The epistemology of big data

The course aims at developing the logico-mathematical background to assess critically the logic and episte-mology of inductive reasoning, or "reasoning with data". In addition to making students familiar with the rel-evant elementary logical, probabilistic and statistical notions, it focusses on how the formalisation of induc-tive inference sheds crucial methodological light on the "datacentric" revolution, which is currently dotting the development of the natural and social sciences.

Students are expected to acquire a full understanding of the formal notions presented and master basic knowledge of the following topics:

- know the central concepts and reasoning tools of discrete mathematics

- know the central concepts in elementary probability theory

- know how to apply elementary logic to formalize probabilistic concepts

- understand the epistemological questions related to inductive reasoning

- understand the relevance of a proper the epistemology of inductive inference in the wider methodological discussion on "big data"