CAPUT Logic, Language and Information: Social Software

Second Semester 2005/2006
Institute of Logic, Language and Computation
Universiteit van Amsterdam

 
 

Intstructor: Dr Eric Pacuit

Class Meetings: Thursdays 13 - 15

Classroom: P.019

Course Language: English

Intended Audience: Masters of logic students

Content of the Course: Social software is an interdisciplinary research program that combines mathematical tools and techniques from game theory and computer science in order to analyze and design social procedures. This course will discuss introduce the field of social software. We will cover topics in game theory, social choice theory, formal epistomology, fair division algorithms, voting theory and logics for reasoning about social procedures (i.e., game logic, coalitional logic, ATL).

Evaluation: Some regular course work (homeworks), plus a paper and possibly a short presentation (details to be announced later).

Course Paper: A paper worth approximately 60% of your grade will be due the last week of the semester. You are free to choose the topic of the paper from any relevant paper (email me if you need help choosing a topic). A first draft must be handed in to me by April 27, 2006. Below is a suggestion of some possible topics.

  • Choose one of the paradoxes/puzzles (allais paradox, ellsberg paradox, Brandenburger-Keisler Paradox, Newcomb's Problem, etc.) discussed in class an survey the literature surrounding the puzzle.
  • Select a research paper relevant to social software and write a report of the paper. The main aim of your paper should be to make the topic of the paper accessible to your class mates (and to me). Apart from that, your paper should also have some modest original content, such as a new proof of an existing result, an improved presentation or casting an economics-related result in a fashion accessible to logicians or computer scientists.

Please email the topic of your paper no later than April 7, 2006.

Course Material: There is no textbook for this course. Information will be drawn from various sources, including research papers and textbooks. A list of relevant references can be found here (here is the .bib file). This file will be updated throughout the semester. A survey of many of the topics that will be discussed in this course can be found here.

 
 
Course Schedule
(subject to change)
Week
Date
Topics
Assignments
Period A (weeks 1-8)
1 Feb. 9 Introduction to Social Software
Download Slides

Read the following papers:

2 Feb. 16

Introduction to Decision Theory
Download Slides

You can pick up the relevant material from Myerson's Game Theory book from my mailbox

Due March 2
Problem Set 1 part a
3 Feb. 23

Introduction to Game Theory
Download Slides

Due March 2
Problem Set 1 part b
4 Mar. 2 Arrow's Theorem and Related Results
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Note class will begin at 1:15 today
5 Mar. 9 Fair Division Algorithms
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Due March 23
Problem Set 2
6 Mar. 16 Guest Lecture: K. Apt
Download Slides
Nash Paper
 
7 Mar. 23 Introduction to Interactive Epistemology
Download Slides
 
8 Mar. 30 No Class Exam Week  
Period B (weeks 9-16)
 
9 Apr. 6 Introduction to Game Logic
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Email me a topic for your paper.
10 Apr. 13 More on Game Logic and an Introduction to Strategy Logics
Download Game Logic Slides (Part I)
Download Strategy Logic Slides (Part II)

Read the Goranko and Jamroga Paper

Due April 27
Problem Set 3

Parikh's Game Logic paper

11 Apr. 20

Strategy Logics

Download Slides

See also my talk for the GLoRiClass Seminar

 
12 Apr. 27 Segerberg Celebration (no class)
Click here for more information

Preference Based Belief Dynamics
Hand in first draft of your paper and set up a meeting to discuss your paper
13 May 4 Topics in Formal Epistemology

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(we did not cover everything in class...)
 
14 May 11 Topics in Voting Theory

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Please send a first draft of your paper for comments.
15 May 18 Class Canceled  
16 May 26 Class Canceled  
17 June 1 No Class Exam Week Final Paper Due (by email)