There are two ways of representing rational belief: qualitatively as yes-or-no belief, and quantitatively as degrees of belief. Standard rationality conditions are: consistency and logical closure, for qualitative belief, satisfaction of the probability axioms, for quantitative belief, and a relationship between qualitative and quantitative beliefs in accordance with the Lockean thesis. In this paper, it is shown that these conditions are inconsistent with each of three further rationality conditions: fallibilism, open-mindedness, and invariance under independent conceptual expansions. Restrictions of the Lockean (...) thesis that have been suggested in the literature cannot remove the inconsistency. In the outlook we discuss two alternative ways of dealing with this problem: restricting conjunctive closure or going for a dual system account. (shrink)

In this paper first order theories for nonmonotone inductive definitions are introduced, and a proof-theoretic analysis for such theories based on combined operator forms a la Richter with recursively inaccessible and Mahlo closure ordinals is given.

A new approach to Hume's problem of induction that justifies the optimality of induction at the level of meta-induction. Hume's problem of justifying induction has been among epistemology's greatest challenges for centuries. In this book, Gerhard Schurz proposes a new approach to Hume's problem. Acknowledging the force of Hume's arguments against the possibility of a noncircular justification of the reliability of induction, Schurz demonstrates instead the possibility of a noncircular justification of the optimality of induction, or, more precisely, of (...) meta-induction (the application of induction to competing prediction models). Drawing on discoveries in computational learning theory, Schurz demonstrates that a regret-based learning strategy, attractivity-weighted meta-induction, is predictively optimal in all possible worlds among all prediction methods accessible to the epistemic agent. Moreover, the a priori justification of meta-induction generates a noncircular a posteriori justification of object induction. Taken together, these two results provide a noncircular solution to Hume's problem. Schurz discusses the philosophical debate on the problem of induction, addressing all major attempts at a solution to Hume's problem and describing their shortcomings; presents a series of theorems, accompanied by a description of computer simulations illustrating the content of these theorems (with proofs presented in a mathematical appendix); and defends, refines, and applies core insights regarding the optimality of meta-induction, explaining applications in neighboring disciplines including forecasting sciences, cognitive science, social epistemology, and generalized evolution theory. Finally, Schurz generalizes the method of optimality-based justification to a new strategy of justification in epistemology, arguing that optimality justifications can avoid the problems of justificatory circularity and regress. (shrink)

According to the comparative Bayesian concept of confirmation, rationalized versions of creationism come out as empirically confirmed. From a scientific viewpoint, however, they are pseudo-explanations because with their help all kinds of experiences are explainable in an ex-post fashion, by way of ad-hoc fitting of an empirically empty theoretical framework to the given evidence. An alternative concept of confirmation that attempts to capture this intuition is the use novelty criterion of confirmation. Serious objections have been raised against this criterion. In (...) this paper I suggest solutions to these objections. Based on them, I develop an account of genuine confirmation that unifies the UN-criterion with a refined probabilistic confirmation concept that is explicated in terms of the confirmation of evidence-transcending content parts of the hypothesis. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this paper a generalized account of relevance as difference-making is developed. It is argued that relevance should not be considered as a particular relation, but as a (higher-order) property of instances of arbitrary relations: namely the property that variations of the relata of the relation instance make a difference for its truth. This generalized account of relevance can be fruitfully applied in many domains, such as (i) logical reasoning with applications to explanation, confirmation, verisimilitude, is-ought inference, (ii) probabilistic reasoning (...) with applications to explanation and confirmation, (iii) nomological and causal implication, (iv) communication, (v) grounding and (vi) essentiality. In conclusion, difference-making relevance is a highly unifying and fruitful philosophical concept. (shrink)

Tacking by conjunction is a well-known problem for Bayesian confirmation theory. In the first section, disadvantages of existing Bayesian solution proposals to this problem are pointed out and an alternative solution proposal is presented: that of genuine confirmation. In the second section, the notion of GC is briefly recapitulated and three versions of GC are distinguished: full GC, partial GC and quantitative GC. In the third section, the application of partial GC to pure post-facto speculations is explained. In the fourth (...) section it is demonstrated that full GC is a necessary condition for Bayesian convergence to certainty based on the accumulation of conditionally independent pieces of evidence. It is found that whenever a hypothesis is equivalent to a disjunction of more fine-grained hypotheses conveying different probabilities to the evidence, then conditional independence of the evidence fails. This failure occurs typically for unspecific negations of hypotheses. A refined version of the convergence to certainty theorem that overcomes this difficulty is developed in the final section. (shrink)

Einleitung. Die stellung des parlamentes und sein verhältnis zum individuum.--Die moderne demokratie und der gleichheitzbegriff.--Die gleichheit vor dem gesetz.--Das problem der gleichheit der staaten im bundesstaatsrect.

Together with its introduction, Language, Mind and Epistemology examines Davidson's unified stance towards philosophy by joining American and European authors ...

According to a plausible picture of information, to acquire information is to rule out possibilities. What is the nature of these possibilities? The most natural answer---that they are possible states of the world---seems to be refuted by the existence of informative truths that are necessary, and so don't rule out any real possibilities. This seems to show that informational contents cannot be identified with the real possibilities they eliminate. Real possibilities, it seems, are too coarse-grained to do the work of (...) informational contents. ;In the first part of the dissertation, I look at two defenses of the coarse-grained conception of content. First, Stalnaker has claimed that the informativeness of necessary truths can be explained within a two-dimensional semantic framework, in which necessary truths have contingent metalinguistic contents. In Chapter 1, I argue that this metalinguistic approach misconstrues the content of mathematical truths. Second, Stalnaker has claimed that we have independent reason to adopt a coarse-grained conception of content since naturalistic views of content such as indicator views allow only for coarse-grained contents. In Chapter 2, I argue that both indicator and teleological views allow for more fine-grained contents and that, given certain assumptions, they even require them. Together, these arguments show that the best attempt to explain the informativeness of necessary truths in terms of coarse-grained entities fails, and that naturalism gives us no reason for thinking that some other attempt will succeed. Instead of explaining informativeness in terms of the elimination of real possibilities, I claim, we should explain it in terms of the elimination of more fine-grained epistemic possibilities. ;In the second part of the dissertation, I describe the characteristic features of epistemic possibilities. Chapter 3 clarifies the relevant sense of epistemic possibility by distinguishing it from related senses that have gone under the same name. I argue that P is epistemically possible for a thinker at a time just in case an operative belief that P is compatible with his operative beliefs at this time, where beliefs are called compatible, not if their contents are compatible, but if the beliefs themselves are compatible in the sense that it is possible to have them at the same time. Since epistemic possibility in this sense is a matter of what it is possible to believe, I call it epistemic possibility in the believability sense. ;In Chapter 4, I turn to the question of what sort of thing epistemic possibilities are. I argue that epistemic possibilities can be defined in terms of, but not identified with, a certain kind of fine-grained content. (shrink)

How does your information change when you learn that something might be the case, where the modal “might” is epistemic? On the orthodox view, a proposition is added to your information base; on the view defended here, no propositions are added to your information base but some are removed from it. I argue that Stephen Yablo’s recent attempt to define this removal operation as a kind of propositional subtraction fails, offer a definition of my own in terms of the part–whole (...) relations between the truthmakers of the propositions one accepts, and argue that a deontic analogue of this account solves a problem about permission posed long ago by David Lewis. (shrink)

It is part of Jaegwon. Kim’s life’s work that he has demonstrated that non-reductive physicalism is not an option in the philosophy of the mental. However, he also recognizes the problems of mentalism that cannot be solved by physicalism. This concerns above all phenomenal consciousness, which resists naturalization. In the philosophy of the mental, this addresses a very fundamental problem of what the place of the mental is in the physical world. It is Kim’s merit in the philosophy of the (...) mental to have shown non-reductive physicalism to be contradictory and qualitative experience to have shown its place as a phenomenon that cannot be explained physically. But Kim wants to be a physicalist and functionalist at the same time. For this he describes his position as “physicalism, or something near enough”. It is to Kim’s credit that he has presented non-reductive physicalism as a variation of British emergentism. But this raises a very fundamental problem, whether this is a valid research program of systematization of mental experience or whether it needs another research program. (shrink)

Die Edition versammelt zentrale, bislang nur schwer zugängliche Schriften im Umkreis von Kants Philosophie und verortet sie historisch-systematisch im Kontext ihrer Zeit. Die Texte dokumentieren die intensive Debatte über das Problem menschlicher Freiheit, die in Reaktion auf Kants kritische Philosophie entstand. Es geht um zentrale freiheitstheoretische Fragen, die auch in der aktuellen philosophischen Diskussion von Relevanz sind: Wie lässt sich menschliche Willensfreiheit angesichts der naturkausalen Determination der Welt denken? Inwiefern kann einem Freiheitsskeptizismus argumentativ begegnet werden? Worin besteht das Charakteristikum moralischer (...) Freiheit? Ist eine Freiheit zum Bösen begrifflich denkbar und wenn ja, wie genau? Inwiefern können wir Freiheit als Vermögen der Wahl ('Willkür') begreifen? Wie ist das Subjekt der Freiheit zu denken? Durch die Lektüre der aufeinander bezogenen Texte, die von den Herausgebern jeweils durch eine kurze Einführung und Stellenkommentare eingeordnet werden, wird nicht zuletzt auch die Entwicklung von Kants eigener Freiheitstheorie besser verständlich. (shrink)

Let T be Kripke–Platek set theory with infinity extended by the axiom (Beta) plus the schema that claims that every set-bounded Σ-definable monotone operator from the collection of all sets to Pow(a) for some set a has a fixed point. Then T proves that every such operator has a least fixed point. This result is obtained by following the proof of an analogous result for von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory in an earlier work by Sato, with some minor modifications.

Der Wahn untergräbt den westlichen Begriff des Souveräns wie er Israel als Widersacher des ewigen Friedens der Völker attackiert. Wenn dagegen der Judenstaat das Leben derer verteidigt, die unausgesetzt der antisemitische Haß bedroht, verteidigt er zugleich jenen Begriff. Es bleibt das Staunen, mit welcher Bestimmtheit die Erkenntnisse von Hobbes, Marx und Freud die Denunziation des Wahns explizieren können, die Israels Defense Forces täglich in die Praxis umsetzen müssen. Ihm verdankt sich dieses Buch.

Der Autor interpretiert Nicolas Poussins Gemälde »Et in Arcadia ego« (1638–1640) mit der Inschrift »Auch in Arkadien gibt es mich, den Tod« als Darstellung eines Erkenntnisprozesses und schlägt vor, das zuvor moralisch verstandene »Memento mori« als Aufforderung zur Selbsterkenntnis zu begreifen. Damit formuliert er eine Gegenposition zum Programm des »Transhumanismus«, der die Abschaffung des Todes anstrebt. Sodann geht er von Freuds Hinweis auf die Verleugnung des je eigenen Todes aus und interpretiert die Struktur dieser Einstellung mit Freuds spätem Begriff der (...) »Ichspaltung«. Dabei zeigt sich, dass die mit der Ichspaltung verbundene Allmachtsphantasie auf Verleugnung statt auf Anerkennung von Unverfügbarkeit abzielt, deren Repräsentant der Tod ist. »Memento mori« wird so zu einer emotional erkennenden Erfahrung von Unverfügbarkeit als zentralem Aspekt der Conditio humana. (shrink)