hss-seminar-38

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Indian Institute of Technology Ropar

HSS Seminar

Reasoning From Truthlike Premises

by

Dr. Kit Patrick

December  8, 2017 (wednesday) at  11:30 AM

Venue:  Conference Room  2

Abstract

Too often, we have been concerned with whether an argument with true premises will have a true conclusion. We have been concerned with this even in context where we know the premises are untrue, but only close to the truth. In this talk we examine what happens to a certain sort of deductive argument when the premises are untrue but close to the truth. We show that the conclusions of these arguments are as unreliable as if the premises were radically false. Broader conclusions about reasoning from premises close to the truth are drawn.

Brief Bio-sketch of the speaker 

Dr. Kit Patrick received his Ph.D degree in philosophy from the University of Bristol. Before that, he studied at the University of Cambridge for his B.A, M. A and M.Phil degrees. He taught PG writing, research and reasoning courses at the University of Bristol. Currently, he is associated with the University of Bristol and Azim Premji University Bengaluru. He is interested in scientific reasoning and theory-choice. He is also working on using the philosophy of law to articulate non-rule based reasoning, drawing on the huge amount of data available from judicial decisions.