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Trope theory is the view that the world is a world of abstract particular qualities. But if all there is are tropes, how do we account for the truth of propositions ostensibly made true by some concrete particular? A common answer is that concrete particulars are nothing but tropes in compresence. This answer seems vulnerable to an argument (first presented by F. H. Bradley) according to which any...
The article deals with Cantor’s argument for the non-denumerability of reals somewhat in the spirit of Lakatos’ logic of mathematical discovery. At the outset Cantor’s proof is compared with some other famous proofs such as Dedekind’s recursion theorem, showing that rather than usual proofs they are resolutions to do things differently. Based on this I argue that there are “ontologically” safer ways...
Decision theory is a theory of rationality, but the concept of rationality has several different dimensions. Making decision theory more realistic with respect to one dimension may well have the result of making it less realistic in another dimension. This paper illustrates this tension in the context of sequential choice. Trying to make decision theory more realistic by accommodating resoluteness...
Bicchieri (The grammar of society: The nature and dynamics of norms, 2006, xi) presents a formal analysis of norms that answers the questions of “when, how, and to what degree” norms affect human behavior in the play of games. The purpose of this paper is to apply a variation of the Bicchieri norms analysis to generate a model of norms-based play of the traditional deterrence game (Zagare and Kilgour,...
Subjects communicated prior to playing trust games; the richness of the communication media and the topics of conversation were manipulated. Communication richness failed to produce significant differences in first-mover investments. However, the topics of conversation made a significant difference: the amounts sent were considerably higher in the unrestricted communication conditions than in the...
In the Newcomb problem, the standard arguments for taking either one box or both boxes adduce what seem to be relevant considerations, but they are not complete arguments, and attempts to complete the arguments rely upon incorrect principles of rational decision making. It is argued that by considering how the predictor is making his prediction, we can generate a more complete argument, and this in...
Standard principles of rational decision assume that an option’s utility is both comprehensive and accessible. These features constrain interpretations of an option’s utility. This essay presents a way of understanding utility and laws of utility. It explains the relation between an option’s utility and its outcome’s utility and argues that an option’s utility is relative to a specification of the...
Is there such a thing as bounded rationality? I first try to make sense of the question, and then to suggest which of the disambiguated versions might have answers. We need an account of bounded rationality that takes account of detailed contingent facts about the ways in which human beings fail to perform as we might ideally want to. But we should not think in terms of rules or norms which define...
Orthodox Probabilists hold that an inquirer ought to harbor a precise degree of confidence in each hypothesis about which she is concerned. Modest Probabilism is one of a family doctrines inspired by the thought that Orthodox Probabilists are thereby demanding that an inquirer effect a precision that is often unwarranted by her evidence. The purpose of this essay is (i) to explain the particular way...
Fixpoint semantics are provided for ambiguity blocking and propagating variants of Nute’s defeasible logic. The semantics are based upon the well-founded semantics for logic programs. It is shown that the logics are sound with respect to their counterpart semantics and complete for locally finite theories. Unlike some other nonmonotonic reasoning formalisms such as Reiter’s default logic, the two...
The present paper will argue that, for too long, many nominalists have concentrated their researches on the question of whether one could make sense of applications of mathematics (especially in science) without presupposing the existence of mathematical objects. This was, no doubt, due to the enormous influence of Quine’s “Indispensability Argument”, which challenged the nominalist to come up with...
In Attitude Problems, I gave an account of opacity in the complement of intensional transitive verbs that combined neo-Davidsonian event-semantics with a hidden-indexical account of substitution failure. In this paper, I extend the account to clausal verbs.
The Knowability Paradox purports to show that the controversial but not patently absurd hypothesis that all truths are knowable entails the implausible conclusion that all truths are known. The notoriety of this argument owes to the negative light it appears to cast on the view that there can be no verification-transcendent truths. We argue that it is overly simplistic to formalize the views of contemporary...
In contemporary discussions of the Ramsey Test for conditionals, it is commonly held that (i) supposing the antecedent of a conditional is adopting a potential state of full belief, and (ii) Modus Ponens is a valid rule of inference. I argue on the basis of Thomason Conditionals (such as ‘If Sally is deceiving, I do not believe it’) and Moore’s Paradox that both claims are wrong. I then develop a...
Normally, when we notice a change taking place, our conscious experience has a corresponding quality of phenomenal change. Here it is argued that one’s experience can have this quality at or during a time when there is no change in which phenomenal properties one instantiates. This undermines a number of otherwise forceful arguments against leading metaphysical theories of change, but also requires...
We examine some assumptions about the nature of ‘levels of reality’ in the light of examples drawn from physics. Three central assumptions of the standard view of such levels (for instance, Oppenheim and Putnam 1958) are (i) that levels are populated by entities of varying complexity, (ii) that there is a unique hierarchy of levels, ranging from the very small to the very large, and (iii) that the...
Although many philosophers have argued that an event is lucky for an agent only if it was suitably improbable, there is considerable disagreement about how to understand this improbability condition. This paper argues for a hitherto overlooked construal of the improbability condition in terms of the lucky agent’s epistemic situation. According to the proposed account, an event is lucky for an agent...
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