Paolo Santorio (University of California, San Diego)

Triviality for indeterminate languages (Joint work with J.R.G. Williams, University of Leeds)

3:30-5:30PM Thursday 30 Aug 2018
Room 3.02 Sir Roland Wilson Building, ANU

Preceded by a pre-talk for graduate students, 1:30PM Benjamin Library

Suppose that you're certain that a proposition (for example the one expressed by "Frida is tall") is neither determinately true nor determinately false. What attitude should you take towards it? There is little consensus in the literature about the answer. One radical option is rejectionism: on this position, all indeterminate propositions should receive credence zero. We think this option is highly undesirable, but we show that it follows from a small set of plausible principles about credence. The proof mirrors closely triviality proofs in the literature on conditionals and modals, suggesting that there is a close relationship between the two. We argue that these results suggest some general philosophical morals for our theories of content and learning.