Lotteries, Knowledge, and Rational Belief

Lotteries, Knowledge, and Rational Belief
Author: Igor Douven
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2021-02-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108421911

The book offers new insights into the lottery paradox, and thereby into how categorical and graded beliefs are formally connected.

Lotteries, Knowledge, and Rational Belief

Lotteries, Knowledge, and Rational Belief
Author: Igor Douven
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2021-02-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1108386407

We talk and think about our beliefs both in a categorical (yes/no) and in a graded way. How do the two kinds of belief hang together? The most straightforward answer is that we believe something categorically if we believe it to a high enough degree. But this seemingly obvious, near-platitudinous claim is known to give rise to a paradox commonly known as the 'lottery paradox' – at least when it is coupled with some further seeming near-platitudes about belief. How to resolve that paradox has been a matter of intense philosophical debate for over fifty years. This volume offers a collection of newly commissioned essays on the subject, all of which provide compelling reasons for rethinking many of the fundamentals of the debate.

Knowledge and Lotteries

Knowledge and Lotteries
Author: John Hawthorne
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2004
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199269556

This work is organized around an epistemological puzzle: in many cases, we seem consistently inclined to deny that we know a certain class of propositions while crediting ourselves with knowledge of propositions that imply them. The text explores questions on the nature and importance of knowledge.

Degrees of Belief

Degrees of Belief
Author: Franz Huber
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2008-12-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1402091982

This anthology is the first book to give a balanced overview of the competing theories of degrees of belief. It also explicitly relates these debates to more traditional concerns of the philosophy of language and mind and epistemic logic.

When is True Belief Knowledge?

When is True Belief Knowledge?
Author: Richard Foley
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2012-07-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0691154724

A woman glances at a broken clock and comes to believe it is a quarter past seven. Yet, despite the broken clock, it really does happen to be a quarter past seven. Her belief is true, but it isn't knowledge. This is a classic illustration of a central problem in epistemology: determining what knowledge requires in addition to true belief. In this provocative book, Richard Foley finds a new solution to the problem in the observation that whenever someone has a true belief but not knowledge, there is some significant aspect of the situation about which she lacks true beliefs--something important that she doesn't quite "get." This may seem a modest point but, as Foley shows, it has the potential to reorient the theory of knowledge. Whether a true belief counts as knowledge depends on the importance of the information one does or doesn't have. This means that questions of knowledge cannot be separated from questions about human concerns and values. It also means that, contrary to what is often thought, there is no privileged way of coming to know. Knowledge is a mutt. Proper pedigree is not required. What matters is that one doesn't lack important nearby information. Challenging some of the central assumptions of contemporary epistemology, this is an original and important account of knowledge.

Credition - An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Nature of Beliefs and Believing

Credition - An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Nature of Beliefs and Believing
Author: Rüdiger J. Seitz
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2023-07-27
Genre: Science
ISBN: 2832529933

The concept of credition represents an innovative research field at the interface of the natural sciences and the humanities addressing the nature of beliefs and believing. Credition signifies the integrative information processing that is brought about by neurophysiologically defined neural activity in the brain affording decision making. In analogy to cognition and emotion it is mediated by neural processes and constrains behavior by predictive coding. Three categories of beliefs have been defined on the background of evolutionary biology that can be differentiated linguistically. The goal of the collection of research papers is to provide an interdisciplinary discourse on an international level in the emerging field of credition. On this basis individual, group-specific and cultural narratives of secular and non-secular origin can become normative, in particular, when enhanced by ritual acts. Also, the recently defined belief categories can pave the way for novel approaches of empirical research on the formation of civilizations and cultures as well as for new perspectives on the psychopathological understanding of mental disorders. The disciplines of empirical research such as cognitive science, neurophysiology, neuropsychology, social neuroscience shall counteract with theoretical disciplines such as anthropology, philosophy, and theology in order to elaborate premises that are suited to bridge the scientific gap. The potential contributors will submit their abstracts such that they are available for the International meeting, Credition - An Interdisciplinary Challenge, that is going to take place in October 2021 in Hannover, Germany. Following the symposium, the participants shall elaborate their perspective concerning beliefs and believing, based on their expertise, and the information they have learned during the symposium. The authors are expected to submit a concise paper of 2000 words (C Type Article).

Logic, Rationality, and Interaction

Logic, Rationality, and Interaction
Author: Natasha Alechina
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2023-10-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3031455584

This LNCS book is part of the FOLLI book series and constitutes the proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Logic, Rationality, and Interaction, LORI 2023, held in Jinan, China, in October 2023. The 15 full papers presented together with 7 short papers in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 40 submissions. The workshop covers a wide range on the following topics such as agency; argumentation and agreement; belief representation; probability and uncertainty; belief revision and belief merging; knowledge and action; dynamics of informational attitudes; intentions, plans, and goals; decision making and planning; preference and utility; cooperation; strategic reasoning and game theory; epistemology; social choice; social interaction; speech acts; knowledge representation; norms and normative systems; natural language; rationality; philosophical logic.

Epistemology: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments

Epistemology: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments
Author: Kevin McCain
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2021-07-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000417026

In this new kind of entrée to contemporary epistemology, Kevin McCain presents fifty of the field’s most important puzzles, paradoxes, and thought experiments. Assuming no familiarity with epistemology from the reader, McCain titles each case with a memorable name, describes the details of the case, explains the issue(s) to which the case is relevant, and assesses its significance. McCain also briefly reviews the key responses to the case that have been put forward, and provides a helpful list of suggested readings on the topic. Each entry is accessible, succinct, and self-contained. Epistemology: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments is a fantastic learning tool as well as a handy resource for anyone interested in epistemological issues. Key Features: Though concise overall, offers broad coverage of the key areas of epistemology. Describes each imaginative case directly and in a memorable way, making the cases accessible and easy to remember. Provides a list of Suggested Readings for each case, divided into General Overviews, Seminal Presentations, and Other Important Discussions.

The Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy

The Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy
Author: Alexander Max Bauer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2023-11-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3110716933

The relatively new movement of Experimental Philosophy applies different systematic experimental methods to further illuminate classical philosophical issues. This book brings together experts from the field to give the reader a compact yet extensive overview, offering a ready at hand introduction to the state of the art.