17 May 2005 
2:30 - 4:00   John Kennison
Title: Locales of the Mind  (Joint work with David Joyce)

Abstract: 
Last September, the psychology department at Clark held a seminar on 
Mathematical foundations for social science. Fuzzy set theory was touted 
as a useful way of being mathematically exact while allowing for inherent 
ambiguities.  David Joyce and I attended and opined that toposes would 
provide a much better foundation. In retaliation, Jaan Valsiner, chair of 
psychology, invited us to submit a paper on that topic to a special issue 
on ambiguity that he was editing.  It seemed easier to try to explain 
locales to psychologists rather than toposes.
My talk will present several ways in which locales might be of interest to a
social scientist and will look at some corresponding mathematical issues.