Happy new year to everyone. A couple of highlights of 2005:
1. My book, "Bayesian nets and causality: philosophical and computational foundations" (OUP) is now available. Bayesian nets are widely used in artificial intelligence as a calculus for causal reasoning, enabling machines to make predictions, perform diagnoses, take decisions and even to discover causal relationships. This book, aimed at researchers and graduate students in computer science, mathematics and philosophy, brings together two important research topics: how to automate reasoning in artificial intelligence, and the nature of causality and probability in philosophy. http://personal.lse.ac.uk/willia11/jw.htm#bnac 2. Progic2005: second workshop on Combining Probability and Logic special focus: Objective Bayesianism Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, London School of Economics, 6th-8th July 2005 http://personal.lse.ac.uk/willia11/progic2005/ You are invited to submit a paper for presentation at the workshop and publication in a special issue of the Journal of Logic, Language and Computation. There is a clear connection between probability and logic: both appear to tell us how we should reason. But how, exactly, are the two concepts related? Objective Bayesianism offers one answer to this question. According to objective Bayesianism, probability generalises deductive logic: deductive logic tells us which conclusions are certain, given a set of premises, while probability tells us the extent to which one should believe a conclusion, given the premises (certain conclusions being awarded full degree of belief). According to objective Bayesianism, the premises objectively (i.e. uniquely) determine the degree to which one should believe a conclusion. The aim of this workshop is to explore the connections between probability and logic, and in particular to evaluate aspects of the connection forged by objective Bayesianism. The workshop is intended to be interdisciplinary: the themes of the workshop are relevant to mathematicians, logicians, philosophers, computer scientists, psychologists and engineers, for example. Further details: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/willia11/progic2005/ All the best, -------------- Jon Williamson Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK http://personal.lse.ac.uk/willia11
