REASON Winter School 2019: Keynote Prof. Stephan Hartmann

Reasoning and Argumentation in Science: A Perspective from (Mathematical) Philosophy
Stephan Hartmann (MCMP/LMU Munich)

Reasoning and argumentation play an important role in the practice of science. In this talk, I will identify a number of new types of reasoning and argumentation (such as the No Alternatives Argument) that are used in science and show how they can be assessed in a normative framework. This will help us to better understand which types or reasoning and argumentation are successful, and which need to be improved or discarded. As scientific reasoning and argumentation crucially involve uncertainties, a Bayesian (or probabilistic) approach suggests itself. This approach is currently very popular in the field of mathematical philosophy. I will present the Bayesian framework and focus on its normative foundations and applications to the psychology of reasoning.

Short Bio: Stephan Hartmann is Professor of Philosophy of Science in the Faculty of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and the Study of Religion at LMU Munich, Alexander von Humboldt Professor, and Co-Director of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP). His primary research and teaching areas are philosophy of science, philosophy of physics, formal epistemology, and social epistemology. He published numerous articles and the book Bayesian Epistemology (with Luc Bovens) that appeared in 2003 with Oxford University Press. His current research interests include the philosophy and psychology of reasoning and argumentation, the philosophy of physics (esp. the philosophy of open quantum systems and (imprecise) probabilities in quantum mechanics) and formal social epistemology (esp. models of deliberation and norm emergence). His book Bayesian Philosophy of Science (with Jan Sprenger) will appear in 2019 with Oxford University Press. For more information, visit his webpage.