Erratum: la date de l'intervention de Michael Strevens est le mardi 1er février à 14h30, heure de Paris. Toutes mes excuses, C.I.
Chères et chers collègues, Pour la prochaine séance de notre séminaire de recherche en épistémologie sociale et formelle, nous sommes ravis d’accueillir Michael Strevens (New York University). Titre : “The Illogical Logic of Science” Résumé et liens vers des lectures préparatoires ci-dessous. Date : Mardi 2 Février 2022, 14:30 - 16:30 Lieu : visioconférence *Les étudiant(e)s sont particulièrement les bienvenu(e)s.* Pour assister à cette présentation, merci de vous inscrire ici. <https://forms.gle/YgTHwEyQLKJ3A3of9> < https://forms.gle/YgTHwEyQLKJ3A3of9 > Si vous souhaitez être inscrits dans la liste des participants réguliers, merci d’écrire aux organisateurs. En espérant vous y voir nombreux, Les organisateurs (Anouk Barberousse, Thomas Boyer-Kassem, Isabelle Drouet, Cyrille Imbert, Cédric Paternotte, David Teira, David Waszek). Contact : david.waszek (at) posteo (point) net ; Cyrille.Imbert (at) univ-lorraine (point) fr ----- Michael Strevens (New York University) website: http://www.strevens.org/ title: “The Illogical Logic of Science” Résumé : The inferential engine of science is the logic of evidential support, aka "confirmation". In 1945, Carl Hempel proposed a simple theory of confirmation that eventually came to be seen as unacceptably unsophisticated: it failed to incorporate the impact of epistemic context, of the "superempirical virtues" (such as simplicity, unity, explanatory elegance, and so on), and it was purely qualitative, telling you when a piece of evidence supported a hypothesis but not by how much. I will propose that Hempel's theory, precisely because it is simplistic, comes much closer to capturing the logic of evidential support in science than is commonly supposed. From a philosophical perspective it is indeed unacceptable, yet it reflects many aspects of scientific practice rather well. Or more exactly, what it reflects is the role of evidential support in scientific publication (as opposed to private scientific reasoning). Using the case of theoretical beauty, I will argue that the way support works in scientific publication is, indeed, strictly speaking irrational. Yet that irrationality, I will suggest, is critical to the success of modern science. *Lectures préparatoires* - Strevens, Michael, 2020, *The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science*, Liveright Publishing Corporation - For a short accessible version of the basic idea (without any reference to Hempel), see: https://aeon.co/essays/an-irrational-constraint-is-the-motivating-force-in-modern-science Familiarity with Hempel’s theory of confirmation would be useful, though it won’t be strictly presupposed, see, e.g., - Crupi, Vincenzo, "Confirmation", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/confirmation/ - Hempel, Carl, 1945, “Studies in the Logic of Confirmation”, Mind, 54: 1–26, 97–121. ----- ***Program: 2021-2022*** Note that schedules are somewhat irregular this year in order to accommodate the various time zones of the invited speakers. - February 1, 2022: Michael Strevens (New York University), 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm, CET - March 22, 2022: Quassim Cassam (University of Warwick) - May 17: Baptiste Bedessem (Università Ca'Foscari, Venezia) - September 28, 2021: David Chavalarias (CAMS, EHESS, Paris, France) https://videos.univ-lorraine.fr/video.php?id=15434 - October 12, 2021: Justin Bruner (University of Arizona) https://videos.ahp-numerique.fr/w/p/2UzpXdhJbGRSJtStzVWon9?playlistPosition=last - December 7, 2021: Maya Goldenberg (University of Guelph) https://videos.ahp-numerique.fr/videos/watch/playlist/0f7067fa-d01b-4acb-8bac-d0b18f99ed02 - January 11, 2022: Cailin O’Connor (University of California, Irvine), 8:30 pm, CET https://videos.ahp-numerique.fr/w/p/2UzpXdhJbGRSJtStzVWon9?playlistPosition=9&resume=true -- https://www.vidal-rosset.net/mailing_list_educasupphilo.html
