Hannes Leitgeb

Title: On Truth and Probability

Abstract: We will give an overview of how probability relates to truth,
and how probability theory can be studied from a logical point of view. On
the probabilistic side, this leads us to an investigation of (unary)
absolute probability measures and (binary) conditional probability
measures on propositional or first-order languages. In particular, we will
show (i) how the standard axioms of probability may be justified in terms
of "closeness to the truth", (ii) what a probabilistic semantics for
conditional logic looks like, (iii) in what sense logical truths with
nested conditionals correspond to probabilistic reflection principles,
(iv) how a probabilistic theory of truth for semantically closed languages
can be developed, and finally (v) how such a theory can be extended to a
probabilistic theory for truth AND probability. (Most parts of this talk
will be based on unpublished or forthcoming material.)