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8VorwortIn Gregor Betz, Dirk Koppelberg, David Lüwenstein & Anna Wehofsits (eds.), Weiter Denken - Über Philosophie, Wissenschaft Und Religion, De Gruyter. 2015.
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35Making Reflective Equlibrium Precise: A Formal ModelErgo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 8. 2021.Reflective equilibrium (RE) is often regarded as a powerful method in ethics, logic, and even philosophy in general. Despite this popularity, characterizations of the method have been fairly vague and unspecific so far. It thus may be doubted whether RE is more than a jumble of appealing but ultimately sketchy ideas that cannot be spelled out consistently. In this paper, we dispel such doubts by devising a formal model of RE. The model contains as components the agent’s commitments and a theory …Read more
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8Chaos, Plurality, and Model Metrics in Climate ScienceIn Ulrich Gähde, Stephan Hartmann & Jörn Henning Wolf (eds.), Models, Simulations, and the Reduction of Complexity, De Gruyter. pp. 255-264. 2013.
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15There are different varieties of conservatism concerning belief formation and revision. We assesses the veritistic effects of a particular kind of conservatism commonly attributed to Quine: the so-called maxim of minimum mutiliation, which states that agents should give up as few beliefs as possible when facing recalcitrant evidence. Based on a formal bounded rationality model of belief revision, which parametrizes degree of conservatism, and corresponding multi-agent simulations, we eventually …Read more
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11“Führer befiehl, wir folgen dir!” Charismatic Leaders in Extremist GroupsIn Thomas Christiano, Ingrid Creppell & Jack Knight (eds.), Morality, Governance, and Social Institutions: Reflections on Russell Hardin, Springer Verlag. pp. 259-287. 2017.If we want to understand how extremist group ideologies are established, we have to comprehend the social processes which form the basis of the emergence and distribution of such beliefs. In our chapter, we present an innovative approach to examining these processes and explaining how they function: with the method of computer-based simulation of opinion formation, we develop heuristic explanatory models which help to generate new and interesting hypotheses. The focus is thereby not on individua…Read more
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85Philosophy of science for science communication in twenty-two questionsIn Annette Leßmöllmann, Marcelo Dascal & Thomas Gloning (eds.), Science Communication. pp. 3-28. 2020.Philosophy of science attempts to reconstruct science as a rational cognitive enterprise. In doing so, it depicts a normative ideal of knowledge acquisition and does not primarily seek to describe actual scientific practice in an empirically adequate way. A comprehensive picture of what good science consists in may serve as a standard against which we evaluate and criticize actual scientific practices. Such a normative picture may also explain why it is reasonable for us to trust scientists – to…Read more
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Accounting for Possibilities in Decision MakingIn Gertrude Hirsch Hadorn & Sven Hansson (eds.), The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis: Reasoning About Uncertainty, Springer Verlag. 2016.
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27Applying argumentation to structure and visualize multi-dimensional opinion spacesArgument and Computation 10 (1): 23-40. 2018.
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5Ethical Aspects of Climate EngineeringKIT Scientific Publishing,. 2012.This study investigates the ethical aspects of deploying and researching into so-called climate engineering methods, i.e. large-scale technical interventions in the climate system with the objective of offsetting anthropogenic climate change. The moral reasons in favour of and against R&D into and deployment of CE methods are analysed by means of argument maps. These argument maps provide an overview of the CE controversy and help to structure the complex debate.
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20PredictionIn Ian Jarvie & Jesus Zamora-Bonilla (eds.), Handbook of Philosophy of Social Science, Sage Publications. 2011.Predictive success as an aim of science -- On the very possibility of prediction in the social sciences -- Empirical facts about social prediction: its mode, object and performance -- Understanding poor forecast performance
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132Truth in Evidence and Truth in Arguments without Logical OmniscienceBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (4): 1117-1137. 2016.Science advances by means of argument and debate. Based on a formal model of complex argumentation, this article assesses the interplay between evidential and inferential drivers in scientific controversy, and explains, in particular, why both evidence accumulation and argumentation are veritistically valuable. By improving the conditions for applying veritistic indicators , novel evidence and arguments allow us to distinguish true from false hypotheses more reliably. Because such veritistic ind…Read more
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51Degrees of Justification, Bayes’ Rule, and RationalityIn Frank Zenker (ed.), Bayesian Argumentation – The Practical Side of Probability, Springer. 2013.Based on the theory of dialectical structures, I review the concept of degree of justification of a partial position a proponent may hold in a controversial debate. The formal concept of degree of justification dovetails with our pre-theoretic intuitions about a thesis' strength of justification. The central claim I'm going to defend in this paper maintains that degrees of justification, as defined within the theory of dialectical structures, correlate with a proponent position's verisimilitude.…Read more
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70Is epistemic trust of veritistic value?Ethics and Politics 15 (2): 25-41. 2013.Epistemic trust figures prominently in our socio-cognitive practices. By assigning different degrees of competence to agents, we distinguish between experts and novices and determine the trustworthiness of testimony. This paper probes the claim that epistemic trust furthers our epistemic enterprise. More specifically, it assesses the veritistic value of competence attribution in an epistemic community, i.e., in a group of agents that collaboratively seek to track down the truth. The results, obt…Read more
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122Are climate models credible worlds? Prospects and limitations of possibilistic climate predictionEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 5 (2): 191-215. 2015.Climate models don’t give us probabilistic forecasts. To interpret their results, alternatively, as serious possibilities seems problematic inasmuch as climate models rely on contrary-to-fact assumptions: why should we consider their implications as possible if their assumptions are known to be false? The paper explores a way to address this possibilistic challenge. It introduces the concepts of a perfect and of an imperfect credible world, and discusses whether climate models can be interpreted…Read more
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52The case for climate engineering research: an analysis of the “arm the future” argumentClimatic Change 111 (2): 473-485. 2012.With the evidence for anthropogenic climate change piling up, suggesting that climate impacts of GHG emissions might have been underestimated in the past (Allison et al. 2009; WBGU 2009), and mitigation policies apparently lagging behind what many scientists consider as necessary reductions in order to prevent dangerous climate change, the debate about intentional climate change, or “climate engineering”, as we shall say in the following, has gained momentum in the past years. While efforts to t…Read more
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21VorwortIn Gregor Betz, Dirk Koppelberg, David Lüwenstein & Anna Wehofsits (eds.), Weiter Denken - Über Philosophie, Wissenschaft Und Religion, De Gruyter. 2015.
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Dieser Beitrag diskutiert Oskar Morgensterns These von der Unmöglichkeit von Wirtschaftsprognose. Nach einer kritischen Rekonstruktion Morgensterns Argumente wird diese These in ihrer starken, apriorischen Lesart zurückgewiesen. Demgegenüber gestatten es die Ergebnisse empirischer Prognoseevaluationen, Morgensterns Überlegungen als kontingente Erklärungen des Scheiterns makroökonomischer Vorhersagen umzuinterpretieren. Der Beitrag schließt deshalb mit einer provokanten Konklusion, die bereits Mo…Read more
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136Petitio principii and circular argumentation as seen from a theory of dialectical structuresSynthese 175 (3): 327-349. 2010.This paper investigates in how far a theory of dialectical structures sheds new light on the old problem of giving a satisfying account of the fallacy of petitio principii, or begging the question. It defends that (i) circular argumentation on the one hand and petitio principii on the other hand are two distinct features of complex argumentation, and that (ii) it is impossible to make general statements about the defectiveness of an argumentation that exhibits these features. Such an argumentati…Read more
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40Achilles und die SchildkröteIn Georg Bertram (ed.), Philosophische Gedankenexperimente – ein Lese- und Studienbuch, Reclam. 2012.
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90Evaluating dialectical structures with Bayesian methodsSynthese 163 (1): 25-44. 2008.This paper shows how complex argumentation, analyzed as dialectical structures, can be evaluated within a Bayesian framework by interpreting them as coherence constraints on subjective degrees of belief. A dialectical structure is a set of arguments (premiss-conclusion structure) among which support- and attack-relations hold. This approach addresses the observation that some theses in a debate can be better justified than others and thus fixes a shortcoming of a theory of defeasible reasoning w…Read more
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Wertfreiheit, Politikberatung und ethische ExpertiseIn Florian Steger & Rafaela Hillerbrand (eds.), Praxisfelder angewandter Ethik: Medizin, Technik und Umwelt, Mentis. 2013.
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125Underdetermination, Model-ensembles and Surprises: On the Epistemology of Scenario-analysis in ClimatologyJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 40 (1): 3-21. 2009.As climate policy decisions are decisions under uncertainty, being based on a range of future climate change scenarios, it becomes a crucial question how to set up this scenario range. Failing to comply with the precautionary principle, the scenario methodology widely used in the Third Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seems to violate international environmental law, in particular a provision of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. To pl…Read more
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44Das Schiff des TheseusIn Georg Bertram (ed.), Philosophische Gedankenexperimente – ein Lese- und Studienbuch, Reclam. 2012.
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38Is Epistemic Trust of Veritistic Value?Etica E Politica 15 (2): 25-41. 2013.Epistemic trust figures prominently in our socio-cognitive practices. By assigning different degrees of competence to agents, we distinguish between experts and novices and determine the trustworthiness of testimony. This paper probes the claim that epistemic trust furthers our epistemic enterprise. More specifically, it assesses the veritistic value of competence attribution in an epistemic community, i.e., in a group of agents that collaboratively seek to track down the truth. The results, obt…Read more
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17Climate EngineeringIn Armin Grunwald (ed.), Handbuch Technikethik, Metzler. pp. 254-257. 2013.Als ›Climate Engineering‹ bezeichnet man großtechnische Eingriffe in das Klimasystem, die darauf abzielen, den anthropogenen Klimawandel zu kompensieren. Neben Mitigation- und Adaptation-Maßnahmen bilden Climate-Engineering-Verfahren damit eine dritte Kategorie möglicher Reaktionen auf den anthropogenen Klimawandel.
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50Theorie dialektischer StrukturenKlostermann. 2010.Wo Meinungen aufeinanderprallen, um Verständnis geworben und Überzeugungsarbeit geleistet wird, sind Begründungen nicht weit. Für jede Überzeugung gibt es immer ein, zwei Gründe, die mit Gegengründen konfrontiert und, im Gegenzug, mit weiteren Überlegungen verteidigt werden usw. usf. Schnell sind wir verwirrt und drohen, ohne uns der "Grammatikregeln" vernünftigen Argumentierens zu besinnen, nicht mehr durchzublicken. Die Theorie dialektischer Strukturen leistet einen Beitrag zur Grammatik vernü…Read more
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49Lebende BücherIn Georg Bertram (ed.), Philosophische Gedankenexperimente – ein Lese- und Studienbuch, Reclam. 2012.
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149Revamping Hypothetico-Deductivism: A Dialectic Account of Confirmation (review)Erkenntnis 78 (5): 991-1009. 2013.We use recently developed approaches in argumentation theory in order to revamp the hypothetico-deductive model of confirmation, thus alleviating the well-known paradoxes the H-D account faces. More specifically, we introduce the concept of dialectic confirmation on the background of the so-called theory of dialectical structures (Betz 2010, 2012b). Dialectic confirmation generalises hypothetico-deductive confirmation and mitigates the raven paradox, the grue paradox, the tacking paradox, the pa…Read more
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61Debate Dynamics: How Controversy Improves Our BeliefsSpringer. 2012.By means of multi-agent simulations, it investigates the truth and consensus-conduciveness of controversial debates. The book brings together research in formal epistemology and argumentation theory.
Gregor Betz
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
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Karlsruhe Institute of TechnologyProfessor
Areas of Specialization
2 more
Formal Epistemology |
Social Epistemology |
General Philosophy of Science |
Philosophy of Social Science |
Philosophy of Earth Sciences |
Reasoning |
Inference |