Decisions without Sharp Probabilities, or Unsharp Probabilities without Decisions?

February 21, 2012

We are pleased to announce that Paul Weirich, Curators’ Professor of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Missouri-Columbia, will deliver a Games and Decisions lecture, “Decisions without Sharp Probabilities,” on Wednesday, February 22, 2012, at Carnegie Mellon University. Weirich, having earned a B.A. in philosophy from Saint Louis University, pursed a doctorate in philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles, earning a Ph.D. in 1977 for his thesis, Probability and Utility for Decision Theory, written under the supervision of Tyler Burge. In addition to numerous articles, Weirich is author of Collective Rationality: Equilibrium in Cooperative Games (OUP: 2010), Realistic Decision Theory: Rules for Nonideal Agents in Nonideal Circumstances (OUP: 2004), Decision Space: Multidimensional Utility Analysis (CUP: 2001), and Equilibrium and Rationality: Game Theory Revised by Decision Rules (CUP: 1998).  What follows is an abstract of his Games and Decisions lecture.

Adam Elga (2010) argues that no principle of rationality leads from unsharp probabilities to decisions. He concludes that a perfectly rational agent does not have unsharp probabilities. This paper defends unsharp probabilities. It shows how unsharp probabilities may ground rational decisions.

Unsharp probabilities arise from sparse or unspecific evidence. For example, meteorological evidence, because unspecific, often does not suggest a sharp probability that tomorrow will bring rain. An agent may assign to rain a range of probabilities going from, say, 0.4 to 0.6. Elga argues that unsharp probability assignments may lead an agent to a sure loss. In this event, a dilemma arises: the agent may have either unsharp probability assignments that accurately represent evidence, or sharp probabilities that prevent sure losses. Should an agent’s probability assignments be faithful to the evidence, or should they promote practical success? This paper maintains that an agent’s probability assignments can attain both goals.

Games and Decisions Group
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University

Wednesday, February 22, 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

2012 Consciousness Online Conference

February 18, 2012

…is online now.

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Posted by Gregory Wheeler

Awodey on Foundations

February 15, 2012

Invigorated by recent exciting developments concerning the relationships between constructive logic and algebraic topology, Steve Awodey, Professor of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University, will deliver a faculty Pure and Applied Logic colloquium lecture, “Homotopy Type Theory and Univalent Foundations of Mathematics.” Awodey, having studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Marburg, pursued his Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Chicago under the supervision of Saunders Mac Lane and William W. Tait, earning his doctorate in 1997 for his thesis, Logic in Topoi: Functorial Semantics for Higher-Order Logic.  What follows is an abstract of his lecture to be delivered Thursday, February 16, 2012, at Carnegie Mellon University.

It has recently been discovered that there is a close connection between constructive logic and algebraic topology. Martin-Löf’s system of constructive type theory provides a comprehensive foundation for mathematics as an alternative to set theory and supporting a somewhat different view of the mathematical universe. Its constructive character permits implementations in computer-aided proof systems, such as Coq, but its treatment of equality, in particular, has in the past seemed difficult to reconcile with classical mathematics. The new idea behind Homotopy Type Theory is the interpretation of constructive equality as homotopy, or continuous deformation, as a fundamental logical concept. The entire system of type theory then has a natural interpretation, not just as sets and functions as in conventional foundations, but as spaces and continuous mappings regarded as fundamental mathematical objects, the basic properties and constructions of which then have a direct, logical formalization. Logical constructions in type theory then correspond to invariant constructions on spaces, while theorems and even proofs in the logical system inherit a new geometric meaning. Geometrical intuition also suggests novel extensions of the logical system, leading to a fruitful interplay between geometry and logic. For example, one can use formal methods and even the Coq proof system to give computer-verified, formal proofs in classical homotopy theory.

The resulting possibility of a new computational foundation, not only for homotopy theory, but for large parts of constructive and classical mathematics, has recently led Fields medalist Vladimir Voevodsky (IAS) to propose a new system of foundations for mathematics. The Univalent Foundations Program is based on this homotopical interpretation of type theory and implemented in the proof system Coq. It is now being pursued by a rapidly-growing team of logicians, computer scientists, and homotopy theorists, and in 2012-13 it will be the focus of a special year at the Institute for Advanced Study.

This talk will survey some of these recent developments.

Pure and Applied Logic Colloquium
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University

Thursday, February 16, 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

Frontiers of Rationality and Decision

February 14, 2012

Final workshop of a European research network Frontiers of Rationality and Decision

29-31 August 2012
University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Guest speakers: Branden Fitelson, Jeff Helzner, Simon Hutegger, Katya Tentori, and Kevin Zollman.

There is also a Groningen/Munich Summer School on Formal Methods in Philosophy (23-28 August),  organized by Catarina Dutilh-Novaes.

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Posted by Gregory Wheeler

Choosing amongst Multiattributed Objects

February 7, 2012

Alec Morton of the London School of Economics will deliver a Games and Decisions lecture, “A Multicriteria Approach for Concavifiable Preferences.” The lecture is based on joint work with Nikos Argyris and José Rui Figueira. What follows is an abstract of his lecture to be delivered Wednesday, February 8, 2012, at Carnegie Mellon University.

A central problem in Multicriteria Decision Making is how to help a decision maker (DM) choose from a set of multiattributed objects when she does not know what she wants. We discuss in this talk the conditions under which preferences or preference intensities are “concavifiable,” that is to say, representable by a concave function. We show that, given information from a decision maker about her (concavifiable) preferences or preference intensities, it is possible to characterise the set of all possible value assignments to a given finite set of points in the multiattribute space in an appealing and intuitive way. We discuss how this idea could be used in two of the main MCDM paradigms, Multicriteria Decision Analysis and Interactive Multiobjective Programming to help the above mentioned DM come to a decision.

Games and Decisions Group
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University

Wednesday, February 8, 2012
12:30-1:30 pm BH 150

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

Support for graduate students interested in attending the New Science – New Risks conference …

February 1, 2012
The Center for Philosophy of Science will hold a conference on New Science – New Risks, March 30-31, 2012.  For details, visit the Center Website at www.pitt.edu/~pittcntr. We have limited support for a small number of qualified graduate students in a philosophy or philosophy of science program who are interested in attending. Qualified graduate students must be advanced in their graduate programs and working on a dissertation directly related to the topic of the conference. We are able to offer lodging for two nights at a nearby hotel or reimbursement of up to $300 against receipts for travel-related expenses.
Interested graduate students should contact Nils-Eric Sahlin, Chair of the Organizing Committee, at:  Nils-Eric.Sahlin@med.lu.se

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Posted by Jeff Helzner

Call for Papers: Logic Workshop at Buenos Aires

January 31, 2012

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.

Invited speakers:

Verónica Becher (Universidad de Buenos Aires)

John Collins (Columbia University)

Paul Egré (Jean Nicod Institute)

Jeff Helzner (Columbia University)

Rohit Parikh (City University of New York)

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)

Paul Pedersen (Carnegie Mellon University)

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 affiliation 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 to the audience an extended abstract, ppt presentation, handout or full paper in English during the Conference.

Deadline for reception of submissions:  March 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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Posted by Arthur Paul Pedersen

CFP Extended Deadline: Games, Interactive Rationality and Learning (G.I.R.L.`12@Lund)

January 30, 2012

1st Conference on
Games, Interactive Rationality and Learning

G.I.R.L.`12@Lund
Lund, Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science
April 19-21, 2012

Call for Papers
Deadline Extended: February 15, 2012

Calendar/Important dates.

February 15: Abstract submission deadline

March 1: Author notification

April 19-20: Conference

April 21 or April 28: Undergraduate/Graduate Session

Aims of the conference.

Formal philosophy relies increasingly on simulations, and sometimes on empirical test, coming closer to both computer-, cognitive- and social sciences. Some examples are learning-theoretic models of inquiry, network theory-based approaches in social epistemology, and game-theoretic evolutionary approaches of communication. The aim of the G.I.R.L.’12 Conference is to bring together researchers in philosophy, cognitive science and artificial intelligence, to investigate new areas where the game- and learning-theoretic simulation approaches can lead to fruitful results.

A central topic is interactive rationality, or rational behavior that emerges from interaction. Unlike “rational interaction”—its much better known sister—it does not presuppose agents to be rational to begin with. Examples are given by evolutionary game-theory, which studies rational (equilibrium-reaching) behavior emerging from interaction of non-reflective agents; or learning-theoretic models of inquiry showing how inquiry can solve inductive problems, while substituting truth-tracking efficiency to reflexive justification.

Subject.

We welcome submissions of either already published research, or original material, primarily on the following topics:

  • Relations between “ecological rationality” of choice and inference heuristics, and choice-, decision- and game-theoretic axiomatic approaches to rationality;
  • Models of signaling games, evolutionary games, or games with bounded agents;
  • Learning-theoretic approaches of inquiry, knowledge acquisition and reasoning;
  • Simulation-based approaches of group learning and decision-making in networks.

Submissions on related subjects not listed above are welcome. If the number of original contributions is sufficient, we will consider the
publication of a proceedings volume.

Submissions – Abstracts.

Original submission: abstracts of 200-500 words, plus bibliography

Published research: abstract of the published version, plus bibliography.

Submissions should be sent electronically in word or pdf format to justine[dot]jacot[at]fil[dot]lu[dot]se, with ”G.I.R.L.’12@Lund_Submission” in the subject line of the mail, and whether your submission is intended for the graduate session.

Deadline for submissions: February 15, 2012.

Invited Speakers (pending confirmation).

Alexandru Baltag (ILLC, Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Nina Gierasimczuk (University of Groningen, Netherlands)

Vincent F. Hendricks (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)

Kevin Kelly (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA, US)

Paul Pedersen (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA, US)

Ruth Poproski (Carnegie Mellon University , Pittsburgh PA, US)

Patricia Rich (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA, US)

Sonja Smets (University of Groningen, Netherlands and ILLC, Amsterdam)

Local organizing Committee.

Emmanuel Genot (Lund, Theoretical Philosophy)

Justine Jacot (Lund, Theoretical Philosophy)

Philip Pärnamets (Lund, Cognitive Science)

Webpage of the conference:

http://www.fil.lu.se/conferences/conference.asp?id=49&lang=se

Submitted by Justine Jacot

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Posted by Arthur Paul Pedersen

Jeremy Avigad: Computability, Constructivity, and Convergence in Measure Theory

January 30, 2012

Jeremy Avigad, Professor of the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, will deliver a faculty colloquium lecture, “Computability, Constructivity, and Convergence in Measure Theory.” After earning a degree in mathematics from Harvard University, Avigad pursued a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, under the supervision of Jack Silver, earning his doctorate in 1995 for his thesis, Proof-Theoretic Investigations of Subsystems of Second-Order Arithmetic. With ongoing research interests in mathematical logic, proof theory, the philosophy of mathematics, formal verification, automated reasoning, and the history of mathematics, Avigad joined the Department of Philosophy in 1996 and the Department of Mathematical Sciences in 2007.  What follows is an abstract of his lecture to be delivered Thursday, February 2, 2012, at Carnegie Mellon University.

When confronted with a nonconstructive theorem, those interested in computational and constructive aspects of mathematics have various options: they can seek constructive and computational versions of the theorem in question; they can calibrate the extent to which the given theorem it nonconstructive; and they can look for computational or other explicit information hidden in the proof. I will discuss measure-theoretic convergence theorems that come up in the study of dynamical systems and stochastic processes, and give examples of all three approaches to understanding their constructive content.I will try to make the talk accessible to a broad audience.

Philosophy Colloquium
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Reception.
4:00-4:35 pm DH 4301

Lecture.
4:45-6:00 pm BH A53

As usual, all are invited to attend.

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Posted by Arthur Paul Pedersen

With Permission, a Disjunction entails its Disjuncts

January 24, 2012

In addition to the Games and Decisions talk by Nils-Eric Sahlin on Wednesday, January 25,
Martin Aher of the Cognitive Science Institute of the University of Osnabrück will deliver a colloquium lecture, “Free Choice in Deontic Radical Inquisitive Semantics,” on Thursday, January 26. A Visiting Scholar of the Department of Philosophy, Aher is a Ph.D. student studying computational linguistics under the supervision of Carla Umbach and Jeroen Groenendijk. What follows is an abstract of his lecture to be delivered at Carnegie Mellon University.

We will propose a novel solution to the puzzle that the word “or” under permission, for example under “may,” loses standard entailment relations. While a disjunction is generally entailed by its disjuncts, under permission it receives a “free choice” reading where the disjunction entails its disjuncts. Our solution is driven by empirical data from legal discourse and does not suffer from the same problems as implicature-based accounts. We will argue against implicature-based accounts and provide an entailment-based solution. The framework for the proposal is inquisitive semantics, which will be introduced in its radical form. Following Anderson’s violation-based deontic logic, we will demonstrate that a support-based radical inquisitive semantics will correctly model both the free choice effect and the boolean standard entailment relations in downward entailing contexts. An inquisitive semantics is especially suited to model cases where the continuation “but I do not know which” coerces an ignorance reading. It also demonstrates that the counterarguments to deontic reduction failed to take into account the effects of different utterances in conversation, such that a refined definition of radical inquisitive entailment renders such inferences invalid. Furthermore, we will argue that the problem of strengthening the antecedent that is used as a counterargument against entailment-based accounts also fails under a refined notion of entailment.

Philosophy Colloquium
Department of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Reception.
4:00-4:35 pm DH 4301

Lecture.
4:45-6:00 pm BH A53

As usual, all are invited to attend.

Leave a Comment » | News | Permalink
Posted by Arthur Paul Pedersen

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