Hi everyone, This week's speaker in the University of Sydney Philosophy Seminar Series is Finnur Dellsén, (University of Iceland)
The title of the talk is "Abduction: The Glory and Scandal of Philosophy? ". Here is an abstract for the talk: C.D. Broad referred to inductive reasoning as “the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy”. Broad's point was that while scientists frequently use inductive reasoning, philosophers have not yet provided any convincing justification for this practice. I suggest that an analogous claim is true of abductive reasoning in philosophy: while we philosophers frequently use abductive reasoning, usually in the form of Inference to the Best Explanation, we have not yet provided any convincing justification for this practice. I focus on three problems that arise for abductive reasoning in philosophy: (i) all the explanatory theories that are available may be false; (ii) there may be multiple rival explanations that are nearly as plausible as the best one; and (iii) the evidence from which one is inferring may itself be uncertain. In response to these problems, I argue that we should reconceive of the structure of abductive reasoning in philosophy so that, in most cases, it licenses a substantially more modest type of conclusion than it has previously been thought to do. The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on Wednesday Jun 18 in the Philosophy Seminar Room (N494). Enquiries about the seminar series can be directed to ryan....@sydney.edu.au Ryan Cox Associate Lecturer in Philosophy Discipline of Philosophy School of Humanities University of Sydney ryan....@sydney.edu.au
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