11 March 2019, AUC Logic Lectures Series, Rens Bod

The central theme of my lecture is the way in which scholars throughout the ages have sought to identify reasoning patterns in disciplines like philology, art theory, musicology, linguistics, literary theory and historiography. What rules can we apply if we wish to determine whether a tale about the past is trustworthy? By what criteria are we to distinguish consonant from dissonant musical intervals? What rules jointly describe all possible grammatical sentences in a language? How can modern digital methods enhance pattern-seeking in the humanities? I contend that the hallowed opposition between the sciences (mathematical, experimental, dominated by universal laws) and the humanities (allegedly concerned with unique events and hermeneutic methods) is a mistake born of a myopic failure to appreciate the way of reasoning that lies at the heart of this inquiry.