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What makes a good explanation? Psychological and philosophical perspectives

PSYCH 239 / PHIL 350 @ Stanford, Fall 2020

Explanation is a topic of longstanding interest in philosophy and psychology, and has recently attracted renewed attention due to novel challenges in interpreting and interacting with relatively opaque AI systems. In this graduate seminar, we will study the science and engineering of explanations, combining perspectives from philosophy, psychology, AI, and the legal sciences. We will ask questions like: When do we ask for explanations? What makes a good explanation? How can we build machines that can understand and explain? This interdisciplinary seminar is co-taught by Thomas Icard (Philosophy) and Tobias Gerstenberg (Psychology). We will meet twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:30am-11:50am) to discuss research articles from a range of disciplines. Students are expected to write responses based on their readings, lead the discussion on one of the papers, and actively participate in the discussion otherwise. As a final project, students will outline a novel study on explanation that makes an empirical, modeling, or theoretical contribution.

If you’re interested in taking this class, please fill out the course application form here by Wednesday, September 9. We will respond to all applicants by Friday, September 11.


Instructor info

Tobias Gerstenberg

Tobi Gerstenberg, Assistant Professor of Psychology

Office hours: Tuesday 1-2pm

Email: gerstenberg@stanford.edu

Thomas Icard

Thomas Icard, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Computer Science (by courtesy)

Office hours: Wednesday 2-3pm

Email: icard@stanford.edu

Schedule

The class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30am to 11:50am. The readings will be made available through Canvas.

Week 1: Background

Week 2: Explanation and understanding in science

Week 3: Individual-level function of explanation

Week 4: Communication

Week 5: Formal theories of explanation

Week 6: NLP & Vision

Week 7: Reinforcement learning and action

Week 8: Prediction vs explanation

Week 10: Project presentations

General information

What to expect?

In “A Vision for Stanford”, university president Marc Tessier-Lavigne states that Stanford wants to be

“an inspired, inclusive and collaborative community of diverse scholars, students and staff, where all are supported and empowered to thrive.”

Let’s try our best together in this seminar to make this happen!

What you can expect from us

We will …

What we expect from you

You will …

Grading

Reaction posts

Here are some guiding thoughts on how to write a good reaction post:

The reaction posts should be concise (~ two paragraphs per paper), and are due the night before class (submitted via Canvas).

Final paper

The final paper may be one of the following three:

  1. An empirical project proposal.
  2. A literature review based on one of the class topics.
  3. A theoretical essay.

The final paper (1000–2000 words) will be due on November, 19th at 10pm.

Policies

Please familiarize yourself with Stanford’s honor code. We will adhere to it and follow through on its penalty guidelines.

Support

Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE). Professional staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Students should contact the OAE as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone: 723-1066, URL: http://oae.stanford.edu).

Stanford is committed to ensuring that all courses are financially accessible to its students. If you require assistance with the cost of course textbooks, supplies, materials and/or fees, you should contact the Diversity & First-Gen Office (D-Gen) at opportunityfund@stanford.edu to learn about the FLIbrary and other resources they have available for support.

Stanford offers several tutoring and coaching services:

Feedback

We welcome feedback regarding the course at any point. Please feel free to talk with us after class, come to office hours, email us, or leave anonymous feedback using this online form.