Recording of this talk: click here
Speaker: Gillman Payette (Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary)
Date and Time: Thursday, September 28th 2023, 17:00-18:30 (NOTE the unusual time)
Venue: online only. (i.e. not hybrid!)
Title: Connecting Schotch-Jennings forcing and Rescher-Manor inference
Abstract. Inference from inconsistent data is a challenging problem. Some ways of dealing with it propose changing the concept of logical consequence; these are often referred to as paraconsistent logics. On the other hand, some suggest keeping the standard conception of (classical) logical consequence and dealing with the inconsistency by judicially arranging the data so as to avoid the problematic interactions between data that could make trouble. The latter is characteristic of the North American approaches to inference from inconsistency.
In this talk, I will discuss two such versions of paraconsistent inference. The first, due to Rescher and Manor, derives conclusions based on what follows from maximally consistent subsets of the data. The other due to Schotch and Jennings, looks at what follows from at least one subset in every — minimally — partitioned reorganization of the data into consistent sets. After looking at the shortcomings of each, I will show how to combine them to get a system that, arguably, meets the requirements set by the various theorists, but makes fewer assumptions than the theorists’ suggestions for deriving more from inconsistent data.