The next event is on Thursday, February 20th:
LIRa session: Gerhard Schurz
Speaker: Gerhard Schurz (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf)
Date and time: Thursday, February 20th 2025, 16:30-18:00
Venue: online.
Title: Meta-Induction and Its Applications in Social Epistemology
Abstract.
Meta-induction has been developed as a new approach to Hume’s problem of justifying induction. The approach concedes the force of Hume’s sceptical arguments against the possibility of a non-circular justification of the reliability of induction. What it demonstrates is that one can nevertheless give a non-circular justification of the optimality of induction based on meta-induction. The method of meta-induction tracks the success records of all accessible methods of prediction or action (including advice from experts, peers, or algorithms) and combines them in a success-dependent way, in order to obtain a superior method that is provably optimal among all prediction methods accessible to the epistemic agent.
Since meta-induction can be viewed as a form of social learning, it has important applications in social epistemology. In the second part of the talk a form of social learning called local meta-induction is presented. In local meta-induction it is assumed that individuals can access only the success records of the individuals in their immediate epistemic neighborhood. It is shown that local meta-inductive learning can spread reliable information over the entire population, and has clear advantages compared to success-independent social learning methods such as peer-imitation and authority-imitation.
More upcoming events:
- Thursday, February 27th, 16:30 - LIRa session: Michael Cohen
- Thursday, March 6th, 16:30 - LIRa session: Bartosz Więckowski
- Thursday, March 13th, 16:30 - LIRa session: Timo Eckhardt and David J. Pym
- Thursday, March 20th, 16:30 - LIRa session: Tai-Wei Hu
- Thursday, March 27th, 16:30 - LIRa session: Hans van Ditmarsch
- Thursday, April 3rd, 16:30 - LIRa session: Hein Duijf
- Thursday, April 10th, 15:00 - Joint DIP-LIRa session: Greg Restall
- Tuesday, April 15th, 16:00 - Joint DIP-LIRa session: Lucas Champollion
- Thursday, April 24th, 16:30 - LIRa session: Dominik Klein
- Thursday, May 8th, 16:30 - LIRa session: TBA
- Thursday, May 22nd, 16:30 - LIRa session: Franz Berto
- Thursday, June 5th, 16:30 - LIRa session: TBA