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92Imprecision and indeterminacy in probability judgmentPhilosophy of Science 52 (3): 390-409. 1985.Bayesians often confuse insistence that probability judgment ought to be indeterminate (which is incompatible with Bayesian ideals) with recognition of the presence of imprecision in the determination or measurement of personal probabilities (which is compatible with these ideals). The confusion is discussed and illustrated by remarks in a recent essay by R. C. Jeffrey
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57Messianic vs Myopic RealismPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1984 617-636. 1984.Two views of the role of truth as an aim of inquiry are contrasted: The Peirce-Popper or messianic view of approach to the truth as an ultimate aim of inquiry and the myopic view according to which a concern to avoid error is a proximate aim common to many otherwise diverse inquiries. The messianic conception is held to be responsible for the tendency to conflate fallibilism with corrigibilism and for the consequent problems faced by Peirceans and Popperians alike in squaring the alleged relevan…Read more
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19Contracting From Epistemic Hell is RoutineSynthese 135 (1): 141-164. 2003.I respond to Erik Olsson's critique of my account of contraction frominconsistent belief states, by admitting that such contraction cannot be rationalized as adeliberate decision problem. It can, however, be rationalized as a routine designed prior toinadvertent expansion into inconsistency when the deliberating agent embraces a consistent point of view.
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7Caution and Nonmonotonic InferencePoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 51 101-116. 1997.
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8Review: Illusions about Uncertainty (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 36 (3). 1985.
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30Escape from Boredom: Edification According to RortyCanadian Journal of Philosophy 11 (4). 1981.Richard Rorty sings in the antifoundationalist chorus. His song equates the rise of foundationalist epistemology with the professionalization of philosophy. The discordant notes he finds in the foundationalist score become, as a consequence, subversive of philosophy as an autonomous discipline.Nonetheless, the most salient feature of Rorty's recent book, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, is that it is by a professional philosopher, for professional philosophers and about the future of philoso…Read more
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110The Paradoxes of Allais and EllsbergEconomics and Philosophy 2 (1): 23. 1986.In The Enterprise of Knowledge, I proposed a general theory of rational choice which I intended as a characterization of a prescriptive theory of ideal rationality. A cardinal tenet of this theory is that assessments of expected value or expected utility in the Bayesian sense may not be representable by a numerical indicator or indeed induce an ordering of feasible options in a context of deliberation. My reasons for taking this position are related to my commitment to the inquiry-oriented appro…Read more
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18Perception as Input and as Reason for ActionCanadian Journal of Philosophy 25 (sup1): 135-154. 1995.
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106The Demons of DecisionThe Monist 70 (2): 193-211. 1987.For three centuries, philosophers have mounted defenses against the melan genie with an obsessive intensity comparable to the Reaganite determination to squander American wealth on defenses against a Communist threat. And for three centuries, skeptics have argued for the futility of the expenditure of conceptual effort with no more success than critics of the Pentagon have had in stemming the flow of funds to the military and its industrial minions. My own sympathies are with the skeptics. Howev…Read more
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70Illusions about uncertainty (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 36 (3): 331-340. 1985.
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293
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24Identity and conflictSocial Research: An International Quarterly 74 (1): 25-50. 2007.A sketch of a way of characterizing multidimensional value commitments and the way they can come into conflict derived from my book Hard Choices is presented and applied to the question of how to characterize the relevance of identity to value commitments and conflict. The views of A.K. Sen and A. Bilgrami are examined in the light of these ideas
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101Money pumps and diachronic booksProceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association 2002 (3). 2002.The idea that rational agents should have acyclic preferences and should obey conditionalization has been defended on the grounds that otherwise an agent is threatened with becoming a “money pump.” This essay argues that such arguments fail to prove their claims
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1Gambling with Truth: An Essay on Induction and the Aims of ScienceSynthese 17 (1): 444-448. 1967.
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204Kyburg on random designatorsPhilosophy of Science 50 (4): 635-642. 1983.To ground judgments of credal probability on knowledge of chance via direct inference, one should appeal to the information about chances available relative to the most specific description known to be true of the trial event.Thus, to obtain a judgment of credal probability concerning the hypothesis that coin a landed heads at t given that it is known that at t it is known that a was tossed by Levi in 728 Philosophy Hall, the pertinent knowledge of chances concerns the chances of coin a landing …Read more
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64Commitment and change of viewIn José Luis Bermúdez & Alan Millar (eds.), Reason and Nature: Essays in the Theory of Rationality, Clarendon Press. pp. 209--232. 2002.
Isaac Levi
(1930 - 2018)
New York City, New York, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Probability |
General Philosophy of Science |