HPS 2682 Phil 2690 |
Theories of Confirmation | Spring 2017 |
Week | Date | Topic/Reading | Presented by |
1 | Jan. 5 | Introduction Review of topics. Vote. "A Little Survey of Induction" |
Norton |
Warm-up Case Studies | |||
2 | Jan. 12 | Background to "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections": The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution, 6 January 2017 Or here. | Norton slides |
Jan. 12 | Evidence in the legal and criminal context Report to the President: Forensic Science in the Criminal Courts: Ensuring Feature-Comparison Methods. Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, Second Edition. Federal Judicial Center |
Norton slides Report... slides Manual... |
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Jan. 12 | Evidence for Climate Change Climate change: How do we know? NASA Website Cook et al. "Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming" Environmental Research Letters, Volume 11, Number 4 Climate Change, Evidence & Causes: An overview from the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences IPCC 2014 Technical Summary Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change |
Norton Slides IPCC2014 |
|
Jan. 12 | A brief statement of an interesting evidential claim in science made
by scientists. (Five minutes each only) |
All registered seminar members | |
Exclusionary Accounts: Error Statistical Methods | |||
3 | Jan. 19 | Deborah G. Mayo, "Evidence as Passing Severe Tests: Highly Probable versus Highly Probed Hypotheses," in, P. Achinstein, ed., Scientific Evidence: Philosophical Theories and Applications. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005, pp. 94-127. | Siska de Baerdemaeker |
Abduction/Inference to the Best Explanation |
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Jan 19 |
Paul Thagard, "The Best Explanation: Criteria for Theory Choice,"
Journal of Philosophy, 75 (1978): 76-92. Background reading: Igor Douven, "Abduction", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. |
Zina Ward |
|
Jan 19 | Malcolm Forster and Elliott Sober, "How to Tell when Simpler, More
Unified, or Less Ad Hoc Theories will Provide More
Accurate Predictions," British Journal for the Philosophy of
Science, 45 (1994). pp. 1?35. Background reading: To find out how it really works, see John D. Norton, "Simplicity as Model Selection," draft chapter for The Material Theory of Induction. |
Jennifer Whyte |
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Probabilistic Induction: Bayes Primer Subjective versus Objective Bayesianism |
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4 | Jan. 26 | Richard Jeffrey, Subjective Probability: The Real Thing. Ch. 1. Probability Primer | Josh Fry |
Jan. 26 | Richard Jeffrey, Subjective Probability: The Real Thing. Ch. 2. Testing Scientific Theories | Jacob Neal |
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Jan. 26 | Bruno de Finetti, "Probabilism: A Critical Essay on the Theory of Probability and on the Value of Science," Erkenntnis 31(1989), pp. 169-223. (Bruno de Finetti, "Probabilismo," Napoli, Logos 14 (1931), 163-219. Translated by Maria Concetta Di Maio, Maria Carla Galavotti, and Richard C. Jeffrey.) | Tom Wysocki |
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Subjective versus Objective Bayesianism Arguments for Bayesianism |
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5 | Feb. 2 | Jon Williamson, "Philosophies of Probability," Draft for A. Irvine
(ed.): Handbook of the Philosophy of Mathematics, Volume 4
of the Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, Elsevier. Section III. Objective Bayesianism. |
Tom Wysocki |
Feb. 2 | Edwin T. Jaynes, "Prior Probabilities," IEEE Transactions on Systems Science and Cybernetics, SSC-4, No. 3, 1968, pp. 227-241. | Jacob Neal |
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Feb. 2 | James Joyce, "A Nonpragmatic Vindication of Probabilism," Philosophy
of Science, 65, No. 4 (Dec., 1998), pp.
575-603. |
Josh Fry | |
Arguments for Bayesianism | |||
6 | Feb. 9 | Samir Okasha, "Van Fraassen's Critique of Inference to the Best Explanation," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 31, (2000), pp. 691-710. | Jennifer Whyte |
Feb. 9 |
E. T. Jaynes, Probability Theory: The Logic of Science.
Cambridge University Press, 2003. Chapters 1-2. Focus on the
derivation of the product and sum rules, Sections 2.1 and 2.2. Background reading: one form of the basic theorem behind Cox and Jaynes' analysis is given by Aczel in his book on functional analysis. J. Aczel, Lectures on Functional Equations and Their Applications. Academic Press, 1966. pp. 319-24. A precursor to Jaynes' analysis is R. T. Cox, The Algebra of Probable Inference. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1961, Ch 1. |
Josh Fry |
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Feb. 9 | John D. Norton, "Probability Disassembled" British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 58 (2007), pp. 141-171. | Norton slides |
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Likelihoodism | |||
7 | Feb. 16 | Richard Royall, "The First Principle," Ch.1 in Statistical Evidence: A Likelihood Paradigm. Chapman & Hall/CRC, 1997. | Zina Ward |
Feb. 16 | Jason Grossman, "The Likelihood Principle" in Prasanta S.
Bandyopadhyay and Malcolm R. Forster, Philosophy of Statistics,
Amsterdam: North Holland-Elsevier, 2011. |
Michael Begun |
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Feb. 16 | Greg Gandenberger, "Why I am not a Likelihoodist," Philosophers' Imprint Vol 16, May, 2016, pp. 1-22. | Siska de Baerdemaeker | |
Bayesian Measures of Support | |||
8 | Feb. 23 | Ellery Eels and Branden Fitelson, "Symmetries and Asymmetries in Evidential Support," Philosophical Studies, 107 (2002), pp. 129-142. | Shahin Kaveh |
Feb. 23 | Vincenzo Crupi, Katya Tentori, and Michel Gonzalez, "On Bayesian Measures of Evidential Support: Theoretical and Empirical Issues," Philosophy of Science, 74 (2007), pp. 229-252. | Tom Wysocki | |
Feb. 23 | Jan Sprenger, "Two Impossibility Results for Measures of Corroboration," http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/11870/ | Emily Howe |
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Imprecise Probabilities | |||
9 | Mar. 2 | John D. Norton "Cosmic Confusions: Not Supporting versus Supporting Not-". Philosophy of Science. 77 (2010), pp. 501-23. | Norton slides from Pitt-Tsinghua Summer School for Philosophy of Science, 2011 |
Mar. 2 | Yann Benetreau-Dupin, "The Bayesian Who Knew Too Much" Synthese 192, no. 5 (2015), pp. 1527-1542. | Yann Benetreau-Dupin | |
Mar. 2 | Lee Elkin, "The Many Faces of Confirmation in Imprecise Probability Theory." Manuscript. | Lee Elkin | |
Mar. 6-10 | Spring Recess | ||
Material Theory of Induction | |||
10 | Mar. 16 | Chapters from The Material Theory of Induction
Synoptic table of contents 1. The Material Theory of Induction Stated and Illustrated 2. What Powers Inductive Inference? |
Norton slides |
Mar. 16 | 4. Analogy 6. Simplicity as a Surrogate |
Norton slides (analogy) slides (simplicity) |
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Material Theory of Induction | |||
11 | Mar. 23 | 8.
Inference to the Best Explanation: The General Account 9. Inference to the Best Explanation: Examples |
Norton slides |
Mar. 23 | 12.
Infinite Lottery Machines Optional reading for more ideas in the same direction 13. Indeterministic Systems 14. Nonmeasurable Outcomes |
Norton slides |
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Underdetermination |
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12 | Mar. 30 | Larry Laudan and Jarrett Leplin, "Empirical Equivalence and Underdetermination," Journal of Philosophy, 88 (1991), pp. 449-72. | Jennifer Whyte |
Mar. 30 | Kyle Stanford, "The Problem of Unconceived Alternatives," Ch.2 in Exceeding Our Grasp Science, History and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives. Oxford University Press. 2006. | Yann Benetreau-Dupin | |
Mar. 30 | Richard Dawid, "Underdetermination and Theory Succession from the Perspective of String Theory." Philosophy of Science 73 No.3 (2006), pp. 298-322. | Shahin Kaveh |
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Mar. 30 | Term paper topic due | ||
Newton's Argument for Universal Gravitation (+Others?) | |||
13 | Apr. 6 | Newton's Principia,
Book 1, Propositions
1-4. Newton's Principia, Book 3, Up to Propositions 15. |
Shahin Kaveh |
Apr. 6 | William Harper, "Newton's Classic Deductions from Phenomena," PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Vol. 1990, Volume Two. (1990), pp. 183-96. | Michael Begun |
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Apr. 6 | Box 6. Newton's Arguments in Principia, pp. 105-109. Box 7. Newton's Arguments in Principia: From the Approximate to the Exact Inverse Square Law, pp. 128-135. in John D. Norton "A Survey of Inductive Generalization". Newton's Principia, Book 1, Propositions 44-45. |
Norton (Unless someone else wants it) | |
Evidence for Climate Change | |||
14 | Apr. 13 | IPCC
Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report IPCC 2014 Technical Summary Guidance Note for Lead Authors of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report on Consistent Treatment of Uncertainties Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Optional background reading: William Rehg and Kent Staley, "'Agreement' in the IPCC Confidence measure," Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 57 (2017), pp. 126-134. |
Zina Ward |
Apr. 13 | Cook et al. "Consensus
on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused
global warming" Environmental Research Letters,
Volume 11, Number 4 |
Emily Howe |
|
Apr. 13 | Richard Bradley, Casey Helgeson and Brian Hill, "Climate Change Assessments: Confidence, Probability and Decision" | Mikael Cozic | |
Apr. 13 | Climate Change, Evidence & Causes: An overview from the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences | An orphan reading. Optional. |
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Reports on Case Studies, General Discussion | |||
15 | Apr. 20 | Everyone |
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Friday Apr. 28 |
Term paper due. Hard copy by noon in 1017CL or e-versions emailed by 5pm. |