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Philosophy Colloquium
March 15 at 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
The Philosophy program will be hosting a colloquium featuring international guest speakers Dr. Eddy Keming Chen and Dr. Alan Hájek.
Topic: Algorithmic Randomness and Probabilistic Laws
Probabilistic laws of nature, as they are usually understood, are extraordinarily permissive. Dr. Chen will consider two ways one might use algorithmic randomness to strengthen the content of a probabilistic law to provide much tighter connections between probabilistic laws and their corresponding sets of possible worlds, allowing the elimination of several philosophical problems about probabilistic laws.
Dr. Chen is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He works at the intersection of philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, and metaphysics.
Topic: A Chance Theory of Counterfactuals
They say that philosophers never agree—except, perhaps, on this very claim. But to an unusual extent, philosophers agree that counterfactuals have truth conditions involving the most similar possible worlds where their antecedents are true, in the style of the celebrated and path-breaking Stalnaker/Lewis accounts.
Roughly, these accounts say that the counterfactual if p were the case, q would be the case is true if and only if at the most similar p-worlds, q is true. Most philosophers agree with this. I will argue against this entire approach and offer a paradigm shift based on conditional chances.
Dr. Hájek is a Professor of Philosophy at Australian National University. He received the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences Award for Excellence in Supervision (2012), and the university-wide Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Supervision (2013).
No registration is required for the event and refreshments will be served. Everyone is welcome to attend.
