2017 CMSS Seminars: Patrick Girard

by sfab358 | Feb 28, 2017

Speaker: Patrick Girard, University of Auckland (Department of Philosophy) and CMSS Member

Title of talk #1: “Ceteris Paribus Preferences”

Date, Time and Venue: Wednesday, 22 March 2017,  2:00-3:00 pm, 206-202 [Arts 1 Building, Level 2]

What talk #1 is going to be about, in Patrick’s own words: “I’m writing a book on Ceteris Paribus Logic. I’m trying to get closure with 10+ years on the topic, which had me doing a log of preference and belief revision logic. I have a chapter on preference logic which at the moment contains no less than 40 definitions of preference! Some are a bit mad, but for the most part they are plausible. As a logician, my goal is to unify them all into a simple preference logic, which is what the book is about, but not what I will bore you with in the talk. Instead, I will get you to realise why one might be so mad as to offer 40 definitions of preferences, and we can discuss if and how it may relate to your own research.”

Title of talk #2: “Inconsistent Logic”

Date, Time and Venue: Wednesday, 29 March 2017,  2:00-3:00 pm, 260-040B [Business School Building, Level 0]

What talk #2 is going to be about, in Patrick’s own words: “Now this is mad! I’m a new-born dialetheist. That’s a philosophical position which says that some contradictions are inevitable. By “inevitable”, we mean that they are true. As non-sensical as it sounds, there’s a lot of research trying to find logics, and mathematics, that can accommodate such madness. Those are called “Paraconsistent Logics” in general. Not all of them need to accept that there are true contradictions, so not all is mad. There are practical motivations for looking at logics that can tolerate inconsistencies. Think about an auto-pilot that needs to save a cabin of free passengers while receiving inconsistent information from it’s various channels. Or think about inconsistencies that people display in their beliefs and preferences, and how those are always idealised away, because we can’t cope with contradiction. Well, maybe we can, if we let in a bit more madness in our logic.”

Everyone welcome!