•  14
    A New Condition for Transitivity of Probabilistic Support
    with David Atkinson
    Erkenntnis 88 (1): 253-265. 2021.
    As is well known, implication is transitive but probabilistic support is not. Eells and Sober, followed by Shogenji, showed that screening off is a sufficient constraint for the transitivity of probabilistic support. Moreover, this screening off condition can be weakened without sacrificing transitivity, as was demonstrated by Suppes and later by Roche. In this paper we introduce an even weaker sufficient condition for the transitivity of probabilistic support, in fact one that can be made as we…Read more
  •  34
    How Certain is Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle?
    with David Atkinson
    Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 12 (1): 1-21. 2022.
    Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is a milestone of twentieth-century physics. We sketch the history that led to the formulation of the principle, and we recall the objections of Grete Hermann and Niels Bohr. Then we explain that there are in fact two uncertainty principles. One was published by Heisenberg in the Zeitschrift für Physik of March 1927 and subsequently targeted by Bohr and Hermann. The other one was introduced by Earle Kennard in the same journal a couple of months later. While Ke…Read more
  •  5
    Putting the Cart Before the Horse: Ernest Nagel and the Uncertainty Principle
    with David Atkinson
    In Matthias Neuber & Adam Tamas Tuboly (eds.), Ernest Nagel: Philosophy of Science and the Fight for Clarity, Springer. pp. 131-148. 2021.
    In The Structure of Science, Ernest Nagel finds fault with Werner Heisenberg’s explication of the uncertainty principle. Nagel’s complaint is that this principle does not follow from the impossibility of measuring with precision both the position and the momentum of a particle, as Heisenberg intimates, rather it is the other way around. Recent developments in theoretical physics have shown that Nagel’s argument is more substantial than he could have envisaged. In particular it has become clear t…Read more
  •  9
    Screening off generalized: Reichenbach’s legacy
    with David Atkinson
    Synthese 199 (3-4): 8335-8354. 2021.
    Eells and Sober proved in 1983 that screening off is a sufficient condition for the transitivity of probabilistic causality, and in 2003 Shogenji noted that the same goes for probabilistic support. We start this paper by conjecturing that Hans Reichenbach may have been aware of this fact. Then we consider the work of Suppes and Roche, who demonstrated in 1986 and 2012 respectively that screening off can be generalized, while still being sufficient for transitivity. We point out an interesting di…Read more
  •  11
    Hoe zeker is Heisenbergs onzekerheidsprincipe?
    with David Atkinson
    Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 113 (1): 137-156. 2021.
    How certain is Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle? Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is at the heart of the orthodox or Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. We first sketch the history that led up to the formulation of the principle. Then we recall that there are in fact two uncertainty principles, both dating from 1927, one by Werner Heisenberg and one by Earle Kennard. Finally, we explain that recent work in physics gives reason to believe that the principle of Heisenberg is invali…Read more
  •  13
    A New Condition for Transitivity of Probabilistic Support
    with David Atkinson
    Erkenntnis (1): 1-13. 2021.
    As is well known, implication is transitive but probabilistic support is not. Eells and Sober, followed by Shogenji, showed that screening off is a sufficient constraint for the transitivity of probabilistic support. Moreover, this screening off condition can be weakened without sacrificing transitivity, as was demonstrated by Suppes and later by Roche. In this paper we introduce an even weaker sufficient condition for the transitivity of probabilistic support, in fact one that can be made as we…Read more
  •  351
    This book contains a selection of papers from the workshop *Women in the History of Analytic Philosophy* held in October 2019 in Tilburg, the Netherlands. It is the first volume devoted to the role of women in early analytic philosophy. It discusses the ideas of ten female philosophers and covers a period of over a hundred years, beginning with the contribution to the Significs Movement by Victoria, Lady Welby in the second half of the nineteenth century, and ending with Ruth Barcan Marcus’s cel…Read more
  •  10
    Probabilistic truth approximation and fixed points
    with David Atkinson
    Synthese 199 (1-2): 4195-4216. 2020.
    We use the method of fixed points to describe a form of probabilistic truth approximation which we illustrate by means of three examples. We then contrast this form of probabilistic truth approximation with another, more familiar kind, where no fixed points are used. In probabilistic truth approximation with fixed points the events are dependent on one another, but in the second kind they are independent. The first form exhibits a phenomenon that we call ‘fading origins’, the second one is subje…Read more
  •  10
    Probability functions, belief functions and infinite regresses
    with David Atkinson
    Synthese 199 (1-2): 3045-3059. 2020.
    In a recent paper Ronald Meester and Timber Kerkvliet argue by example that infinite epistemic regresses have different solutions depending on whether they are analyzed with probability functions or with belief functions. Meester and Kerkvliet give two examples, each of which aims to show that an analysis based on belief functions yields a different numerical outcome for the agent’s degree of rational belief than one based on probability functions. In the present paper we however show that the o…Read more
  • Finite Minds and Open Minds
    with David Atkinson
    In Cherie Braden, Rodrigo Borges & Branden Fitelson (eds.), Themes From Klein, Springer Verlag. 2019.
  •  33
    The original article has been corrected. Erroneously, a comma and a space were added in line 164 to 500, 500, and the authors would like readers to know that this should instead read 500,500.
  •  284
    This Open Access book addresses the age-old problem of infinite regresses in epistemology. How can we ever come to know something if knowing requires having good reasons, and reasons can only be good if they are backed by good reasons in turn? The problem has puzzled philosophers ever since antiquity, giving rise to what is often called Agrippa's Trilemma. The current volume approaches the old problem in a provocative and thoroughly contemporary way. Taking seriously the idea that good reasons a…Read more
  •  30
    In A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume presents an argument according to which all knowledge reduces to probability, and all probability reduces to nothing. Many have criticized this argument, while others find nothing wrong with it. In this paper we explain that the argument is invalid as it stands, but for different reasons than have been hitherto acknowledged. Once the argument is repaired, it becomes clear that there is indeed something that reduces to nothing, but it is something other t…Read more
  •  38
    In A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume presents an argument according to which all knowledge reduces to probability, and all probability reduces to nothing. Many have criticized this argument, while others find nothing wrong with it. In this paper we explain that the argument is invalid as it stands, but for different reasons than have been hitherto acknowledged. Once the argument is repaired, it becomes clear that there is indeed something that reduces to nothing, but it is something other t…Read more
  •  20
    Even if two testimonies in a criminal trial are independent, they are not necessarily more trustworthy than one. But if they are independent in the sense that they are screened off from one another by the crime, then two testimonies raise the probability of guilt above the level that one testimony alone could achieve. In fact this screening-off condition can be weakened without changing the conclusion. It is however only a sufficient, not a necessary condition for concluding that two witnesses a…Read more
  •  25
    Introduction to the special issue on epistemic justification
    with Benjamin Bewersdorf
    Synthese 195 (9): 3735-3735. 2018.
  •  48
    Shaping your past selves
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28 (5): 657-658. 2005.
    I propose to complement Ainslie's idea of “bargaining with your future selves” with that of “shaping your past selves.” The result of such a complementation is that an action can work in two ways: (1) as a predecent for future behavior and (2) as a shaper of past behavior. I argue that this diminishes the unwanted effects of hyperbolic discounting even further.
  •  765
    When are thought experiments poor ones?
    with David Atkinson
    Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 34 (2): 305-322. 2003.
    A characteristic of contemporary analytic philosophy is its ample use of thought experiments. We formulate two features that can lead one to suspect that a given thought experiment is a poor one. Although these features are especially in evidence within the philosophy of mind, they can, surprisingly enough, also be discerned in some celebrated scientific thought experiments. Yet in the latter case the consequences appear to be less disastrous. We conclude that the use of thought experiments is m…Read more
  •  3
    The philosophy faculty in groningen
    Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 71 (3): 469-474. 2009.
  •  21
    Transmissie, emergentie en fading foundations
    Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 107 (2): 125-146. 2015.
    A great deal of Anglo-Saxon epistemology is marked by the controversy between foundationalists and anti-foundationalists. The key question is as to how propositions, or beliefs in propositions, are to be justified. Is our body of knowledge sustained by basic beliefs, as foundationalists claim? Or are there no basic beliefs, and is there only mutual support between the elements of the structure, as the anti-foundationalists maintain? The matter is made especially difficult by the fact that no-one…Read more
  •  94
    The Emergence of Justification
    with David Atkinson
    Philosophical Quarterly 63 (252): 546-564. 2013.
    A major objection to epistemic infinitism is that it seems to make justification impossible. For if there is an infinite chain of reasons, each receiving its justification from its neighbour, then there is no justification to inherit in the first place. Some have argued that the objection arises from misunderstanding the character of justification. Justification is not something that one reason inherits from another; rather it gradually emerges from the chain as a whole. Nowhere however is it ma…Read more
  •  82
    The Need for Justification
    with David Atkinson
    Metaphilosophy 45 (2): 201-210. 2014.
    Some series can go on indefinitely, others cannot, and epistemologists want to know in which class to place epistemic chains. Is it sensible or nonsensical to speak of a proposition or belief that is justified by another proposition or belief, ad infinitum? In large part the answer depends on what we mean by “justification.” Epistemologists have failed to find a definition on which everybody agrees, and some have even advised us to stop looking altogether. In spite of this, the present essay sub…Read more
  •  32
    Despite Quine's recurrent claims to the contrary, the idea is still widespread that indeterminacy of translation is a special case of underdetermination of theories. In this paper we explain how indeterminacy differs from underdetermination, and in what ways such gifted Quine scholars as Gemes and Bergström went astray.
  •  23
    Reichenbach’s philosophy of mind
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 10 (3). 2002.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  78
    Shaping your own life
    Metaphilosophy 37 (2). 2006.
    A distinction is made between imagination in the narrow sense and in the broad sense. Narrow imagination is characterised as the ability to "see" pictures in the mind's eye or to "hear" melodies in the head. Broad imagination is taken to be the faculty of creating, either in the strict sense of making something ex nihilo or in the looser sense of seeing patterns in some data. The article focuses on a particular sort of broad imagination, the kind that has to do with creating, not a work of art, …Read more
  •  101
    Probabilistic Justification and the Regress Problem
    with David Atkinson
    Studia Logica 89 (3): 333-341. 2008.
    We discuss two objections that foundationalists have raised against infinite chains of probabilistic justification. We demonstrate that neither of the objections can be maintained.
  •  18
    Repliek
    Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 107 (2): 199-211. 2015.
    Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.
  •  20
    On the Concept of Discovery. Comments on Gerd Gigerenzer
    Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 232 153-158. 2003.