Events Calendar
WDSS Intermediate R Workshop
April 22, 2024

Applied Math Colloquium Talk - Dr. Nic Fillion

Date:
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Time:
2:30 pm
Location:
Middlesex College (MC)
Room: 204
Cost:
Free

Speaker: Nic Fillion - Simon Fraser University

Title: I can't get no satisfaction:the concepts we need to reconstruct arguments in applied math


Abstract: There is a venerable tradition of rational reconstruction in philosophy
of science, whose objective is to explain the success of scientific practices
that we should regard as properly justifable. This tradition has focused
on semantic concepts that unquestionably deserve a central place: logical
semantics and probability, as well as useful combinations such as epistemic
decision theory. However, this analysis fails to reach a large part of the
reasoning deployed in applied mathematics. Indeed, we need a collection
of concepts usually associated with perturbation theory|and we should
regard those as having a role as fundamental as those of logic and prob-
ability theory|to understand how arguments that have approximately
true or even false premises but (approximately) true conclusions work.
After describing this collection of concepts, I will illustrate the kind of
philosophical work it can do by briefly discussing how we ought to think
about complexity and success in science.

Contact:
Rob Corless
rcorless@uwo.ca
Event Type:


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