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1823 Pascal’s Wager and the Precautionary PrincipleIn Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), Ontology of Divinity, De Gruyter. pp. 467-492. 2024.
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26Climate Precaution and Producer versus Consumer Dependence on Fossil FuelsEthics, Policy and Environment. forthcoming.This article explores the consequences of falling costs of solar and wind power for the ethics of climate change mitigation. We suggest that price competitiveness of renewables reveals a divergence of interest between fossil fuel consumers and producers: cheap renewables strengthen precautionary arguments for aggressive mitigation for consumers but threaten the economic base of producers. As existing applications of the precautionary principle to climate change do not address this issue, we deve…Read more
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149Satan, Saint Peter and Saint Petersburg: Decision theory and discontinuity at infinitySynthese 191 (4): 629-660. 2014.We examine a distinctive kind of problem for decision theory, involving what we call discontinuity at infinity. Roughly, it arises when an infinite sequence of choices, each apparently sanctioned by plausible principles, converges to a ‘limit choice’ whose utility is much lower than the limit approached by the utilities of the choices in the sequence. We give examples of this phenomenon, focusing on Arntzenius et al.’s Satan’s apple, and give a general characterization of it. In these examples, …Read more
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167Probability and SymmetryPhilosophy of Science 68 (S3). 2001.The Principle of Indifference, which dictates that we ought to assign two outcomes equal probability in the absence of known reasons to do otherwise, is vulnerable to well-known objections. Nevertheless, the appeal of the principle, and of symmetry-based assignments of equal probability, persists. We show that, relative to a given class of symmetries satisfying certain properties, we are justified in calling certain outcomes equally probable, and more generally, in defining what we call relative…Read more
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33Prospects for Analogue ConfirmationPhilosophy of Science 89 (5): 928-938. 2022.In analogical reasoning, observations about one or more source domains provide varying degrees of support for a conjecture about a target domain. Norton (2021) challenges the usefulness of formal models of analogical inference. Other philosophers (Dardashti et al. 2019) develop just such formal models in order to show how analogue experiments can confirm a hypothesis, even when the target domain is inaccessible. This paper defends the value of quasi-formal models of analogical reasoning. Such mo…Read more
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43Modeling the precautionary principle with lexical utilitiesSynthese 199 (3-4): 8701-8740. 2021.Confronted with the possibility of severe environmental harms, such as catastrophic climate change, some researchers have suggested that we should abandon the principle at the heart of standard decision theory—the injunction to maximize expected utility—and embrace a different one: the Precautionary Principle. Arguably, the most sophisticated philosophical treatment of the Precautionary Principle is due to Steel. Steel interprets PP as a qualitative decision rule and appears to conclude that a q…Read more
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560The Relatively Infinite Value of the EnvironmentAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (2): 328-353. 2017.Some environmental ethicists and economists argue that attributing infinite value to the environment is a good way to represent an absolute obligation to protect it. Others argue against modelling the value of the environment in this way: the assignment of infinite value leads to immense technical and philosophical difficulties that undermine the environmentalist project. First, there is a problem of discrimination: saving a large region of habitat is better than saving a small region; yet if bo…Read more
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215The shooting-room paradox and conditionalizing on measurably challenged setsSynthese 118 (3): 403-437. 1999.We provide a solution to the well-known “Shooting-Room” paradox, developed by John Leslie in connection with his Doomsday Argument. In the “Shooting-Room” paradox, the death of an individual is contingent upon an event that has a 1/36 chance of occurring, yet the relative frequency of death in the relevant population is 0.9. There are two intuitively plausible arguments, one concluding that the appropriate subjective probability of death is 1/36, the other that this probability is 0.9. How are t…Read more
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292No one knows the date or the hour: An unorthodox application of rev. Bayes's theoremPhilosophy of Science 66 (3): 353. 1999.Carter and Leslie (1996) have argued, using Bayes's theorem, that our being alive now supports the hypothesis of an early 'Doomsday'. Unlike some critics (Eckhardt 1997), we accept their argument in part: given that we exist, our existence now indeed favors 'Doom sooner' over 'Doom later'. The very fact of our existence, however, favors 'Doom later'. In simple cases, a hypothetical approach to the problem of 'old evidence' shows that these two effects cancel out: our existence now yields no info…Read more
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26Norton's material theory of analogyStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 82 104-113. 2020.
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58Visual Analogy: Consciousness as the Art of ConnectingPhilosophy of Science 68 (4): 580-584. 2001.
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38Pascal’s Wager (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2018.In his famous Wager, Blaise Pascal offers the reader an argument that it is rational to strive to believe in God. Philosophical debates about this classic argument have continued until our own times. This volume provides a comprehensive examination of Pascal's Wager, including its theological framework, its place in the history of philosophy, and its importance to contemporary decision theory. The volume starts with a valuable primer on infinity and decision theory for students and non-specialis…Read more
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48Theodore L. Brown, Making Truth: Metaphor in Science. Urbana: University of Illinois Press , 232pp., $32.50 (review)Philosophy of Science 71 (4): 610-613. 2004.
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Analogical Reasoning and Plausibility in the SciencesDissertation, University of Pittsburgh. 1994.Analogical reasoning plays a significant role in the evolution of scientific thought. Not only is analogy extensively used in the early stages of investigation to demonstrate the plausibility of hypotheses, but in some fields, such as archaeology and evolutionary biology, it is often the strongest possible form of theoretical confirmation. This widely used form of reasoning, however, has seldom been subjected to rigorous examination by philosophers of science. Not surprisingly, there is a notabl…Read more
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1574Taking Stock of Infinite Value: Pascal’s Wager and Relative UtilitiesSynthese 154 (1): 5-52. 2007.Among recent objections to Pascal's Wager, two are especially compelling. The first is that decision theory, and specifically the requirement of maximizing expected utility, is incompatible with infinite utility values. The second is that even if infinite utility values are admitted, the argument of the Wager is invalid provided that we allow mixed strategies. Furthermore, Hájek has shown that reformulations of Pascal's Wager that address these criticisms inevitably lead to arguments that are ph…Read more
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38Monstrous Neighbors or Curious Coincidence: Aristotle on Boundaries and ContactHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 18 (1). 2001.
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29Analogical arguments in mathematicsIn Andrew Aberdein & Ian J. Dove (eds.), The Argument of Mathematics, Springer. pp. 199--237. 2013.
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1Substantial form and the nature of individual substanceStudia Leibnitiana 25 (1): 43-54. 1993.Qu'est-ce qui explique l'unité d'une substance leibnizienne, au-dessus des attributs compris dans sa notion individuelle complète? C'est une question commune dans la littérature sur la notion de la substance chez Leibniz. Cet article soutient qu'elle n'admette pas de réponse consistante dans le système leibnizien. Premièrement, je discute la manière dans laquelle Leibniz a essayé de répondre à la question en „rehabillitant" a les formes substantielles des scholastiques. Puis je cherche à montrer…Read more
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4Domenico Costantini and Maria Carla Galavotti, eds., Probability, Dynamics and Causality: Essays in Honour of Richard C. Jeffrey Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 18 (5): 321-323. 1998.
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69Ch. 10. Many gods, many wagers : Pascal's Wager meets the replicator dynamicsIn Jake Chandler & Victoria S. Harrison (eds.), Probability in the Philosophy of Religion, Oxford University Press. pp. 187. 2012.
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194By parallel reasoning: the construction and evaluation of analogical argumentsOxford University Press. 2010.In this work, Paul Bartha proposes a normative theory of analogical arguments and raises questions and proposes answers regarding the criteria for evaluating analogical arguments, the philosophical justification for analogical reasoning, and the place of scientific analogies in the context of theoretical confirmation.
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110How can self-locating propositions be integrated into normal patterns of belief revision? Puzzles such as Sleeping Beauty seem to show that such propositions lead to violation of ordinary principles for reasoning with subjective probability, such as Conditionalization and Reflection. I show that sophisticated forms of Conditionalization and Reflection are not only compatible with self-locating propositions, but also indispensable in understanding how they can function as evidence in Sleeping Bea…Read more
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147Review: Pascal's Wager: Pragmatic arguments and belief in God – Jeff Jordan (review)Philosophical Quarterly 58 (232). 2008.No Abstract
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37By Parallel Reasoning: The Construction and Evaluation of Analogical ArgumentsOxford University Press USA. 2009.By Parallel Reasoning is the first comprehensive philosophical examination of analogical reasoning in more than forty years designed to formulate and justify standards for the critical evaluation of analogical arguments. It proposes a normative theory with special focus on the use of analogies in mathematics and science. In recent decades, research on analogy has been dominated by computational theories whose objective has been to model analogical reasoning as a psychological process. These theo…Read more
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159. The de Finetti Lottery and EquiprobabilityIn Kent A. Peacock & Andrew D. Irvine (eds.), Mistakes of reason: essays in honour of John Woods, University of Toronto Press. pp. 158-172. 2005.
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93Making Do Without ExpectationsMind 125 (499): 799-827. 2016.The Pasadena game invented by Nover and Hájek raises a number of challenges for decision theory. The basic problem is how the game should be evaluated: it has no expectation and hence no well-defined value. Easwaran has shown that the Pasadena game does have a weak expectation, raising the possibility that we can eliminate the value gap by requiring agents to value gambles at their weak expectations. In this paper, I first prove a negative result: there are gambles like the Pasadena game that do…Read more
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23Review of John F. Horty, Agency and Deontic Logic (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2002 (2). 2002.
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760Countable additivity and the de finetti lotteryBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55 (2): 301-321. 2004.De Finetti would claim that we can make sense of a draw in which each positive integer has equal probability of winning. This requires a uniform probability distribution over the natural numbers, violating countable additivity. Countable additivity thus appears not to be a fundamental constraint on subjective probability. It does, however, seem mandated by Dutch Book arguments similar to those that support the other axioms of the probability calculus as compulsory for subjective interpretations.…Read more
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Probability |
General Philosophy of Science |