The schedule for the EPISTEME conference at CMU this summer is up. A selection of articles will appear in the recently renewed version of EPISTEME (the journal) which now intends to publish articles in formal social epistemology and other areas of formal epistemology. Aside from the presence of 8 distinguished invited speakers the program includes 18 additional accepted talks of excellent quality featuring both young and well known researchers in this area. The speakers will consider salient foundational issues in interactive and Bayesian epistemology, bounded rationality for interacting agents, learning in networks and signaling, issues about agreement and disagreement, voting theory, judgment aggregation and value aggregation, meta-induction and paradoxes of interactive rationality, etc. Everybody is welcome to attend. Hope to see you at CMU in June!
The Debate about “The Truth Wears Off”
March 26, 2011Jonah Lehrer published in the New Yorker an intriguing article about the “decline effect” which is the tendency of many exciting empirical results in science to fade over time. After receiving many letters and responses he recently published some afterthoughts in the blog of the New Yorker. Perhaps one of the most interesting responses is the one offered here by Andrew Gelman a professor of statistics at Columbia. I think that I have seen various instances of the decline effect in behavioral decision theory. But these cases might be just examples of “selective reporting” or instances of the phenomenon that Richard Feynman describes in his Commencement Address at Caltech in 1974:
Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It’s a little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It’s interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bigger than Millikan’s, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher.
Why didn’t they discover that the new number was higher right away? It’s a thing that scientists are ashamed of—this history—because it’s apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan’s, they thought something must be wrong—and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to Millikan’s value they didn’t look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that.
But if Gelman is right there might be cases of the decline effect that could be more interesting. Any thoughts?
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Philosophy of Science, Tidbits | 
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Posted by Horacio Arló-Costa
Symposium on belief and degrees of belief CFE@CMU
March 9, 2011On March 16, 12:00-4:00 there will be a symposium on uncertain acceptance involving Hannes Leitgeb, Horacio Arlo-Costa, Kevin Kelly, Paul Pedersen, and Hanti Lin in DH. The symposium will be a chance to compare notes on three new but different approaches to the subject. Check the colloquium link for details. Everybody is invited to attend.
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Congratulations Jonah!
February 22, 2011I just read that Jonah has been hired by the University of Utah. He has been a driving force behind this blog and we will miss him around Pittsburgh but it is nice to see that he is moving ahead in his career (especially in view of this depressed and bleak market). It is also interesting to see that there is an increasing interest in issues related to formal philosophy. In any case: Congratulations again!
By the way it is also nice to see that Edouard will remain in the Burg in spite of various tempting offers from San Diego and Wash U.
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Posted by Horacio Arló-Costa
Progic 2011@Columbia
January 2, 2011A call for papers for Progic 2011 can be found here. The Progic conference series is intended to promote interactions between probability and logic. The fifth installment of the series will be held at Columbia University in New York on September 10th and 11th of 2011. While several of the earlier Progic meetings included a special focus, Progic 2011 will honor Haim Gaifman’s contributions to the intersection of probability and logic. Progic 2011 will consist of 11 talks, 6 invited and 5 contributed. More information about the conference (invited speakers, deadlines, etc) appear in the link above. I am sure it will be a terrific meeting. Looking forward to it. I hope to see many friends there.
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EPISTEME@CMU Call for papers
November 17, 2010The 2011 EPISTEME conference will focus on the intersection of formal and social epistemology. The use of formal models in social epistemology is not a new development. Many philosophers have modeled concepts and ideas in social epistemology by using formal tools of various types (e.g., game theory, Bayesian decision theory, the theory of judgment aggregation, the recently developed theory of networks, multi-agent epistemic logic, social choice theory, etc.). This conference intends to explore the many fertile relations between various branches of formal epistemology and many sub-areas of contemporary social epistemology.
The 2011 EPISTEME conference will be hosted by the Center for Formal Epistemology in the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. The topic of the conference is:
“Social Epistemology meets Formal Epistemology: Recent developments and new trends“
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Posted by Horacio Arló-Costa
Experience, heuristics, and choice: Prospects for bounded rationality
November 7, 2010On December 1st there will be a workshop on bounded rationality, choice and heuristics at CMU. The workshop is sponsored by the Center for Formal Epistemology at CMU. Details about talks, schedule and topics here.
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CMU: Postdoctoral position in linguistics and formal epistemology
October 9, 2010Carnegie Mellon University, with the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is pleased to accept applications for two A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Humanities for the 2011-2013 academic years. These fellowships are designed to foster the academic careers of scholars who have recently received their Ph.D. degrees by permitting them to pursue their research while gaining mentored experience as teachers and members of one of Carnegie Mellon’s four humanities departments (English, History, Modern Languages, and Philosophy) in which they will be housed.
The Department of Philosophy seeks candidates whose research focuses on semantics or pragmatics of natural languages from the perspective of linguistics, philosophy, logic or computer science. Candidates whose work is of relevance to the research directions of the department’s Center for Formal Epistemology are particularly encouraged to apply. Information about the Center can be found at: http://www.formalepistemology.org
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Probabilism
September 19, 2010I am reading an early book that de Finetti wrote in the 20′s called “Probabilismo” and the recently published “L’invenzione della verita”. Both are philosophical texts that complement the “Philosophical lectures on probability” collected and edited by Alberto Mura. In “Probabilismo” de Finetti says:
“All’infuori della logica non esistono verita` ma soltanto opinioni il cui valore e` puramente quello d’essere effettivamente sentite come opinioni”.(page 62)
Later on in page 25 of the Treatise of Probability, VOL I, he seems to have changed his mind:
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Posted by Horacio Arló-Costa
Center for Formal Epistemology@CMU
March 11, 2010CENTER FOR FORMAL EPISTEMOLOGY
OPENING CELEBRATION CONFERENCE
June 26-27, 2010
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University
Everyone interested is welcome to attend!
Confirmed speakers include:
Johan van Benthem, Amsterdam and Stanford
Paul Egre, Jean-Nicod Institute
Branden Fitelson, Rutgers
Stephan Hartmann, Tilburg
James Joyce, Michigan
Hans Kamp, Stuttgart
Hannes Leitgeb, Bristol
Rohit Parikh, CUNY
Wilfried Sieg, Carnegie Mellon
Brian Skyrms, UC Irvine
Wolfgang Spohn, Konstanz
James Woodward, Cal Tech
For details regarding the Center for formal epistemology, the opening
celebration conference, and local arrangements, please follow the
relevant links here.
We look forward to seeing you.
Kevin T. Kelly, Director
kk3n@andrew.cmu.edu
Horacio Arlo-Costa, Associate Director
hcosta@andrew.cmu.edu
Center for Formal Epistemology
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
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Jonah N. Schupbach
Horacio Arló-Costa
Jeff Helzner
Gregory Wheeler
Jon Williamson
Vincenzo Crupi
Jake Chandler
Arthur Paul Pedersen
Sonja Smets
Carlo Martini
Reinhard Muskens
Branden Fitelson
Gabriella Pigozzi
