REASONING IN SOCIAL CONTEXT 2018, 31 May - 2 June
Master class on Reasoning in social context:
30 May – 15 June 2018
Registration: Click HERE to register for the Master Class
Master Class Time Schedule:
- 30 May 2018, first meeting from 14h00 till 17h00 in Openbare Bibliotheek, Room 8.1, Oosterdokskade 143, 1011 DL, Amsterdam.
- Six meetings take place at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, ILLC, Science Park 107, Amsterdam on
4, 6, 7, 11 June 2018 from 14h00 till 16h00 in classroom F0.22,
14 June 2018 from 11h00 till 13h00 in classroom F0.20,
15 June 2018 from 16h00 till 18h00 in classroom F0.20 (this course will take place in case it is needed!)
Master Class Content:
This course is designed for Master students interested in the logical analysis of social-informational phenomena, including social networks, the wisdom of crowds, cascades, group polarization, echo chambers, pluralistic ignorance etc. This topic is at the intersection of Logic, Social Epistemology and Network Theory.
We analyze forms of group knowledge, as well as the role of individual beliefs and of belief-aggregation procedures in facilitating or distorting the spread of information through a network of interacting agents. We consider various forms of communication, social influence, disinformation, trolling, and other informational actions that can affect a group's behavior and its ability to track the truth. We focus on examples from the literature and their analysis based on theoretical tools and formal models.
Master Class Material:
The course is based on a collection of research papers and online educational material, which will be made available during the first meeting.
PLAN:
Class1.Introductory Lecture (TODAY): Social dynamics and the epistemics of groups.
Class 2.Social Influence and Intro to Network Logics.
- Read the paper of Liu, Seligman and Girard on `Logical Dynamics of belief change in the community'
-Read sections 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2 from the book Networks, Markets and Crowds.
-IF you need an introduction to modal logic and epistemic logic, you may either read Chapters 1 and 2 (language and models, not soundness and completeness) from the book Reasoning about Knowledge, and/or you can watch the following videos:
- Watch Video: Eric Pacuit's Introduction to Modal Logic Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW0SQA386p0
- Watch Video: Eric Pacuit's Introduction to Modal Logic Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzwQqGSUYY4
All the reading material is on the dropbox folder.
Class 3.Wisdom of the Crowds.
- Watch the Short BBC Video: The Wisdom of Crowds, Jelly Bean Experiment: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iOucwX7Z1HU
- Read the paper of Lyon and Pacuit on `The Wisdom of Crowds: Methods of Human Judgement Aggregation'.
-Read as much as you want from the popular book ``The Wisdom of the Crowds" by Surowiecki.
-Cf also chapter 13 ``Wikipisteomology" from the book ``Social Epistemology: essential readings".
-Advanced reading (optional); paper by List and Goodin on ``Epistemic Democracy".
Class 4.Pluralistic Ignorance and the Bystander Effect.
-paper by Bjerring, Hansen and Pedersen;
-paper by V. Hendricks;
-paper by Proietti and Olsson;
-Further readings (optional): the others in the subfolder of Reading Material for Class 4.
-Wach the Video by Ken Brown's TEDxUIowa talk: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufs8cKyzLvg
-Wacht Video about the bystander effect, the case of Kitty Genovese and the first experiments on this by J. Darley and B. Latane in 1971 : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BdpdUbW8vbw
Class 5.Cascades (bubbles, informational cascades, epistemic bandwagon, groupthink).
-paper by Bicchieri and Fukui
-paper by Huck and Oechssler
-paper by Baltag et al
-Further readings (optional):
-paper by Achimescu et al
-Chapter 16 from the book Networks, Markets and Crowds.
-Andreea Achimescu's thesis.
Class 6.Group Polarization, Echo Chambers, and Fake News.
-'The Law of Group Polarization' by Case R. Sunstein.
-'Group Polarization and 12 Angry Men' by Case R. Sunstein.
-'The Science of Fake News'
-Further readings (optional): the other papers in the subfolder of Class6 reading material.
For Students in the Master of Logic:
This Master Class is connected to a 6ECTS June Project in the Master of Logic. Students enrolled in the Master of Logic at the University of Amsterdam can register for the master class for 6ECTS during the month of May.
Link to the website of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences on this Master Class