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597Bayesianism I: Introduction and Arguments in FavorPhilosophy Compass 6 (5): 312-320. 2011.Bayesianism is a collection of positions in several related fields, centered on the interpretation of probability as something like degree of belief, as contrasted with relative frequency, or objective chance. However, Bayesianism is far from a unified movement. Bayesians are divided about the nature of the probability functions they discuss; about the normative force of this probability function for ordinary and scientific reasoning and decision making; and about what relation (if any) holds be…Read more
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206Arguments for probabilism aim to undergird/motivate a synchronic probabilistic coherence norm for partial beliefs. Standard arguments for probabilism are all of the form: An agent S has a non-probabilistic partial belief function b iff (⇐⇒) S has some “bad” property B (in virtue of the fact that their p.b.f. b has a certain kind of formal property F). These arguments rest on Theorems (⇒) and Converse Theorems (⇐): b is non-Pr ⇐⇒ b has formal property F.
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73Probability and LogicPhilosophy Compass 9 (12): 876-883. 2014.Probability and logic are two branches of mathematics that have important philosophical applications. This article discusses several areas of intersection between them. Several involve the role for probability in giving semantics for logic or the role of logic in governing assignments of probability. Some involve probability over non-classical logic or self-referential sentences
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126A classification of Newcomb problems and decision theoriesSynthese 198 (Suppl 27): 6415-6434. 2019.Newcomb-like problems are classified by the payoff table of their act-state pairs, and the causal structure that gives rise to the act-state correlation. Decision theories are classified by the one or more points of intervention whose causal role is taken to be relevant to rationality in various problems. Some decision theories suggest an inherent conflict between different notions of rationality that are all relevant. Some issues with causal modeling raise problems for decision theories in the …Read more
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91The Concept of Rationality for a CityTopoi 40 (2): 409-421. 2019.The central aim of this paper is to argue that there is a meaningful sense in which a concept of rationality can apply to a city. The idea will be that a city is rational to the extent that the collective practices of its people enable diverse inhabitants to simultaneously live the kinds of life they are each trying to live. This has significant implications for the varieties of social practices that constitute being more or less rational. Some of these implications may be welcome to a theorist …Read more
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105Infinity, Causation, and Paradox, by Alexander PrussMind 129 (516): 1287-1291. 2019._ Infinity, Causation, and Paradox _, by PrussAlexander. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xiii + 207.
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70Principal Values and Weak ExpectationsMind 123 (490): 517-531. 2014.This paper evaluates a recent method proposed by Jeremy Gwiazda for calculating the value of gambles that fail to have expected values in the standard sense. I show that Gwiazda’s method fails to give answers for many gambles that do have standardly defined expected values. However, a slight modification of his method (based on the mathematical notion of the ‘Cauchy principal value’ of an integral), is in fact a proper extension of both his method and the method of ‘weak expectations’. I show th…Read more
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355Interview with Kenny EaswaranThe Reasoner 15 (2): 9-12. 2021.Bill D'Alessandro talks to Kenny Easwaran about fractal music, Zoom conferences, being a good referee, teaching in math and philosophy, the rationalist community and its relationship to academia, decision-theoretic pluralism, and the city of Manhattan, Kansas.
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48Quitting Certainties: A Bayesian Framework Modeling Degrees of Belief (review)Philosophical Review 125 (1): 143-148. 2016.
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130Formal EpistemologyJournal of Philosophical Logic 44 (6): 651-662. 2015.Doxastic TheoriesThe application of formal tools to questions related to epistemology is of course not at all new. However, there has been a surge of interest in the field now known as “formal epistemology” over the past decade, with two annual conference series and an annual summer school at Carnegie Mellon University, in addition to many one-off events devoted to the field. A glance at the programs of these series illustrates the wide-ranging set of topics that have been grouped under this nam…Read more
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University of California, IrvineThe Department of Logic and Philosophy of ScienceAssociate Professor
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Irvine, California, United States of America