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LTT: Margherita Harris
April 9 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EDT
Title: Probabilism Under Scrutiny: Grappling with the Weight of Evidence
Abstract:
Probabilism, the philosophical view that the role of probability is to capture degrees of belief, support, confirmation, or plausibility about hypotheses, has been gaining increasing traction across a diverse array of disciplines: epistemology, risk assessment, decision theory, ethics, psychology, data science, evidence law, and statistics, to name a few. Despite its growing prominence, a recurring concern arises amidst this ascendancy. This concern revolves around the idea, often attributed to John M Keynes, that probability, when fulfilling this role, fails to capture something epistemically important about the evidence, namely its “amount,” “completeness,” or “weight”.
In this talk, I will delve into discussions surrounding the concept of “the weight of evidence” within evidence law scholarship and the broader philosophy of proof. I posit that substantial philosophical insights regarding this concept can be gleaned from this particular domain of inquiry alone. The outline of my presentation is as follows: I will begin with a brief overview of legal probabilism, highlighting pertinent cases that have raised doubts regarding the ability of probabilistic interpretations of standards of proof to adequately capture the “weight of evidence”. I will then contend that proponents of legal probabilism neither have nor can have an epistemically satisfactory response to this concern. Instead, I will propose Giorgi Gardiner’s relevant alternatives framework for interpreting legal standards of proof as a promising alternative to probabilism. Finally, I will argue that this framework illuminates the ongoing debate surrounding the role of probability in inference, at the heart of the so-called “statistics wars” – wars that, as Mayo observes, “reflect disagreements on one of the deepest, oldest philosophical questions: How do humans learn about the world despite threats of error due to incomplete and variable data?”
This talk will also be available live streamed on:
Zoom at https://pitt.zoom.us/j/98986700518
YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.
Details
- Date:
- April 9
- Time:
-
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EDT
- Event Categories:
- Lunchtime Talks, Lunchtime Talks 2023-24
Venue
- 1119 Cathedral of Learning