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310Defeasible ReasoningCognitive Science 11 (4): 481-518. 1987.There was a long tradition in philosophy according to which good reasoning had to be deductively valid. However, that tradition began to be questioned in the 1960’s, and is now thoroughly discredited. What caused its downfall was the recognition that many familiar kinds of reasoning are not deductively valid, but clearly confer justification on their conclusions. Here are some simple examples.
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304Contemporary theories of knowledgeHutchinson. 1986.This new edition of the classic Contemporary Theories of Knowledge has been significantly updated to include analyses of the recent literature in epistemology.
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269The theory of nomic probabilitySynthese 90 (2). 1992.This article sketches a theory of objective probability focusing on nomic probability, which is supposed to be the kind of probability figuring in statistical laws of nature. The theory is based upon a strengthened probability calculus and some epistemological principles that formulate a precise version of the statistical syllogism. It is shown that from this rather minimal basis it is possible to derive theorems comprising (1) a theory of direct inference, and (2) a theory of induction. The the…Read more
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263Knowledge and JustificationPrinceton University Press. 1974.Princeton University Press, 1974. This book is out of print, but can be downloaded as a pdf file (5 MB).
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189Vision, knowledge, and the mystery linkNoûs 39 (1): 309-351. 2005.Imagine yourself sitting on your front porch, sipping your morning coffee and admiring the scene before you. You see trees, houses, people, automobiles; you see a cat running across the road, and a bee buzzing among the flowers. You see that the flowers are yellow, and blowing in the wind. You see that the people are moving about, many of them on bicycles. You see that the houses are painted different colors, mostly earth tones, and most are one-story but a few are two-story. It is a beautiful m…Read more
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183What am I? Virtual machines and the mind/body problemPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 76 (2). 2008.When your word processor or email program is running on your computer, this creates a "virtual machine” that manipulates windows, files, text, etc. What is this virtual machine, and what are the virtual objects it manipulates? Many standard arguments in the philosophy of mind have exact analogues for virtual machines and virtual objects, but we do not want to draw the wild metaphysical conclusions that have sometimes tempted philosophers in the philosophy of mind. A computer file is not made of …Read more
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170Plans And DecisionsTheory and Decision 57 (2): 79-107. 2004.Counterexamples are constructed for classical decision theory, turning on the fact that actions must often be chosen in groups rather than individually, i.e., the objects of rational choice are plans. It is argued that there is no way to define optimality for plans that makes the finding of optimal plans the desideratum of rational decision-making. An alternative called “locally global planning” is proposed as a replacement for classical decision theory. Decision-making becomes a non-terminating…Read more
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156Belief revision and epistemologySynthese 122 (1-2): 69-92. 2000.Postulational approaches attempt to understand the dynamics of belief revision by appealing to no more than the set of beliefs held by an agent and the logical relations between them. It is argued there that such an approach cannot work. A proper account of belief revision must also appeal to the arguments supporting beliefs, and recognize that those arguments can be defeasible. If we begin with a mature epistemological theory that accommodates this, it can be seen that the belief revision opera…Read more
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151Self-defeating argumentsMinds and Machines 1 (4): 367-392. 1991.An argument is self-defeating when it contains defeaters for some of its own defeasible lines. It is shown that the obvious rules for defeat among arguments do not handle self-defeating arguments correctly. It turns out that they constitute a pervasive phenomenon that threatens to cripple defeasible reasoning, leading to almost all defeasible reasoning being defeated by unexpected interactions with self-defeating arguments. This leads to some important changes in the general theory of defeasible…Read more
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130Rational choice and action omnipotencePhilosophical Review 111 (1): 1-23. 2002.Counterexamples are constructed for the theory of rational choice that results from a direct application of classical decision theory to ordinary actions. These counterexamples turn on the fact that an agent may be unable to perform an action, and may even be unable to try to perform an action. An alternative theory of rational choice is proposed that evaluates actions using a more complex measure, and then it is shown that this is equivalent to applying classical decision theory to "conditional…Read more
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125Reasoning defeasibly about probabilitiesSynthese 181 (2): 317-352. 2011.In concrete applications of probability, statistical investigation gives us knowledge of some probabilities, but we generally want to know many others that are not directly revealed by our data. For instance, we may know prob(P/Q) (the probability of P given Q) and prob(P/R), but what we really want is prob(P/Q& R), and we may not have the data required to assess that directly. The probability calculus is of no help here. Given prob(P/Q) and prob(P/R), it is consistent with the probability calcu…Read more
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123The paradox of the prefacePhilosophy of Science 53 (2): 246-258. 1986.In a number of recent papers I have been developing the theory of "nomic probability," which is supposed to be the kind of probability involved in statistical laws of nature. One of the main principles of this theory is an acceptance rule explicitly designed to handle the lottery paradox. This paper shows that the rule can also handle the paradox of the preface. The solution proceeds in part by pointing out a surprising connection between the paradox of the preface and the gambler's fallacy
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119Epistemology and probabilityNoûs 17 (1): 65-67. 1983.Probability is sometimes regarded as a universal panacea for epistemology. It has been supposed that the rationality of belief is almost entirely a matter of probabilities. Unfortunately, those philosophers who have thought about this most extensively have tended to be probability theorists first, and epistemologists only secondarily. In my estimation, this has tended to make them insensitive to the complexities exhibited by epistemic justification. In this paper I propose to turn the tables. I …Read more
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119Language and thoughtPrinceton University Press. 1982.Princeton University Press, 1982. This book is out of print, but can be downloaded as a pdf file (5 MB).
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114A resource-bounded agent addresses the newcomb problemSynthese 176 (1): 57-82. 2010.In the Newcomb problem, the standard arguments for taking either one box or both boxes adduce what seem to be relevant considerations, but they are not complete arguments, and attempts to complete the arguments rely upon incorrect principles of rational decision making. It is argued that by considering how the predictor is making his prediction, we can generate a more complete argument, and this in turn supports a form of causal decision theory
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109Causal probabilitySynthese 132 (1-2). 2002.Examples growing out of the Newcomb problem have convinced many people that decision theory should proceed in terms of some kind of causal probability. I endorse this view and define and investigate a variety of causal probability. My definition is related to Skyrms' definition, but proceeds in terms of objective probabilities rather than subjective probabilities and avoids taking causal dependence as a primitive concept.
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108Reliability and Justified BeliefCanadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (1). 1984.Reliabilist theories propose to analyse epistemic justification in terms of reliability. This paper argues that if we pay attention to the details of probability theory we find that there is no concept of reliability that can possibly play the role required by reliabilist theories. A distinction is drawn between the general reliability of a process and the single case reliability of an individual belief, And it is argued that neither notion can serve the reliabilist adequately
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105Reasoning about change and persistence: A solution to the frame problemNoûs 31 (2): 143-169. 1997.
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99The foundations of philosophical semanticsPrinceton University Press. 1984.Princeton University Press, 984. This book is out of print, but can be downloaded as a pdf file (3.9 MB).
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97Understanding the language of thoughtPhilosophical Studies 58 (1-2): 95-120. 1990.The author poses a question: when a person has a thought, what is it that determines what thought he is having? and, equivalently, what is it that determines what thought he is having. looking for an answer he sketches some general aspects of the problems involved in answering these questions, like the mind/body problem, for example. his conclusion is that the posed questions should be set against the background assumption that thoughts are just internal physical occurrences, and that thoughts a…Read more
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96Subjunctive reasoningReidel. 1976.Reidel, 1976. This book is out of print, but can be downloaded as a pdf file (3.3 MB).
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93So you think you exist? — In defense of nolipsismIn Thomas M. Crisp, Matthew Davidson & David Vander Laan (eds.), Knowledge and Reality: Essays in Honor of Alvin Plantinga, Springer. 2006.Human beings think of themselves in terms of a privileged non-descriptive designator — a mental “I”. Such thoughts are called “_de se_” thoughts. The mind/body problem is the problem of deciding what kind of thing I am, and it can be regarded as arising from the fact that we think of ourselves non-descriptively. Why do we think of ourselves in this way? We investigate the functional role of “I” (and also “here” and “now”) in cognition, arguing that the use of such non-descriptive “reflexive” des…Read more
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85Irrationality and cognitionIn Quentin Smith (ed.), Epistemology: new essays, Oxford University Press. 2008.The strategy of this paper is to throw light on rational cognition and epistemic justification by examining irrationality. Epistemic irrationality is possible because we are reflexive cognizers, able to reason about and redirect some aspects of our own cognition. One consequence of this is that one cannot give a theory of epistemic rationality or epistemic justification without simultaneously giving a theory of practical rationality. A further consequence is that practical irrationality can affe…Read more
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