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22Belief revisionIn Jonathan Eric Adler & Lance J. Rips (eds.), Reasoning: Studies of Human Inference and its Foundations, Cambridge University Press. pp. 514--534. 2008.This is a survey paper. Contents: 1 Introduction -- 2 The representation of belief -- 3 Kinds of belief change -- 4 Coherence constraints for belief revision -- 5 Different modes of belief change -- 6 Two strategies for characterizing rational changes of belief - 6.1 The postulates strategy - 6.2 The constructive strategy -- 7 An abstract view of the elements of belief change -- 8 Iterated changes of belief -- 9 Further developments - 9.1 Variants and extensions of belief revision - 9.2 Updates …Read more
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15Supplying Planks for Neurath's Boat: Can Economists Meet the Demands of the Dynamics of Scientific Theories?In Friedrich Stadler (ed.), Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook, Springer. pp. 11--225. 2004.According to Otto Neurath, the practice of science consists in a large undertaking of setting up and maintaining systems of statements: In unified science we try ... to create a consistent system of protocol statements and nonprotocol statements . When a new statement is presented to us we compare it with the system at our disposal and check whether the new statement is in contradiction with the system or not. If the new statement is in contradiction with the system, we can discard this statemen…Read more
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Von Rang und Namen. Philosophical Essays in Honour of Wolfgang Spohn (edited book) (edited book)Mentis. 2016.This collection includes twenty original philosophical essays in honour of Wolfgang Spohn. The contributions mirror the scope of Wolfgang Spohn’s work. They address topics from epistemology (e.g., the theory of ranking functions, belief revision, and the nature of knowledge and belief), philosophy of science (e.g., causation, induction, and laws of nature), the philosophy of language (e.g., the theory of meaning and the semantics of counterfactuals), and the philosophy of mind (e.g., intentional…Read more
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Disagreement and misunderstanding across culturesIn Christian Kanzian & Edmund Runggaldier (eds.), Cultures: Conflict – Analysis – Dialogue, Proceedings of the 29th International Wittgenstein Symposium, Ontos. 2007.Communication problems between members of different cultures may be due to "genuine" disagreement or "mere" misunderstanding. I argue that there is anthropological evidence that efficient communication across different cultures and languages is feasible, since (i) the degrees of sophistication in thinking or talking are not fundamentally different (the case of "Chinese counterfactuals") and (ii) the basic logics used are not fundamentally different (the case of "Zande logic"). Disagreements and …Read more
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81Preservation and Postulation: Lessons from the New Debate on the Ramsey TestMind 126 (502). 2017.Richard Bradley has initiated a new debate, with Brian Hill and Jake Chandler as further participants, about the implications of a number of so-called triviality results surrounding the Ramsey test for conditionals. I comment on this debate and argue that ‘Inclusion’ and ‘Preservation’, which were originally introduced as postulates for the rational revision of factual beliefs, have little to recommend them in the first place when extended to languages containing conditionals. I question the phi…Read more
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Philosophy of Language |
Belief Revision |