Carnegie Mellon Summer School in Logic and Formal Epistemology

This web page provides the suggested background reading for the 2006 summer school, and some of the materials that were used during the session.

Causal Statistical Inference

As background reading for the session on causal reasoning, Prof. Danks suggested that students take a look at the CSR online course: http://www.cmu.edu/oli/courses/enter_causal.html. In the free version, do Modules 1-3, and 6-9. This should help you understand (a) basic probability; (b) the notion of association/correlation; and (c) basic differences between association and causation.

Here are the slides from the first week:

• Causal Inference: Overview of the Week
• Probabilities and Associations, Capacities and Causes
• Representing Causal Structures
• Causal Inference: Principled Search Algorithms
• Challenges (& Solutions) and Making Connections
• Psychological Models of Causal Inference
• Putting the Pieces Together: Case Studies
• Overview, Hard Problems, and Open Questions

On Thursday of that week, Richard Scheines gave a talk on his work on a panel on Food Marketing for the National Academy of Sciences. Students were also invited to observe Jiji Zhang's defense of his dissertation on causal inference.

Foundations of Computability

As background reading for the session on the foundations of computability, Prof. Sieg suggested:

• Read the first seven chapters of Martin Davis's The Universal Computer - The road from Leibniz to Turing, W.W. Norton, 2000. This is a very informal and historically informed introduction to computability, and easy, enjoyable reading.
• Read the first chapter of the classical textbook Martin Davis, Computability and Unsolvability, Dover Publications, 1982. This is a more mathematical introduction to Turing machines.
• Work through the first seven modules of "Logic & Proofs", a web-based introduction to logic. It is accessible at http://www.cmu.edu/oli/courses/enter_logic.html. Even if you have taken already an introductory logic class, it would be very useful if you go over the modules on proofs and strategies.

Prof. Sieg discussed the following article:

Computability Theory

Here are the slides from Prof. Avigad's talk, on Thursday of that week:

Formal verification and decision procedures in mathematics

Philosophical Logic

Prof. Arlo-Costa used the following detailed lecture notes:

Formal Epistemology: the fixation of belief and its undoing

He used the following slides:

• Lecture notes 1
• Lecture notes 2
• Lecture notes 3
• Lecture notes 4
• Lecture notes 5

See also:

• Ed Dean's notes

Here is are some open problems, background, and a bibliography:

Open topics

Finally, here is a paper that is relevant:

Tracking Truth