September 17, 10am-5pm
Ludwigstr. 31, Room 021
A small workshop on recent work on issues related to induction and probability.
Rush Stewart (MCMP) - On the Possibility of Testimonial Justice, 10:30 AM
Abstract. Recent impossibility theorems for fair risk assessment extend to the domain of epistemic justice. We translate the relevant model, demonstrating that the problems of fair risk assessment and just credibility assessment are structurally the same. We motivate the fairness criteria involved in the theorems as appropriate in the setting of testimonial justice. Any account of testimonial justice that implies the fairness/justice criteria must be abandoned on pain of triviality.
Michael Nielsen (Columbia University) - Speed Optimal Induction and Dynamic Coherence, 12:30 PM
Abstract. A standard way to challenge convergence-based accounts of inductive success is to claim that they are too weak to constrain inductive inferences in the short-term. We respond to such a challenge by answering some questions raised by Juhl (1994). When it comes to predicting limiting relative frequencies in the framework of Reichenbach, we show that speed-optimal convergence---a long-run success condition---induces dynamic coherence in the short-term.
Gregory Wheeler (Frankfurt School of Finance & Management) - Full Conditional Probabilities Lead to Indeterminacy in Probability Values, 2:00 PM
Abstract. The purpose of this paper is to show that if one adopts conditional probabilities as the primitive concept of probability, one must accept that at least some probability values may be indeterminate, and that some probability questions may fail to have numerically precise answers.