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11EditorialSynthese 169 (3): 425-425. 2009.Computer simulations have changed the face of many scientific disciplines. This has attracted the attention of a number of philosophers of science, who have started discussing the philosophical implications of the use of computational methods in science. It was the aim of the conference Models and Simulations that took place at the IHPST in Paris, France, on 12 and 13 June 2006 to bring researchers working in this field together and provide a platform to discuss these issues in a focused way…Read more
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116Modeling High-Temperature Superconductors: Correspondence at Bay?In Lena Soler (ed.), Rethinking Scientific Change. Stabilities, Ruptures, Incommensurabilities?, Springer. pp. 107--128. 2008.How does a predecessor theory relate to its successor? According to Heinz Post’s General Correspondence Principle, the successor theory has to account for the em- pirical success of its predecessor. After a critical discussion of this principle, I outline and discuss various kinds of correspondence relations that hold between successive scientific theories. I then look in some detail at a case study from contemporary physics: the various proposals for a theory of high-temperature superconductivi…Read more
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266Walter the Banker: The Conjunction Fallacy Reconsidered (review)Synthese 184 (1): 73-87. 2012.In a famous experiment by Tversky and Kahneman (Psychol Rev 90:293–315, 1983), featuring Linda the bank teller, the participants assign a higher probability to a conjunction of propositions than to one of the conjuncts, thereby seemingly committing a probabilistic fallacy. In this paper, we discuss a slightly different example featuring someone named Walter, who also happens to work at a bank, and argue that, in this example, it is rational to assign a higher probability to the conjunction of su…Read more
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105Formal and Empirical Methods in Philosophy of ScienceIn Friedrich Stadler et al (ed.), The Present Situation in the Philosophy of Science, Springer. pp. 87--98. 2009.This essay addresses the methodology of philosophy of science and illustrates how formal and empirical methods can be fruitfully combined. Special emphasis is given to the application of experimental methods to confirmation theory and to recent work on the conjunction fallacy, a key topic in the rationality debate arising from research in cognitive psychology. Several other issue can be studied in this way. In the concluding section, a brief outline is provided of three further examples.
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101Formal Modeling in Social Epistemology (edited book)Logic Journal of the IGPL (special issue). 2010.Special issue. With contributions by Rogier De Langhe and Matthias Greiff, Igor Douven and Alexander Riegler, Stephan Hartmann and Jan Sprenger, Carl Wagner, Paul Weirich, and Jesús Zamora Bonilla.
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73The variety of evidence thesis in confirmation theory states that more varied supporting evidence confirms a hypothesis to a greater degree than less varied evidence. Under a very plausible interpretation of this thesis, positive test results from multiple independent instruments confirm a hypothesis to a greater degree than positive test results from a single instrument. We invoke Bayesian Networks to model confirmation on grounds of evidence that is obtained from less than fully reliable instr…Read more
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182Solving the Riddle of CoherenceMind 112 (448): 601-634. 2003.A coherent story is a story that fits together well. This notion plays a central role in the coherence theory of justification and has been proposed as a criterion for scientific theory choice. Many attempts have been made to give a probabilistic account of this notion. A proper account of coherence must not start from some partial intuitions, but should pay attention to the role that this notion is supposed to play within a particular context. Coherence is a property of an information set that …Read more
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113Editorial: Formal Epistemology Meets Experimental Philosophy (review)Synthese 190 (8): 1333-1335. 2013.
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417Bayesian Networks and the Problem of Unreliable InstrumentsPhilosophy of Science 69 (1): 29-72. 2002.We appeal to the theory of Bayesian Networks to model different strategies for obtaining confirmation for a hypothesis from experimental test results provided by less than fully reliable instruments. In particular, we consider (i) repeated measurements of a single test consequence of the hypothesis, (ii) measurements of multiple test consequences of the hypothesis, (iii) theoretical support for the reliability of the instrument, and (iv) calibration procedures. We evaluate these strategies on th…Read more
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95A New Garber-Style Solution to the Problem of Old EvidencePhilosophy of Science 82 (4): 712-717. 2015.In this discussion note, we explain how to relax some of the standard assumptions made in Garber-style solutions to the Problem of Old Evidence. The result is a more general and explanatory Bayesian approach
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102Scientific ModelsIn Sahotra Sarkar et al (ed.), The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, Routledge. 2005.Models are of central importance in many scientific contexts. The roles the MIT bag model of the nucleon, the billiard ball model of a gas, the Bohr model of the atom, the Gaussian-chain model of a polymer, the Lorenz model of the atmosphere, the Lotka- Volterra model of predator-prey interaction, agent-based and evolutionary models of social interaction, or general equilibrium models of markets play in their respective domains are cases in point.
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16IntroductionIn Claus Beisbart & Stephan Hartmann (eds.), Probabilities in Physics, Oxford University Press. 2011.Many results of modern physics—those of quantum mechanics, for instance—come in a probabilistic guise. But what do probabilistic statements in physics mean? Are probabilities matters of objective fact and part of the furniture of the world, as objectivists think? Or do they only express ignorance or belief, as Bayesians suggest? And how are probabilistic hypotheses justified and supported by empirical evidence? Finally, what does the probabilistic nature of physics imply for our understanding of…Read more
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57Coherence, Truth and Testimony (edited book)Erkenntnis 63 (3). 2005.Special issue. With contributions by Luc Bovens and Stephan Hartmann, David Glass, Keith Lehrer, Erik Olsson, Tomoji Shogenji, Mark Siebel, and Paul Thagard.
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11M. Strevens: Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation. (Review of the Book Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation, M. Strevens, 2008, 9780674031838) (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 6 (38). 2010.
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162On the Emergence of Descriptive NormsPolitics, Philosophy and Economics 13 (1): 3-22. 2014.A descriptive norm is a behavioral rule that individuals follow when their empirical expectations of others following the same rule are met. We aim to provide an account of the emergence of descriptive norms by first looking at a simple case, that of the standing ovation. We examine the structure of a standing ovation, and show it can be generalized to describe the emergence of a wide range of descriptive norms
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126Confirmation and Reduction: a Bayesian AccountSynthese 179 (2): 321-338. 2011.Various scientific theories stand in a reductive relation to each other. In a recent article, we have argued that a generalized version of the Nagel-Schaffner model (GNS) is the right account of this relation. In this article, we present a Bayesian analysis of how GNS impacts on confirmation. We formalize the relation between the reducing and the reduced theory before and after the reduction using Bayesian networks, and thereby show that, post-reduction, the two theories are confirmatory of each…Read more
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471ModelleIn Hans Jörg Sandkühler & Others (eds.), Enzyklopädie Philosophie, Meiner Verlag. pp. 1627-1632. 2010.Der Begriff ‘Modell’ leitet sich vom Lateinischen ‘modulus’ (das Maß) ab, im Italienischen existiert seit dem 16. Jh. ‘modello’ und R. Descartes verwendet im 17. Jh. ‘modèlle’. Während der Begriff in Architektur und Kunst schon seit der Renaissance gängig ist, wird er in den Naturwissenschaften erst im 19. Jh. verwendet.1 Dort greifen wissenschaftliche Modelle die für eine gegebene Problemstellung als wesentlich erachteten Charakteristika (Eigenschaften, Beziehungen, etc.) eines Untersuc…Read more
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15Bayesianische Erkenntnistheoriementis. 2006.Wann ist Kohärenz ein Indiz für Wahrheit? Können Informationsmengen immer entsprechend ihrer Kohärenz geordnet werden? Welche Rolle spielt Kohärenz bei der Theoriewahl in der Wissenschaft? Unter welchen Umständen kann eine wissenschaftliche Theorie mit nur teilweise zuverlässigen Messinstrumenten bestätigt werden? Ist die Belegvielfaltsthese wahr? Warum sind übereinstimmende Aussagen unabhängiger Zeugen so gewichtig? Dies sind einige der Fragen, die in diesem Buch in einem wahrscheinlichkeitsthe…Read more
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161VacuumIn H. Gründer (ed.), Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Schwabe. 2001.Vacuum (leer, frei) bezeichnete bis zum 19. Jahrhundert allein den körperlosen Raum. Unter dem Einfluss physikalischer (Feld-) Theorien meint der Terminus inzwischen diejenige residuale physische Entiät, die einen vorgegebenen Raum ausfüllt bzw. im Prinzip ausfüllen würde, nachdem alles, was mit physikalischen Mitteln entfernt werden kann, aus dem Raum entfernt wurde. Theorien über das V. sind daher eng mit Theorien über die Struktur des Raumes, die Bewegung, die physikalischen Gegenstände und d…Read more
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37Probabilities, Laws, and StructuresSpringer. 2012.This volume, the third in this Springer series, contains selected papers from the four workshops organized by the ESF Research Networking Programme "The Philosophy of Science in a European Perspective" (PSE) in 2010: Pluralism in the Foundations of Statistics Points of Contact between the Philosophy of Physics and the Philosophy of Biology The Debate on Mathematical Modeling in the Social Sciences Historical Debates about Logic, Probability and Statistics The volume is accordingly divided in fou…Read more
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40Here P is the density operator of the system under consideration, and σ ± and σ 3 are the usual Pauli matrices, acting on atom i whose states are |1 > or |0 >, representing, respectively, the atom being in an excited state or in the ground state. B and C are appropriate decay constants and s has been called the pumping parameter [1]. It varies from s = 0 for pure damping to s = 1 for full laser action. To solve the corresponding quantum master equations, three approaches have been taken: First, …Read more
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60A Utilitarian Assessment of Alternative Decision Rules in the Council of MinistersEuropean Union Politics 6 (4): 395-419. 2005.We develop a utilitarian framework to assess different decision rules for the European Council of Ministers. The proposals to be decided on are conceptualized as utility vectors and a probability distribution is assumed over the utilities. We first show what decision rules yield the highest expected utilities for different means of the probability distri- bution. For proposals with high mean utility, simple bench- mark rules (such as majority voting with proportional weights) tend to outperform …Read more
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310Bayesian EpistemologyIn Sven Bernecker & Duncan Pritchard (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, Routledge. pp. 609-620. 2010.Bayesian epistemology addresses epistemological problems with the help of the mathematical theory of probability. It turns out that the probability calculus is especially suited to represent degrees of belief (credences) and to deal with questions of belief change, confirmation, evidence, justification, and coherence. Compared to the informal discussions in traditional epistemology, Bayesian epis- temology allows for a more precise and fine-grained analysis which takes the gradual aspects of the…Read more
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64Bayesian Networks in PhilosophyIn Benedikt Löwe, Wolfgang Malzkorn & Thoralf Räsch (eds.), Foundations of The Formal Sciences II. Applications of Mathematical Logic in Philosophy and Linguistics [Trends in Logic], Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 39-46. 2003.There is a long philosophical tradition of addressing questions in philosophy of science and epistemology by means of the tools of Bayesian probability theory (see Earman (1992) and Howson and Urbach (1993)). In the late '70s, an axiomatic approach to conditional independence was developed within a Bayesian framework. This approach in conjunction with developments in graph theory are the two pillars of the theory of Bayesian Networks, which is a theory of probabilistic reasoning in artificial in…Read more
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72Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Logic Vol. 10: Inductive Logic (edited book)Elsevier. 2011.Inductive Logic is number ten in the 11-volume Handbook of the History of Logic. While there are many examples were a science split from philosophy and became autonomous (such as physics with Newton and biology with Darwin), and while there are, perhaps, topics that are of exclusively philosophical interest, inductive logic — as this handbook attests — is a research field where philosophers and scientists fruitfully and constructively interact. This handbook covers the rich history of scientific…Read more
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114Artificial Intelligence and its Methodological ImplicationsIn Friedrich Stadler (ed.), Induction and Deduction in the Sciences, Springer. pp. 217. 2004.Donald Gillies is one of the pioneers in the philosophical analysis of artificial intelligence (AI). In his recent book, Gillies (1996) not only makes a new and rapidly developing field of science accessible to philosophers; he also introduces philosophical topics relevant to researchers in AI and thereby helps establish a dialogue between the two disciplines. His book clearly and convincingly demonstrates the fruitful interplay between AI and philosophy of science.
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176Reliable Methods of Judgment AggregationJournal for Logic and Computation 20 603--617. 2007.The aggregation of consistent individual judgments on logically interconnected propositions into a collective judgment on the same propositions has recently drawn much attention. Seemingly reasonable aggregation procedures, such as propositionwise majority voting, cannot ensure an equally consistent collective conclusion. The literature on judgment aggregation refers to such a problem as the \textit{discursive dilemma}. In this paper we assume that the decision which the group is trying to reach…Read more
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379Intertheoretic relations are an important topic in the philosophy of science. However, since their classical discussion by Ernest Nagel, such relations have mostly been restricted to relations between pairs of theories in the natural sciences. In this paper, we present a model of a new type of intertheoretic relation, called 'Montague Reduction', which is assumed in Montague's framework for the analysis and interpretation of natural language syntax. To motivate the adoption of our new model, we …Read more
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33IntroductionStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 38 (2): 231-232. 2007.The formalism of quantum mechanics provides us with the probabilities for certain events to occur—this much is uncontroversial. But how are we to understand these probabilities? The essays in this special issue approach this question from different angles. The first three contributions take as their point of departure the philosophy of probability and discuss what the two main outlooks—objective and subjective interpretations of probability—have to offer in the context of quantum mechanics. The …Read more
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112Modeling in Philosophy of ScienceIn W. K. Essler & M. Frauchiger (eds.), Representation, Evidence, and Justification: Themes From Suppes, Ontos Verlag. pp. 1-95. 2008.Models are a principle instrument of modern science. They are built, applied, tested, compared, revised and interpreted in an expansive scientific literature. Throughout this paper, I will argue that models are also a valuable tool for the philosopher of science. In particular, I will discuss how the methodology of Bayesian Networks can elucidate two central problems in the philosophy of science. The first thesis I will explore is the variety-of-evidence thesis, which argues that the more varied…Read more
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Ludwig Maximilians Universität, MünchenFaculty of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and Study of ReligionRegular Faculty
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Social Science |
Philosophy of Computing and Information |