On October 4 2019, Karen Kiil Brøcker will defend her PhD dissertation "Justifying the evidential use of intuitive judgements in linguistics". External examiners will be Michael Devitt (CUNY) and Ewa Dąbrowska (Birmingham, UK). The defense will take place at 14:00 in the Department of Mathematics in room D3 (1531 – 215).
In the first 45min, Karen will present her work. There will then be a break before Karen will answer the questions of the examiners (60-75 min)
Dissertation abstract:
Does it make sense to use speakers’ intuitive judgements about sentences as a source of evidence in linguistics, and if so, why? This question has been hotly debated in the philosophical literature, but it has received little attention within the field of linguistics itself. In her PhD defence, Karen summarises the main philosophical accounts of why linguistic intuitive judgements can serve as evidence and presents the results of a questionnaire study in which linguists gave their opinions on the topic. She furthermore presents her own account of why and under which circumstances linguistic intuitive judgements can serve as evidence.
On October 5, there will be a workshop on Scientific Realism with Michael Devitt, Brad Wray (AU), and Samuel Schindler (AU). The workshop will take place in the Department of Mathematics in room G31 (1532-314).
| Saturday, October 5: | ||
| 10:05-10:10 | Welcome and introduction | |
| 10:10-11:00 | Michael Devitt | An Ignored Argument for realism |
| 11:00-11:05 | Break | |
| 11:05-11:15 | Samuel Schindler | Comments on Devitt's "Basic Argument" for Realism |
| 11:15-11:20 | Michael Devitt | Reply |
| 11:20-11:45 | General discussion | |
| 11:45-13:00 | Lunch | |
| 13:00-13:35 | Samuel Schindler | Simplicity: Epistemic after all? |
| 13:35-13:50 | Discussion | |
| 13:50-14:10 | Coffee break | |
| 14:10-14-45 | K. Brad Wray | Kuhn and the Contemporary Realism/Anti-realism Debate |
| 14:45-15:00 | Discussion | |
