Título: Cognitive-Constructivism, Quine, Dogmas of Empiricism, and
Muenchhausen?s Trilemma.

Palestrante: Júlio Stern

Resumo: The Bayesian research group at University of Sao Paulo has been
exploring a specific version of Cognitive Constructivism - Cog-Con - that has,
among its most salient features, a distinctive ?objective? character. Cog-Con 
is supported by a specially designed measure of statistical significance, 
namely, ev(H | X) - the Bayesian epistemic value of sharp hypotheses H, given 
the observed data X.
This talk explores possible parallels or contrasts between Cog-Con and the
epistemological framework developed by the philosopher Willard van Orman
Quine. We pay special attention to the concept of Ontological Commitment  of
scientific theories, and its practical importance for computational ontology.

Link: http://www.ime.usp.br/~