Im Rahmen des Forschungsseminars laden wir recht herzlich ein zum Vortrag:

Dr. Mathieu Beirlaen (Univ. Bochum und Uni. Ghent) -  Dilemmas surrounding formal

approaches to reasoning by cases

Abstract

Given a premise ‘P or Q’, an argument for R on the basis of P, and an argument for R on the basis of Q, the reasoning by cases inference scheme allows us to conclude that R. if each of P and Q classically entail R, then the inference to R given ‘P or Q’ is deductively valid. In cases where the argument from P to R and the argument from Q to R hold only tentatively, the conclusion R may be derivable tentatively as well. We are interested here in this more tentative, defeasible variant of the reasoning by cases scheme, the formalization of which is well-known to cause trouble in many systems of non-monotonic logic. We study and formalize the scheme of reasoning by cases within structured argumentation frameworks. More specifically, we extend the ASPIC+ framework for structured argumentation so as to allow for the construction of arguments applying the reasoning by cases scheme, called rbc-arguments. We show how our framework differs from other approaches in non-monotonic logic for dealing with disjunctive information, such as disjunctive default logic or preferential model semantics.

Speaker

Mathieu Beirlaen obtained his PhD at Ghent University in 2012, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM, 2013-2014), and at the Ruhr University of Bochum (RUB, 2015-2016). He is now a Humboldt research fellow at RUB and at the Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf. His research interests include deontic logic, non-classical logic, and (in)formal models of patterns of defeasible reasoning.

Selected publications:

M. Beirlaen and A. Aliseda. A conditional logic for abduction. Synthese 191:3733-3758 (2014).

M. Beirlaen. A regress objection to Thagard's theory of deductive coherence. Erkenntnis 80(5):975-986 (2014).

M. Beirlaen and C. Strasser. A structured argumentation framework for detaching conditional obligations. In O. Roy, A. Tamminga, and M. Willer (eds.), Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Deontic Logic and Normative Systems: 32-48 (2016).

M. Beirlaen, B. Leuridan, and F. Van De Putte. A logic for the discovery of deterministic causal regularities. Synthese, online first (201x). DOI: <10.1007/s11229-016-1222-x>.