Karianne Hagen will present:
"Should beauty play a role in theory choice?"
For my master thesis, I write about the relation between beauty and scientific theories. My interest in this topic started with Sabine Hossenfelder's book "Lost in Math: How Beauty leads Physics Astray". According to Hossenfelder, theoretical physics is currently in a state where the empirical testing of theories is becoming increasingly difficult. When choosing what theories to develop further within the community, the question of a theory’s beauty has become more prominent in later years, making it a good topic for debate whether or not this is called for. Hossenfelder describes the current theoretical physics environment as in somewhat of a Kuhnian crisis, and she blames beauty, claiming it has no place in the development of physical theories.
Even though Hossenfelder's outlook is a bit grim, it is nevertheless the case that many physicists argue for the success or pursuitworthiness of certain theories based on the theories' beauty. This relation between beauty and scientific theories is the main focus for my master thesis. I ask what importance we should allow beauty to have in the development of, and choosing between, scientific theories, and if it is possible to view this focus on the beauty of theories as scientifically legitimate. I narrow my focus to be mainly on theory choice, asking what role beauty should play here, using physics as my main example. I try to answer these questions by giving a practical definition of beauty in scientific theories, and propose that if we want beauty to be of importance to science, we should view it as a theoretical virtue on the likes of those described by Thomas Kuhn.
Ane Maria Døhl will present:
"Truth in non-classical logic"
My thesis explores the concept of truth in non-classical logic. Truth is a central concept for philosophy and the sciences. However, it is vulnerable to semantic paradoxes such as the Liar paradox, “This sentence is false.” If the sentence is true, then what it states is true, so the sentence is false. But if the sentence is false, it is false that the sentence is false: i.e., the sentence is true. This paradox is seen as a major threat to the welfare of our truth concept.
This talk will present solutions to the liar paradox in many-valued logics, which accept more than the classical truth-values true and false. In particular, it will argue that truth is best understood within First Degree Entailment, a logical system with four truth-values.