12:30-1:30 pm   Baker Hall 135

As usual, all are invited to attend. To ensure that we can accommodate all lunchtime guests, please contact Teddy Seidenfeld or Kevin Zollman to signal your intention to attend.

1 Comment | Belief Revision, Game Theory, News | Permalink
Posted by Arthur Paul Pedersen

Structured Contents and Local Pragmatics

February 29, 2012

Mandy Simons, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University, will deliver a faculty colloquium lecture, “Structured Contents and Local Pragmatics.” Simons current research addresses issues concerning the interpretation of natural language in formal semantics, pragmatics, and the philosophy of language. What follows is an abstract of her lecture to be delivered Thursday, March 1, 2012, at Carnegie Mellon University.

It is by now a truism that speakers can communicate by their linguistic utterances more than is conventionally encoded in the expressions used. In the Gricean paradigm, a broad range of cases of this sort is given an explanation along the following lines: the hearer expects the speaker to make a reasonable conversational contribution (where what counts as reasonable is articulated in various “conversational maxims”); the conventional content of the utterance does not satisfy this expectation; therefore the speaker must intend to communicate something more, or different. The additional material conveyed is called a conversational implicature.

One challenge that has been raised for the Gricean approach is the phenomenon of embedded pragmatic effects: cases where an apparent conversational implicature has its effect under the scope of some linguistic operator, such as disjunction or the conditional. It has been argued that Gricean reasoning cannot be applied to explain such embedded effects; and some have taken this to undermine the Gricean program overall.

The goal of this talk is to provide an approach to embedded pragmatic effects which is consistent with a generally Gricean understanding of implicature. In the first place, I’ll point out that the standard argument against a Gricean account of embedded pragmatic effects conflates two distinct notions. I’ll provide an account of a set of cases involving pragmatic enrichment of disjuncts, which entirely evades the issue targeted by the standard argument. In developing this account, I will also make a substantive claim about the type of semantic theory which must be assumed in order to properly account for the semantics/pragmatics interface: I’ll argue that we need to assume a theory on which semantic contents reflect the structure of the linguistic expressions which give rise to them.

Finally, (time permitting), I’ll sketch a natural extension of the standard Gricean picture which would dissolve the standard argument, paving the way for a Gricean treatment of additional cases of embedded pragmatic effects.

Philosophy Colloquium
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Reception.
4:00-4:35 pm   Doherty Hall 4301

Lecture.
4:45-6:00 pm   Baker Hall A53

As usual, all are invited to attend.

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Posted by Arthur Paul Pedersen

Restall on Assertion, Denial and Paraconsistent Theories

February 24, 2012

Greg Restall of the School of Philosophy, Anthropology and Social Inquiry at the University of Melbourne will deliver a lunchtime lecture, “Assertion, Denial and Paraconsistent Theories,” today, Friday, February 24, 2012, at Carnegie Mellon University.  What follows is a very brief abstract of his lecture.

 

I will consider developing distinctively paraconsistent mathematical theories, including a kind-of-fun variant of Russell’s and Curry’s paradoxes which does without negation or a conditional.

Lunchtime Talk
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University

Friday, February 24, 2012
12:00-1:00 pm   Doherty Hall 4303

As usual, all are invited to attend.  Bring a lunch.

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Posted by Arthur Paul Pedersen

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