The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
In this paper, I investigate whether we can use a world-involving framework to model the epistemic states of non-ideal agents. The standard possible-world framework falters in this respect because of a commitment to logical omniscience. A familiar attempt to overcome this problem centers around the use of impossible worlds where the truths of logic can be false. As we shall see, if we admit impossible...
The idea that knowledge can be extended by inference from what is known seems highly plausible. Yet, as shown by familiar preface paradox and lottery-type cases, the possibility of aggregating uncertainty casts doubt on its tenability. We show that these considerations go much further than previously recognized and significantly restrict the kinds of closure ordinary theories of knowledge can endorse...
A ‘multiple-proposition (MP) phenomenon’ is a putative counterexample to the widespread implicit assumption that a simple indicative sentence (relative to a context of utterance) semantically expresses at most one proposition. Several philosophers and linguists (including Stephen Neale and Chris Potts) have recently developed hypotheses concerning this notion. The guiding questions motivating this...
The Principle of the Common Cause is usually understood to provide causal explanations for probabilistic correlations obtaining between causally unrelated events. In this study, an extended interpretation of the principle is proposed, according to which common causes should be invoked to explain positive correlations whose values depart from the ones that one would expect to obtain in accordance to...
Simple assumptions represent a decisive reason to prefer one theory to another in everyday scientific praxis. But this praxis has little philosophical justification, since there exist many notions of simplicity, and those that can be defined precisely strongly depend on the language in which the theory is formulated. The language dependence is a natural feature—to some extent—but it is also believed...
The article addresses two closely related questions: What are the criteria of adequacy of logical formalization of natural language arguments, and what gives logic the authority to decide which arguments are good and which are bad? Our point of departure is the criticism of the conception of logical formalization put forth, in a recent paper, by M. Baumgartner and T. Lampert. We argue that their account...
Anti-realist epistemic conceptions of truth imply what is called the knowability principle: All truths are possibly known. The principle can be formalized in a bimodal propositional logic, with an alethic modality $${\diamondsuit}$$ and an epistemic modality $${\mathcal{K}}$$ , by the axiom scheme $${A \supset \diamondsuit \mathcal{K} A}$$ (KP). The use of classical logic and minimal...
The paper examines the logic and semantics of knowledge attributions of the form “s knows whether A or B”. We analyze these constructions in an epistemic logic with alternative questions, and propose an account of the context-sensitivity of the corresponding sentences and of their presuppositions.
This paper responds to Achinstein’s criticism of the thesis that the only empirical fact that can affect the truth of an objective evidence claim such as ‘e is evidence for h’ (or ‘e confirms h to degree r’) is the truth of e. It shows that cases involving evidential flaws, which form the basis for Achinstein’s objections to the thesis, can satisfactorily be accounted for by appeal to changes in background...
Richard Bradley’s Bayesian model of preference kinematics is compared with Sven Ove Hansson’s AGM-style model of preference revision. Both seek to model the revision of preference orders as a consequence of retaining consistency when some preferences change. Both models are often interpreted normatively, as giving advice on how an agent should revise her preferences. I raise four criticisms of the...
The notion of empirical adequacy has received recent philosophical attention, especially within the framework of the semantic approach. Empirical adequacy, as explicated in the semantic approach, concerns the relationship between empirical substructures and some phenomena. The aim here is to differentiate this notion of empirical adequacy from one concerning the relationship between data and phenomena...
In an attempt to improve upon Alexander Pruss’s work (The principle of sufficient reason: A reassessment, pp. 240–248, 2006), I (Weaver, Synthese 184(3):299–317, 2012) have argued that if all purely contingent events could be caused and something like a Lewisian analysis of causation is true (per, Lewis’s, Causation as influence, reprinted in: Collins, Hall and paul. Causation and counterfactuals,...
Any knowledge-fallibilist needs to solve the conceptual problem posed by concessive knowledge-attributions (such as ‘I know that p, but possibly not-p’). These seem to challenge the coherence of knowledge-fallibilism. This paper defuses that challenge via a gradualist refinement of what Fantl and McGrath (2009) call weak epistemic fallibilism.
In days past, epistemologists expended a good deal of effort trying to analyze the basing relation—the relation between a belief and its basis. No satisfying account was offered, and the project was largely abandoned. Younger epistemologists, however, have begun to yearn for an adequate theory of basing. I aim to deliver one. After establishing some data and arguing that traditional accounts of basing...
In his recent book, Bernecker (Memory, 2010) has attacked the following prominent view: (RK) S remembers that p only if S knows that p. An attack on RK is also an attack on Timothy Williamson’s view that knowledge is the most general factive stative attitude. In this paper, I defend RK against Bernecker’s attacks and also advance new arguments in favor of it. In Sect. 2, I provide some background...
Norton’s very simple case of indeterminism in classical mechanics has given rise to a literature critical of his result. I am interested here in posing a new objection different from the ones made to date. The first section of the paper expounds the essence of Norton’s model and my criticism of it. I then propose a specific modification in the absence of gravitational interaction. The final section...
This article proposes a new theory of rational decision, distinct from both causal decision theory (CDT) and evidential decision theory (EDT). First, some intuitive counterexamples to CDT and EDT are presented. Then the motivation for the new theory is given: the correct theory of rational decision will resemble CDT in that it will not be sensitive to any comparisons of absolute levels of value across...
In recent decades much literature has been produced on disagreement; the puzzling conclusion being that epistemic disagreement is, for the most part, either impossible (e.g. Aumann (Ann Stat 4(6):1236–1239, 1976)), or at least easily resolvable (e.g. Elga (Noûs 41(3):478–502, 2007)). In this paper I show that, under certain conditions, an equally puzzling result arises: that is, disagreement cannot...
Judgment aggregation is naturally applied to the modeling of collective attitudes. In the individual case, we represent agents as having not just beliefs, but also as supporting them with reasons. Can the Judgment Aggregation help model a concept of collective reason? I argue that the resources of the standard judgment aggregation framework are insufficiently general. I develop a generalization of...
Set the date range to filter the displayed results. You can set a starting date, ending date or both. You can enter the dates manually or choose them from the calendar.