Center for Logic, Language, and Cognition

DEADLINE EXTENDED! (4 May)

AISC2026 Natural and Artificial Intelligence: between Skills and Biases

And the winner of the BJPS Popper Prize for 2025 is...

our great FABRIZIO CALZAVARINI! 🥂

And the winner of the BJPS Popper Prize for 2025 is... https://www.thebsps.org/auxhyp/bjps-popper-prize-2025

𝗟𝗟𝗖 𝗦𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿

📅 23 May 2024
⏰ 17:00 - 19:00 (CET)
📍 Aula 1, Palazzo Gorresio, Via Giulia di Barolo 3/A (Turin)

🎤 Speaker: Damian Szmuc (Buenos Aires)

📃Abstract:   In an article that appeared some years ago, Stefan Wintein analyzed the effect that adopting different definitions of logical consequence had on three- and four-valued strong Kleene generalizations of Classical Logic. In a nutshell, these generalizations of Classical Logic consist of keeping the same truth and falsity conditions for the complex logical expressions, while allowing for truth-value gaps or gluts. Our work aims to study the effect of adopting different definitions of logical consequence on weak Kleene generalizations of Classical Logic. The characteristic feature of weak Kleene logics is their ability to handle grammatical but otherwise meaningless, nonsensical, or off-topic sentences in a formally systematic way. Thus, our generalizations keep the truth and falsity conditions of Classical Logic the same for the complex logical expressions, while allowing for truth-value gaps or gluts---and, most importantly, for meaningless, nonsensical, or off-topic sentences to be around.

𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲&𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸

📅 22 May 2024
⏰ 12:00 - 13:00 (CET)
📍 Aula T.22, Via Sant'Ottavio 54, Torino

🎤 Speaker: Giovanni Gonella (University of Genoa)

📃Abstract: In this talk, I’ll introduce a novel variety of epistemic luck that I call conceptual luck. The rough idea is this: a singular belief is conceptually lucky when the object that causally prompts the epistemic agent’s engagement in the belief-formation activity is the bearer of the singular concept α due to a fortunate event. So, unlike veritic epistemic luck, conceptual luck doesn’t concern the belief’s truth value but rather the agent’s belief formation activity. Still, I’ll argue that conceptual luck is significant to epistemology because it is incompatible with propositional knowledge. I’ll suggest a revision of the safety principle to accommodate this conclusion, and time permitting, I’ll support this thesis with an argument.

&more

𝗟𝗟𝗖 𝗦𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿

📅 14 May 2024
⏰ 16:00 - 18:00 (CET)
📍 Aula 10, Palazzo Nuovo, Turin
🖥️ Online: https://unito.webex.com/unito/j.php?MTID=mcf064983fff7ce3467aa327720bb2c42

🎤 Speaker: Achille Varzi (Columbia University)

📃Abstract; Can we truly perceive an absence? Sartre tells us that when he arrived late for his appointment at the café, he saw the absence of his friend Pierre. Is that really what he saw? Where was it, exactly? Why didn’t Sartre see the absence of other people who were not there? Why did other people who were there not see the absence of Pierre? How could Sartre have seen a genuine absence if perception is based on causation and causation, in turn, can only originate from what is present? The perception of absences gives rise to a host of conundrums and is constantly on the verge of conceptual confusion. Here I focus on the need to be clear about four sorts of distinctions: (i) perceiving an absence vs. perceiving something that is absent; (ii) perceiving an absence vs. an absence of perceiving; (iii) perceiving an absence vs. perceiving something as an absence; and (iv) perceiving an absence vs. perceiving that something is absent. I will conclude with some general morals. 

𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲&𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸

📅 24 April 2024
⏰ 12:00 - 13:00 (CET)
📍 Sala Incontri 1, Biblioteca di Filosofia, Palazzo Nuovo, Turin

🎤 Speaker: Vanja Subotić (University of Belgrade)

📃Abstract: I present a three-level account of explanation that can be reasonably expected from DL models in cognitive neuroscience and that illustrates the explanatory dynamics within a future-biased research program (Feest 2017, Doerig et al. 2023). By relying on the mechanistic framework (Craver 2007, Stinson 2017, 2018), I develop an account that corresponds to the stages of mechanism discovery, i.e., our shifting epistemic position and epistemic goals, and propose a representative model for each level.

&more

𝗟𝗟𝗖 𝗦𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿

📅 18 April 2024
⏰ 17:00 - 19:00 (CET)
📍 Aula di Antica, Palazzo Nuovo, Turin

🎤 Speaker: Vanja Subotić (University of Belgrade)

📃Abstract: I analyze DL models for NLP and LLMs as indicative of the stochasticity of actual language use and compatible with the gradience of acceptability judgments. The implication that I draw from the analysis is that postulating a categorical linguistic competence—as generativists do—amounts to insisting that a theoretically vacuous entity should have precedence over empirical results. This aligns with the most recent manifestos that LLMs are a natural ally to usage-based theories (Contreras Kallens, Kristensen-McLahlan, & Christiansen 2023). I back up these manifestos with the following proposition: By combining the UBT and construction grammar approach to form a unified theoretical framework for understanding linguistic competence, we have a way to dismiss the Poverty of Stimulus argument once and for all and choose an integrated account of competence and performance.

𝟯𝙧𝙙 𝙆𝘼𝙏𝙃𝙔 𝙒𝙄𝙇𝙆𝙀𝙎 𝙈𝙀𝙈𝙊𝙍𝙄𝘼𝙇 𝘾𝙊𝙉𝙁𝙀𝙍𝙀𝙉𝘾𝙀

The Behavioral and Ethical Consequences of
Large Language Models (LLM)

26 - 27 April, 2024

Università di Torino
Palazzo Badini
Dipartimento di Psicologia – Sala Lauree
Via Giuseppe Verdi, 10

FRIDAY 26/4/2024
H 14:00-14.45 Welcome Remarks: Monica Bucciarelli, Anita Avramides,
Nada Bruer, Riccardo Viale

Chair: Riccardo Viale
H 14:45-15:45 David Papineau, “The Moral Standing of Artificial Creatures”

H 15:45-16:45 Edoardo Datteri,
“Psychological human likeness and people's folk-
ontological stances towards robots”

H 16:45-17:30 Tea-Coffee break

H 17:30-18:30 Tvrtko Tadić, “The Science and Practice of Large Language Models:
An Industry Perspective”

H. 19:30 – 20:30 Pre-Dinner drinks at Riccardo Viale’s house

H 21:00 Dinner at Arcadia Restaurant –Subalpina Gallery

SATURDAY 27/4/2024

Chair: Anita Avramides

H 9:30-10:30 Lukas Meier, "Moral Dilemmas: Large Language Models vs Fuzzy
Cognitive Maps"

H 10:30-11:30 Tomislav Furlanis, “LLM’s and narrative misalignment”

H. 11:30 – 12:15 Coffee/Tea

H 12:15- 13:15 Mario Rasetti, “Large Language Models: a new paradigm
to ‘measure’ behavior”

H 13:15 Conclusion

IMPORTANT UPDATE: The LLC Seminar originally scheduled for Thursday 7 March has been postponed. The new date is 21 March.

We sure have preemptive reasons to suppose it'll be a great talk :)

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