HPS
2682 Theories of Confirmation Fall 2010
Phil 2690
| Week | Date | Topic/Reading | Presented by |
| 1 | Aug. 30 | Introduction Review of topics. Vote. "A Little Survey of Induction" |
Norton |
| Sep. 6 | Labor Day | ||
| Warm-up Case Studies | |||
| 2 | Sep. 13 | Lines
of Evidence: The Science of Evolution" http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/lines_01 |
Norton handout |
| String theory Peter Woit, "Is String Theory Even Wrong?" American Scientist, March-April, 2002. Richard Dawid, "Underdetermination and Theory Succession from the Perspective of String Theory." Philosophy of Science 73 No.3 (2006), pp. 298-322. |
Norton handout |
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| A brief statement of an interesting evidential claim in science
made by scientists. (Five minutes each only) |
All registered seminar members | ||
| Inductive Generalization | |||
| 3 | Sep. 20 | "Hempel's Satisfaction Criterion of Confirmation" in John D. Norton, "A Survey of Inductive Generalization." | Norton |
| "Glymour's Bootstrap" in John D. Norton, "A Survey of Inductive Generalization." | Norton | ||
| Demonstrative induction "Demonstrative Induction" in John D. Norton, "A Survey of Inductive Generalization." |
Norton |
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| Hypothetical Induction | |||
| 4 | Sep. 27 | Exclusionary accounts. (Error statistical methods.) 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. |
Sarah Weller |
| Sep. 27 | Simplicity and the Akaike criterion 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. |
Jonathan Livengood | |
| Sep. 27 | Inference to a common cause Michel Janssen, "COI Stories: Explanation and Evidence in the History of Science." Perspectives on Science, 10(2002): 457-522. |
Greg Gandenberger | |
| Probabilistic Induction | |||
| 5 | Oct. 4 | A Bayes' primer Stephan Hartmann & Jan Sprenger, "Bayesian Epistemology." In Duncan Pritchard & Sven Bernecker (eds.), Routledge Companion to Epistemology. Routledge. |
Elizabeth Richey |
| Oct. 4 | Probability Disassembled John D. Norton, "Probability Disassembled," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 58 (2007), pp. 141-171. |
Norton | |
| Oct. 11 | No Classes. Monday classes moved to Tuesday. | ||
| 6 | Oct. 12 Tuesday |
Savage's decision theoretic justification of Bayesianism L. J. Savage, Foundations of Statistics. Ch 1-3. |
Jennifer Jhun |
| Oct. 12 |
Scoring Rule Justifications of Bayesianism James Joyce, "A Nonpragmatic Vindication of Probabilism," Philosophy of Science, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Dec., 1998), pp. 575-603 |
Robert Steel | |
| Oct. 12 | (Optional reading for the zealous) James Joyce, "Accuracy and Coherence: Prospects for an Alethic Epistemology of Partial Belief," in F. Huber, C. Schmidt-Petri (eds.), Degrees of Belief, Synthese Library 342, pp. 263-97. |
Jonah N. Schupbach | |
| 7 | Oct. 18 | Alternative calculi: Shafer-Dempster theory Glenn Shafer, A Mathematical Theory of Evidence, Ch. 1 "Introduction." Glenn Shafer, "Probability Judgments in Artificial Intelligence," pp. 127-34 in L. N. Kanal and J. F. Lemmer eds, Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence. Elsevier Science, 1986. |
Greg Gandenberger |
| Oct. 18 |
Arguments against Bayesianism John D. Norton,"Cosmic Confusions: Not Supporting versus Supporting Not-". Philosophy of Science. Forthcoming. I will discuss Sections 1-4. Handout. John D. Norton, "There are No Universal Rules for Induction," Philosophy of Science, forthcoming. I will discuss Section 2. Handout. (Optional reading for the zealous) John D. Norton, “Challenges to Bayesian Confirmation Theory,” Prepared for Prasanta S. Bandyopadhyay and Malcolm Forster (eds.), Philosophy of Statistics: Vol. 7 Handbook of the Philosophy of Science. Elsevier. |
Norton |
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| Oct. 18 | Deductively definable logics of induction John D. Norton, "Deductively Definable Logics of Induction." Journal of Philosophical Logic, forthcoming. For a less formal development, see "What Logics of Induction are There? href="http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/Goodies/index.html"" in Goodies. |
Norton | |
| Problems of Induction | |||
| 8 | Oct. 25 | Underdetermination Stathis Psillos, ‘Underdetermination’, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd Edition, Gale MacMillan Reference, 2005. Larry Laudan and Jarrett Leplin, "Empirical Equivalence and Underdetermination," Journal of Philosophy, 88 (1991), pp. 449-72. |
Jeff Sykora |
| Oct. 25 | Observationally equivalent spacetimes John D. Norton, "Observationally Indistinguishable Spacetimes: A Challenge for Any Inductivist." In G. Morgan, ed., Philosophy of Science Matters: The Philosophy of Peter Achinstein. Oxford University Press. |
Norton | |
| Further Topics | |||
| 9 | Nov. 1 | The Bayesian response to Hume's inductive skepticism and his argument
against miracles Read John Earman, "Bayes, Hume, Price, and Miracles," Proceedings of the British Academy, 113, 2002, pp. 91-109. Skim John Earman, "Bayes's Bayesianism" Ch. 1 in Bayes or Bust. MIT, Bradford. Glance at Bayes original essay to get a sense of his project: "An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances. By the late Rev. Mr. Bayes, communicated by Mr. Price, in a letter to John Canton, M. A. and F. R. S." facsimile or transcribed. |
John Earman |
| Nov. 1 | Material Theory of Induction John D. Norton "A Material Theory of Induction" Philosophy of Science, 70(October 2003), pp. 647-70. A briefer treatment comes towards the end of John D. Norton, "A Little Survey of Induction," in P. Achinstein, ed., Scientific Evidence: Philosophical Theories and Applications. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1905. pp. 9-34. |
Norton | |
| Nov. 4-6 | PSA in Montreal | ||
| 10 | Nov. 8 | Measures of explanatory power Jonah N. Schupbach, "Inference to the Best Explanation, Cleaned Up and Made Respectable" |
Jonah N. Schupbach |
| Nov. 8 | de Finetti lottery Paul Bartha, "Countable Additivity and the de Finetti lottery," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55 (2004), 301-321. |
Sarah Weller | |
| 11 | Nov. 15 | Confirmation theory and the learning theoretic paradigm Kevin T. Kelly, "The Logic of Success" British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, special millennium issue, 51, 2001, 639-666. Kevin T. Kelly, "Simplicity, Truth, and Probability" in Handbook for the Philosophy of Statistics, Prasanta S. Bandyopadhyay and Malcolm Forster eds., Dordrecht: Elsevier. 2010. Supplementary reading for the very eager: Ockham’s Razor: A New Justification, Project Web Page |
Kevin T. Kelly |
| 12 | Nov. 22 | Newton's argument for his System of the World. See Box 6 "Newton's Arguments in Principia" and Box 7 "Newton's Arguments in Principia: From the Approximate to the Exact Inverse Square Law" in John D. Norton, A Survey of Inductive Generalization. While reading the Boxes, compare against Newton's original in Principia: Title page, Book 1 Prop. 1-4, Book 1 Prop 44-45, Book 3 to Prop 15. Fragments downloaded from http://www.archive.org/details/newtonspmathema00newtrich |
Norton |
| Nov. 22 | Evidence and the Electron John D. Norton, "How We Know About Electrons," pp. 67- 97 in R. Nola and H. Sankey, eds., After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend; Recent Issues in Theories of Scientific Method. Dordrecht Kluwer. I will concentrate on demonstrative inductions in the Bohr's theory of the atom described in Section 4. |
Norton | |
| Nov. 22 | Term paper topic due | ||
| Nov. 24-26 | Thanksgiving Break | ||
| Report on Case Studies | |||
| 13 | Nov. 29 | Jennifer Jhun Elizabeth Richey Jeff Sykora Sarah Weller |
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| 14 | Dec. 6 | Eric Hatleback Greg Gandenberger Robert Steel |
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| Dec. 17 | Term paper due. Hard copy by noon in 1017CL or e-versions emailed by 5pm. |