Reasoning Club Conference 2017

The Fifth Reasoning Club Conference will take place at the Center for Logic, Language, and Cognition in Turin on May 18-19, 2017.

The Reasoning Club is a network of institutes, centres, departments, and groups addressing research topics connected to reasoning, inference, and methodology broadly construed. It issues the monthly gazette The Reasoner. (Earlier editions of the meeting were held in Brussels, Pisa, Kent, and Manchester.)



PROGRAM


THURSDAY, MAY 18

Palazzo Badini
via Verdi 10, Torino
Sala Lauree di Psicologia (ground floor)


9:00 | welcome and coffee

9:30 | greetings
           presentation of the new editorship of The Reasoner
           (Hykel HOSNI, Milan)


Morning session – chair: Gustavo CEVOLANI (IMT Lucca)


10:00 | invited talk

Branden FITELSON (Northeastern University, Boston)

Two approaches to belief revision

In this paper, we compare and contrast two methods for the qualitative revision of (viz., full) beliefs. The first (Bayesian) method is generated by a simplistic diachronic Lockean thesis requiring coherence with the agent's posterior credences after conditionalization. The second (Logical) method is the orthodox AGM approach to belief revision. Our primary aim will be to characterize the ways in which these two approaches can disagree with each other — especially in the special case where the agent's belief set is deductively cogent.

(joint work with Ted Shear and Jonathan Weisberg)


11:00 | Ted SHEAR (Queensland) and John QUIGGIN (Queensland)
 
A modal logic for reasonable belief


11:45 | Nina POTH (Edinburgh) and Peter BRÖSSEL (Bochum)

Bayesian inferences and conceptual spaces: Solving the complex-first paradox


12:30 | lunch break


Afternoon session I – chair: Peter BRÖSSEL (Bochum)


13:30 | invited talk

Katya TENTORI (University of Trento)

Judging forecasting accuracy 
How human intuitions can help improving formal models

Most of the scoring rules that have been discussed and defended in the literature are not ordinally equivalent, with the consequence that, after the very same outcome has materialized, a forecast X can be evaluated as more accurate than Y according to one model but less accurate according to another. A question that naturally arises is therefore which of these models better captures people’s intuitive assessment of forecasting accuracy. To answer this question, we developed a new experimental paradigm for eliciting ordinal judgments of accuracy concerning pairs of forecasts for which various combinations of associations/dissociations between the Quadratic, Logarithmic, and Spherical scoring rules are obtained. We found that, overall, the Logarithmic model is the best predictor of people’s accuracy judgments, but also that there are cases in which these judgments — although they are normatively sound — systematically depart from what is expected by all the models. These results represent an empirical evaluation of the descriptive adequacy of the three most popular scoring rules and offer insights for the development of new formal models that might favour a more natural elicitation of truthful and informative beliefs from human forecasters.

(joint work with Vincenzo Crupi and Andrea Passerini)


14:15 | Catharine SAINT-CROIX (Michigan)

Immodesty and evaluative uncertainty


15:15 | Michael SCHIPPERS (Oldenburg), Jakob KOSCHOLKE (Hamburg)

Against relative overlap measures of coherence


16:00 | coffee break


Afternoon session II – chair: Paolo MAFFEZIOLI (Torino)


16:30 | Simon HEWITT (Leeds)

Frege's theorem in plural logic


17:15 | Lorenzo ROSSI (Salzburg) and Julien MURZI (Salzburg)

Generalized Revenge


 
FRIDAY, MAY 19

Campus Luigi Einaudi
Lungo Dora Siena 100/A
Sala Lauree Rossa
building D1 (ground floor)


9:00 | welcome and coffee


Morning session – chair: Jan SPRENGER (Tilburg)


9:30 | invited talk

Paul EGRÉ (Institut Jean Nicod, Paris)

Logical consequence and ordinary reasoning

The notion of logical consequence has been approached from a variety of angles. Tarski famously proposed a semantic characterization (in terms of truth-preservation), but also a structural characterization (in terms of axiomatic properties including reflexivity, transitivity, monotonicity, and other features). In recent work, E. Chemla, B. Spector and I have proposed a characterization of a wider class of consequence relations than Tarskian relations, which we call "respectable" (Journal of Logic and Computation, forthcoming). The class also includes non-reflexive and nontransitive relations, which can be motivated in relation to ordinary reasoning (such as reasoning with vague predicates, see Zardini 2008, Cobreros et al. 2012, or reasoning with presuppositions, see Strawson 1952, von Fintel 1998, Sharvit 2016). Chemla et al.'s characterization is partly structural, and partly semantic, however. In this talk I will present further advances toward a purely structural characterization of such respectable consequence relations. I will discuss the significance of this research program toward bringing logic closer to ordinary reasoning.

(joint work with Emmanuel Chemla and Benjamin Spector)


10:30 | Niels SKOVGAARD-OLSEN (Freiburg)

Conditionals and multiple norm conflicts


11:15 | Luis ROSA (Munich)

Knowledge grounded on pure reasoning


12:00 | lunch break


Afternoon session I – chair: Steven HALES (Bloomsburg)


13:30 | invited talk

Leah HENDERSON (University of Groningen)

The unity of explanatory virtues

Scientific theory choice is often characterised as an Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) in which a number of distinct explanatory virtues are combined and traded off against one another. Furthermore, the epistemic significance of each explanatory virtue is often seen as highly case-specific. But are there really so many dimensions to theory choice? By considering how IBE may be situated in a Bayesian framework, I propose a more unified picture of the virtues in scientific theory choice.


14:30 | Benjamin EVA (Munich) and Reuben STERN (Munich)

Causal explanatory power


15:15 | coffee break


Afternoon session II – chair: Jakob KOSCHOLKE (Hamburg)


16:00 | Barbara OSIMANI (Munich)

Bias, random error, and the variety of evidence thesis


16:45 | Felipe ROMERO (Tilburg) and Jan SPRENGER (Tilburg)

Scientific self-correction: The Bayesian way



ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Gustavo Cevolani (Torino)
Vincenzo Crupi (Torino)
Jason Konek (Kent)
Paolo Maffezioli (Torino)



For any queries please contact Vincenzo Crupi (vincenzo.crupi@unito.it) or Jason Konek (jpkonek@ksu.edu).