Confirmation and Aboutness

Abstract:
Stephen Yablo (2014) makes a case for a revisionist version of confirmation theory. Like in earlier proposals in this spirit (Fred Dretske (1972), Peter Achinstein (1983, 2001)), it is suggested that facts of evidential support are sensitive to what hypotheses are about. In this talk, it will be argued that the Dretske-Achinstein-Yablo line misfires on two accounts. It goes wrong in misdescribing the extent to which judgements of confirmation are sensitive to subject matter. And it goes wrong in aiming to explain subject-matter-sensitivity effects as a feature of confirmation itself, and not merely of linguistic ways of framing judgements of confirmation.

Date: 30 August 2018
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3-05-23)

About the Speaker:
Dr Richard Dietz obtained his doctoral degree in Philosophy from the University of Oxford in 2005. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the recently launched International College of Liberal Arts at Yamanashi Gakuin University. Beforehand, he held positions as postdoctoral researcher at the University of St Andrews, UNAM, and KU Leuven, and as a Lecturer at the University of Tokyo. Currently, he is also on a Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, which is hosted by the University of Hamburg. His current projects all focus on problems on the interface between formal epistemology and the philosophy of language & cognition broadly conceived.

All are welcome