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SUMMARY:How to Reason with Words: Models\, Metaphors\, Metaphysics
DTSTART:20261006T210000Z
DTEND:20261006T230000Z
UID:https://cdh.princeton.edu/events/2026/10/how-to-reason-with-words-mode
 ls-metaphors-metaphysics/
DESCRIPTION:\n\n  If large language models can reason — as they are now 
 widely said to do — then the source of that reason must be words. This t
 alk discusses the epistemic order that LLMs are currently unfurling throu
 ghout our culture\, from policy to science to writing. LLMs tap into a vei
 n of rationality in which poetics and rhetoric\, rather than deduction and
  induction\, play the leading role. They present a new status quo in what 
 can be called the &quot\;accidental mythology&quot\; of the modern world. 
 In this new myth of reason\, metaphor too easily slides into metaphysics\,
  unchecked by the model.Leif Weatherby is Associate Professor of German at
  New York University\, where he also directs Digital Humanities and is fou
 nding director of the Digital Theory Lab. His scholarship focuses on liter
 ary theory\, digital culture\, and the history of science\, with particula
 r attention to the philosophical foundations of computing and AI.He is the
  author of Transplanting the Metaphysical Organ: German Romanticism betwee
 n Leibniz and Marx (Fordham\, 2016) and\, most recently\, Language Machine
 s: Cultural AI and the End of Remainder Humanism (University of Minnesota 
 Press\, 2025)\, which argues that large language models don&#x27\;t simula
 te cognition but instead generate culture\, and calls for new theoretical 
 frameworks to evaluate them. He also co-edited the first English edition o
 f Ernst Kapp&#x27\;s 1877 Elements of a Philosophy of Technology. His writ
 ing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books\, Grey Room\, The Hedg
 ehog Review\, and Cabinet.\n\n\n\n\n    \n        \n        Co-organized b
 y the Center for Digital Humanities\, Media + Modernity\, and the Princeto
 n Humanities Initiative.\n    \n\n\nhttps://cdh.princeton.edu/events/2026/
 10/how-to-reason-with-words-models-metaphors-metaphysics/
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