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Belief Revision meets Philosophy of Science

Author: Erik J Olsson

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-10-27

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 9048196094

Belief revision theory and philosophy of science both aspire to shed light on the dynamics of knowledge – on how our view of the world changes (typically) in the light of new evidence. Yet these two areas of research have long seemed strangely detached from each other, as witnessed by the small number of cross-references and researchers working in both domains. One may speculate as to what has brought about this surprising, and perhaps unfortunate, state of affairs. One factor may be that while belief revision theory has traditionally been pursued in a bottom- up manner, focusing on the endeavors of single inquirers, philosophers of science, inspired by logical empiricism, have tended to be more interested in science as a multi-agent or agent-independent phenomenon.

Belief Revision meets Philosophy of Science

Author: Erik Olsson

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2010-11-03

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 9789048196081

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Changes of Mind

Author: Neil Tennant

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-06-14

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 0191629049

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This is the first logically precise, computationally implementable, book-length account of rational belief revision. It explains how a rational agent ought to proceed when adopting a new belief - a difficult matter if the new belief contradicts the agent's old beliefs. Belief systems are modeled as finite dependency networks. So one can attend not only to what the agent believes, but also to the variety of reasons the agent has for so believing. The computational complexity of the revision problem is characterized. Algorithms for belief revision are formulated, and implemented in Prolog. The implementation tests well on a range of simple belief-revision problems that pose a variety of challenges for any account of belief revision. The notion of 'minimal mutilation' of a belief system is explicated precisely for situations when the agent is faced with conflicting beliefs. The proposed revision methods are invariant across different global justificatory structures (foundationalist, coherentist, etc.). They respect the intuition that, when revising one's beliefs, one should not hold on to any belief that has lost all its former justifications. The limitation to finite dependency networks is shown not to compromise theoretical generality. This account affords a novel way to argue that there is an inviolable core of logical principles. These principles, which form the system of Core Logic, cannot be given up, on pain of not being able to carry out the reasoning involved in rationally revising beliefs. The book ends by comparing and contrasting the new account with some major representatives of earlier alternative approaches, from the fields of formal epistemology, artificial intelligence and mathematical logic.

Philosophy of Chemistry

Author: Eric Scerri

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-11-11

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9401793646

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This volume follows the successful book, which has helped to introduce and spread the Philosophy of Chemistry to a wider audience of philosophers, historians, science educators as well as chemists, physicists and biologists. The introduction summarizes the way in which the field has developed in the ten years since the previous volume was conceived and introduces several new authors who did not contribute to the first edition. The editors are well placed to assemble this book, as they are the editor in chief and deputy editors of the leading academic journal in the field, Foundations of Chemistry. The philosophy of chemistry remains a somewhat neglected field, unlike the philosophy of physics and the philosophy of biology. Why there has been little philosophical attention to the central discipline of chemistry among the three natural sciences is a theme that is explored by several of the contributors. This volume will do a great deal to redress this imbalance. Among the themes covered is the question of reduction of chemistry to physics, the reduction of biology to chemistry, whether true chemical laws exist and causality in chemistry. In addition more general questions of the nature of organic chemistry, biochemistry and chemical synthesis are examined by specialist in these areas.

The Laws of Belief

Author: Wolfgang Spohn

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-03-29

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 0191629278

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Wolfgang Spohn presents the first full account of the dynamic laws of belief, by means of ranking theory. This book is his long-awaited presentation of ranking theory and its ramifications. He motivates and introduces the basic notion of a ranking function, which recognises degrees of belief and at the same time accounts for belief simpliciter. He provides a measurement theory for ranking functions, accounts for auto-epistemology in ranking-theoretic terms, and explicates the basic notion of a (deductive or non-deductive) reason. The rich philosophical applications of Spohn's theory include: a new account of lawlikeness, an account of ceteris paribus laws, a new perspective on dispositions, a rich and detailed theory of deterministic causation, an understanding of natural modalities as an objectification of epistemic modalities, an account of the experiential basis of belief—and thus a restructuring of the debate on foundationalism and coherentism (and externalism and contextualism)—and, finally, a revival of fundamental a priori principles of reason fathoming the basics of empiricism and the relation between reason and truth, and concluding in a proof of a weak principle of causality. All this is accompanied by thorough comparative discussions, on a general level as well as within each topic, and in particular with respect to probability theory.

Scientific Collaboration and Collective Knowledge

Author: Thomas Boyer-Kassem

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0190680539

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Current scientific research almost always requires collaboration among several (if not several hundred) specialized researchers. When scientists co-author a journal article, who deserves credit for discoveries or blame for errors? How should scientific institutions promote fruitful collaborations among scientists? In this work, leading philosophers of science address these critical questions

Truth-Seeking by Abduction

Author: Ilkka Niiniluoto

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-10-24

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 3319991574

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This book examines the philosophical conception of abductive reasoning as developed by Charles S. Peirce, the founder of American pragmatism. It explores the historical and systematic connections of Peirce's original ideas and debates about their interpretations. Abduction is understood in a broad sense which covers the discovery and pursuit of hypotheses and inference to the best explanation. The analysis presents fresh insights into this notion of reasoning, which derives from effects to causes or from surprising observations to explanatory theories. The author outlines some logical and AI approaches to abduction as well as studies various kinds of inverse problems in astronomy, physics, medicine, biology, and human sciences to provide examples of retroductions and abductions. The discussion covers also everyday examples with the implication of this notion in detective stories, one of Peirce’s own favorite themes. The author uses Bayesian probabilities to argue that explanatory abduction is a method of confirmation. He uses his own account of truth approximation to reformulate abduction as inference which leads to the truthlikeness of its conclusion. This allows a powerful abductive defense of scientific realism. This up-to-date survey and defense of the Peircean view of abduction may very well help researchers, students, and philosophers better understand the logic of truth-seeking.

Introduction to Formal Philosophy

Author: Sven Ove Hansson

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-10-24

Total Pages: 733

ISBN-13: 3319774344

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This Undergraduate Textbook introduces key methods and examines the major areas of philosophy in which formal methods play pivotal roles. Coverage begins with a thorough introduction to formalization and to the advantages and pitfalls of formal methods in philosophy. The ensuing chapters show how to use formal methods in a wide range of areas. Throughout, the contributors clarify the relationships and interdependencies between formal and informal notions and constructions. Their main focus is to show how formal treatments of philosophical problems may help us understand them better. Formal methods can be used to solve problems but also to express new philosophical problems that would never have seen the light of day without the expressive power of the formal apparatus. Formal philosophy merges work in different areas of philosophy as well as logic, mathematics, computer science, linguistics, physics, psychology, biology, economics, political theory, and sociology. This title offers an accessible introduction to this new interdisciplinary research area to a wide academic audience.

Model-Based Reasoning in Science and Technology

Author: Lorenzo Magnani

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-07-01

Total Pages: 674

ISBN-13: 3319389831

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This book discusses how scientific and other types of cognition make use of models, abduction, and explanatory reasoning in order to produce important or creative changes in theories and concepts. It includes revised contributions presented during the international conference on Model-Based Reasoning (MBR’015), held on June 25-27 in Sestri Levante, Italy. The book is divided into three main parts, the first of which focuses on models, reasoning and representation. It highlights key theoretical concepts from an applied perspective, addressing issues concerning information visualization, experimental methods and design. The second part goes a step further, examining abduction, problem solving and reasoning. The respective contributions analyze different types of reasoning, discussing various concepts of inference and creativity and their relationship with experimental data. In turn, the third part reports on a number of historical, epistemological and technological issues. By analyzing possible contradictions in modern research and describing representative case studies in experimental research, this part aims at fostering new discussions and stimulating new ideas. All in all, the book provides researchers and graduate students in the field of applied philosophy, epistemology, cognitive science and artificial intelligence alike with an authoritative snapshot of current theories and applications of model-based reasoning.

Epistemology, Context, and Formalism

Author: Franck Lihoreau

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2014-01-17

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 3319029436

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The main purpose of the present volume is to advance our understanding of the notions of knowledge and context, the connections between them and the ways in which they can be modeled, in particular formalized – a question of prime importance and utmost relevance to such diverse disciplines as philosophy, linguistics, computer science and artificial intelligence and cognitive science. Bringing together essays written by world-leading experts and emerging researchers in epistemology, logic, philosophy of language, linguistics and theoretical computer science, the book examines the formal modeling of knowledge and the knowledge-context link at one or more of three intersections - context and epistemology, epistemology and formalism, formalism and context – and presents a novel range of approaches to the current discussions that the connections between knowledge, language, action, reasoning and context continually enlivens. It develops powerful ideas that will push the relevant fields forward and give a sense of the new directions in which mainstream and formal research on knowledge and context is heading.