Im Rahmen unseres Philosophischen Kolloquiums laden wir herzlich ein zum Lunch Time Talk mit einem Vortrag von

Prof. Erik J. Olsson (Lund): "Linking as Voting: on the Epistemology of Google Search"

Abstract
A webmaster’s decision to link to a webpage can be interpreted as a “vote” for that webpage. But how far does the parallel between linking and voting extend? In the talk I will provide several “linking theorems” showing that link-based ranking tracks importance on the web in the limit as the number of webpages grows, given independence and minimal linking competence. The theorems are similar in spirit to the voting, or jury, theorem famously attributed to the 18th century mathematician Nicolas de Condorcet. I will argue that the linking theorems provide a fundamental epistemological justification for link-based ranking on the web, analogous to the justification that Condorcet’s theorems bestow on majority voting as a basic democratic procedure. I will also look at various ways of incorporating a bias for linking to what other people link to into the model.

Short biography
Erik J. Olsson is Professor and Chair in Theoretical Philosophy at Lund University, Sweden. His areas of research include epistemology, philosophical logic, pragmatism, and, more recently, philosophy of the internet. Olsson has published extensively on epistemic coherence, the value of knowledge, the logic of belief revision, and social epistemology. Recent books include Against Coherence: Truth, Probability, and Justification (Oxford University Press, 2005), Knowledge and Inquiry: Essays on the Pragmatism of Isaac Levi (Cambridge University Press, 2006) and Belief Revision Meets Philosophy of Science (Springer, 2011).


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