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99Money 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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Wayward naturalism : saving Dewey from himselfIn John R. Shook & Paul Kurtz (eds.), The future of naturalism, Humanity Books. 2009.
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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.
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29Fallacy and controversy about base ratesBehavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1): 31-32. 1996.Koehler's target article attempts a balanced view of the relevance of knowledge of base rates to judgments of subjective or credal probability, but he is not sensitive enough to the difference between requiring and permitting the equation of probability judgments with base rates, the interaction between precision of base rate and reference class information, and the possibility of indeterminate probability judgment.
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150Probability logic, logical probability, and inductive supportSynthese 172 (1): 97-118. 2010.This paper seeks to defend the following conclusions: The program advanced by Carnap and other necessarians for probability logic has little to recommend it except for one important point. Credal probability judgments ought to be adapted to changes in evidence or states of full belief in a principled manner in conformity with the inquirer’s confirmational commitments—except when the inquirer has good reason to modify his or her confirmational commitment. Probability logic ought to spell out the …Read more
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38The logic of consistency and the logic of truthDialectica 58 (4). 2004.In “Truth and Probability” Ramsey claimed that the logic of consistency for probability is not a logic of truth. After supporting this claim, he proceeded to explore the possibilities for a logic of truth for probability. An examination of Ramsey's intent reveals that Ramsey was far from being an orthodox Bayesian when it comes to statistical reasoning. The relations between Ramsey's thought and the ideas of Keynes and Peirce are discussed
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79On the seriousness of mistakesPhilosophy of Science 29 (1): 47-65. 1962.Several authors have recently contended that modern statistical theory provides a powerful argument in favor of the view that if scientists accept or reject hypotheses at all they do so only in a behavioral sense--i.e., in a sense which reduces "accepting P" to "acting on the basis of P relative to an objective O". In this paper, the argument from statistics in favor of a behavioral view is outlined; an interpretation of two statistical procedures (Bayes method and signifigance testing) is offer…Read more
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8The American Pragmatists, by Cheryl Misak, The Oxford History of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, xvi + 286 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-923120-1 hb £25 (review)European Journal of Philosophy 22 (S1). 2014.
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40Change in View: Principles of Reasoning by Gilbert Harman (review)Journal of Philosophy 84 (7): 376-384. 1987.
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28Support and surprise: L. J. Cohen's view of inductive probability (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 30 (3): 279-292. 1979.
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60Mild contraction: evaluating loss of information due to loss of beliefOxford University Press. 2004.Isaac Levi's new book develops further his pioneering work in formal epistemology, focusing on the problem of belief contraction, or how rationally to relinquish old beliefs. Levi offers the most penetrating analysis to date of this key question in epistemology, offering a completely new solution and explaining its relation to his earlier proposals. He mounts an argument in favor of the thesis that contracting a state of belief by giving up specific beliefs is to be evaluated in terms of the val…Read more
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39Gambling with truthMIT Press. 1967.This comprehensive discussion of the problem of rational belief develops the subject on the pattern of Bayesian decision theory. The analogy with decision theory introduces philosophical issues not usually encountered in logical studies and suggests some promising new approaches to old problems."We owe Professor Levi a debt of gratitude for producing a book of such excellence. His own approach to inductive inference is not only original and profound, it also clarifies and transforms the work of …Read more
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411 Beware of Syllogism: Statistical Reasoning and Conjecturing According to PeirceIn Cheryl Misak (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Peirce, Cambridge University Press. pp. 257. 2004.
Isaac Levi
(1930 - 2018)
New York City, New York, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Probability |
General Philosophy of Science |