LLC - Seminars

Fabrice Correia (University of Geneva): The Logic of Grounding [book symposium]

Thursday 30 January, 16-18, Palazzo Nuovo, Aula di Antica

Alexander Gebharter and Michal Sikorski (Marche Polytechnic University): Exploring the consequences of the limits of the principle of total evidence  

Thursday 28 November, 16-18h, Meeting Room 1, Philosophy Library, Palazzo Nuovo (basement)

The principle of total evidence says that all relevant information should be considered when making an inference about a hypothesis. In the first part of our talk, we argue that the criminalist’s paradox from the literature on the methodology of forensic science constitutes a counterexample against the principle of total evidence. The paradox arises, for example, if forensic scientists consider results from other forensic procedures for their own results. In such cases, their own results can become more reliable, but at the same time also dependent on those other forensic results and therefore less useful for decisions in court cases. We argue that structurally similar problems can also be found in other sciences. In forensic science, the problem is usually avoided by relying on the relevance principle which excludes the problematic information. In the second part we explore the relevance principle from a causal perspective. We walk through the most basic causal structures and show that following the relevance principle leads to the double-counting fallacy in most structures. We then propose an alternative causal version of the relevance principle that returns the correct results regardless of the causal setting. If time allows it, we finally propose a new normative model for scientific practice on the basis of these results.

David Liggins (University of Manchester): A Priorian solution to a Priorian paradox

Thursday 31 October, 16-18h, Aula di Antica, Palazzo Nuovo, second floor

Non-nominal quantification is quantification into a syntactic position other than name position, such as predicate or sentence position. Metaphysicians are increasingly interested in putting such quantification to work: this is a major part of the contemporary movement known as “higher-order metaphysics”. However, non-nominal quantification generates various paradoxes, so it is timely to revisit these. This talk is about one of them: a paradox raised by A. N. Prior. In his 1961 paper ‘On a family of paradoxes’, Prior proved a theorem which seems to contradict easily observable facts involving belief, assertion, and many other phenomena. In this talk, I will set out the paradox, propose a new solution to it, and offer an explanation of why the flawed part of the paradoxical reasoning initially seemed compelling.

Vincenzo Crupi and Andrea Iacona (University of Turin): The Evidential Account of Conditionals. Foundations and Implications

Thursday 3 October, 16-18, Aula di Antica, Palazzo Nuovo, second floor

In this talk we provide a discussion of our evidential account of conditionals. We set out an explicit defence of the account itself by offering four arguments based on a unified methodology.