University Of Erfurt
Department Of Philosophy
Alumnus
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  •  11
    Editorial
    Erkenntnis 70 (2): 133-134. 2009.
  •  459
    "This book is the first of two volumes on belief and counterfactuals. It consists of six of a total of eleven chapters. The first volume is concerned primarily with questions in epistemology and is expository in parts. Among others, it provides an accessible introduction to belief revision and ranking theory. Ranking theory specifies how conditional beliefs should behave. It does not tell us why they should do so nor what they are. This book fills these two gaps. The consistency argument tells u…Read more
  •  1577
    Ranking Theory
    In Richard Pettigrew & Jonathan Weisberg (eds.), The Open Handbook of Formal Epistemology, Philpapers Foundation. pp. 397-436. 2019.
  •  526
    A Logical Introduction to Probability and Induction starts with elementary logic and uses it as basis for a philosophical discussion of probability and induction. Throughout the book results are carefully proved using the inference rules introduced at the beginning. The textbook is suitable for undergraduate courses in philosophy and logic.
  •  1375
    On the justification of deduction and induction
    European Journal for Philosophy of Science 7 (3): 507-534. 2017.
    The thesis of this paper is that we can justify induction deductively relative to one end, and deduction inductively relative to a different end. I will begin by presenting a contemporary variant of Hume ’s argument for the thesis that we cannot justify the principle of induction. Then I will criticize the responses the resulting problem of induction has received by Carnap and Goodman, as well as praise Reichenbach ’s approach. Some of these authors compare induction to deduction. Haack compares…Read more
  •  581
    Structural equations and beyond
    Review of Symbolic Logic 6 (4): 709-732. 2013.
    Recent accounts of actual causation are stated in terms of extended causal models. These extended causal models contain two elements representing two seemingly distinct modalities. The first element are structural equations which represent the or mechanisms of the model, just as ordinary causal models do. The second element are ranking functions which represent normality or typicality. The aim of this paper is to show that these two modalities can be unified. I do so by formulating two constrain…Read more
  •  63
    Why follow the royal rule?
    Synthese 194 (5). 2017.
    This note is a sequel to Huber. It is shown that obeying a normative principle relating counterfactual conditionals and conditional beliefs, viz. the royal rule, is a necessary and sufficient means to attaining a cognitive end that relates true beliefs in purely factual, non-modal propositions and true beliefs in purely modal propositions. Along the way I will sketch my idealism about alethic or metaphysical modality.
  •  335
    The Logic of Theory Assessment
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 36 (5): 511-538. 2007.
    This paper starts by indicating the analysis of Hempel's conditions of adequacy for any relation of confirmation (Hempel, 1945) as presented in Huber (submitted). There I argue contra Carnap (1962, Section 87) that Hempel felt the need for two concepts of confirmation: one aiming at plausible theories and another aiming at informative theories. However, he also realized that these two concepts are conflicting, and he gave up the concept of confirmation aiming at informative theories. The main pa…Read more
  •  14
    Neuroethology, according to Hoyle
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 7 (3): 391-392. 1984.
  •  220
    Essay Review: The Laws of Belief (review)
    Philosophy of Science 79 (4): 584-588. 2012.
  •  354
    Wolfgang Spohn: The laws of belief (review)
    Philosophy of Science 79 (4): 584-588. 2012.
  •  636
    Belief Revision II: Ranking Theory
    Philosophy Compass 8 (7): 613-621. 2013.
    Belief revision theory studies how an ideal doxastic agent should revise her beliefs when she receives new information. In part I, I have first presented the AGM theory of belief revision. Then I have focused on the problem of iterated belief revisions. In part II, I will first present ranking theory (Spohn 1988). Then I will show how it solves the problem of iterated belief revisions. I will conclude by sketching two areas of future research.
  •  304
    Reply to Crupi et al.’s ‘Confirmation by Uncertain Evidence’
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 59 (2): 213-215. 2008.
    Crupi et al. propose a generalization of Bayesian confirmation theory that they claim to adequately deal with confirmation by uncertain evidence. Consider a series of points of time t0, . . . , ti, . . . , tn such that the agent’s subjective probability for an atomic proposition E changes from Pr0 at t0 to . . . to Pri at ti to . . . to Prn at tn. It is understood that the agent’s subjective probabilities change for E and no logically stronger proposition, and that the agent updates her subjective…Read more
  •  59
    How to Learn Concepts, Consequences, and Conditionals
    Analytica: an electronic, open-access journal for philosophy of science 1 (1): 20-36. 2015.
    In this brief note I show how to model conceptual change, logical learning, and revision of one's beliefs in response to conditional information such as indicative conditionals that do not express propositions.
  •  497
    What Is the Point of Confirmation?
    Philosophy of Science 72 (5): 1146-1159. 2005.
    Philosophically, one of the most important questions in the enterprise termed confirmation theory is this: Why should one stick to well confirmed theories rather than to any other theories? This paper discusses the answers to this question one gets from absolute and incremental Bayesian confirmation theory. According to absolute confirmation, one should accept ''absolutely well confirmed'' theories, because absolute confirmation takes one to true theories. An examination of two popular measures …Read more
  •  244
    The Logic of Confirmation and Theory Assessment
    In L. Behounek & M. Bilkova (eds.), The Logica Yearbook, Filosofia. 2005.
    This paper discusses an almost sixty year old problem in the philosophy of science -- that of a logic of confirmation. We present a new analysis of Carl G. Hempel's conditions of adequacy (Hempel 1945), differing from the one Carnap gave in §87 of his Logical Foundations of Probability (1962). Hempel, it is argued, felt the need for two concepts of confirmation: one aiming at true theories and another aiming at informative theories. However, he also realized that these two concepts are conflicti…Read more
  •  496
    New foundations for counterfactuals
    Synthese 191 (10): 2167-2193. 2014.
    Philosophers typically rely on intuitions when providing a semantics for counterfactual conditionals. However, intuitions regarding counterfactual conditionals are notoriously shaky. The aim of this paper is to provide a principled account of the semantics of counterfactual conditionals. This principled account is provided by what I dub the Royal Rule, a deterministic analogue of the Principal Principle relating chance and credence. The Royal Rule says that an ideal doxastic agent’s initial grad…Read more
  •  123
    Formal Representations of Belief
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
    Epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. Belief is thus central to epistemology. It comes in a qualitative form, as when Sophia believes that Vienna is the capital of Austria, and a quantitative form, as when Sophia's degree of belief that Vienna is the capital of Austria is at least twice her degree of belief that tomorrow it will be sunny in Vienna. Formal epistemology, as opposed to mainstream epistemology (Hendricks 2006), is epistemology done in a formal way, that is, by…Read more
  •  497
    Assessing theories, Bayes style
    Synthese 161 (1): 89-118. 2008.
    The problem addressed in this paper is “the main epistemic problem concerning science”, viz. “the explication of how we compare and evaluate theories [...] in the light of the available evidence” (van Fraassen, BC, 1983, Theory comparison and relevant Evidence. In J. Earman (Ed.), Testing scientific theories (pp. 27–42). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). Sections 1– 3 contain the general plausibility-informativeness theory of theory assessment. In a nutshell, the message is (1) that t…Read more
  •  906
    Counterfactual Dependence and Arrow
    Noûs 47 (3): 453-466. 2012.
    We argue that a semantics for counterfactual conditionals in terms of comparative overall similarity faces a formal limitation due to Arrow’s impossibility theorem from social choice theory. According to Lewis’s account, the truth-conditions for counterfactual conditionals are given in terms of the comparative overall similarity between possible worlds, which is in turn determined by various aspects of similarity between possible worlds. We argue that a function from aspects of similarity to ove…Read more
  •  483
    Confirmation
    Oxford Bibliographies Online. 2011.
  •  185
    Vincent F. Hendricks, Mainstream and Formal Epistemology Reviewed by (review)
    Philosophy in Review 26 (4): 257-259. 2006.
  •  565
    Subjective Probabilities as Basis for Scientific Reasoning?
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 56 (1): 101-116. 2005.
    Bayesianism is the position that scientific reasoning is probabilistic and that probabilities are adequately interpreted as an agent's actual subjective degrees of belief, measured by her betting behaviour. Confirmation is one important aspect of scientific reasoning. The thesis of this paper is the following: if scientific reasoning is at all probabilistic, the subjective interpretation has to be given up in order to get right confirmation—and thus scientific reasoning in general. The Bayesian …Read more
  •  352
    Lewis Causation is a Special Case of Spohn Causation
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62 (1): 207-210. 2011.
    This paper shows that causation in the sense of Lewis is a special case of causation in the sense of Spohn.