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Bayesian Reasoning
Edited by James Hawthorne (University of Oklahoma)
About this topic
| Summary | Bayesian Reasoning includes issues related to: 1. the probabilistic logic of evidential support for hypotheses; 2. the logic of comparative belief, belief strengths, and belief updating as represented by classical probability functions; 3. the logic of decision as represented in terms of utilities, probabilities, and expected utility maximization, including ways in which this logic may represent comparative preferences among acts or states of affairs; 4. Bayesian probabilistic treatments of causal influence (e.g. via Bayes nets); 5. studies of relationships between human performance and models of reasoning and decision of a Bayesian kind (as described in 1-4 above). |
| Key works | Bayesian reasoning includes a wide variety of topics and issues. For introductory overviews of Bayesian confirmation theory and decision theory, among the best texts available are Skyrms 1966 and Hacking 2001; at a somewhat more advanced level Urbach & Howson 1993 is essential reading. Key sources for Bayesian probability and decision theory include Ramsey 2010, Savage 1954, Jeffrey 1965, and Joyce 1999. The classic treatment of Bayes nets is Pearl 1988. Chater & Oaksford 2008 is an excellent collection of articles on Bayesian modeling of natural human reasoning. Also see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (online, Zalta 2012) for helpful articles on various aspects of Bayesian reasoning: e.g. on Bayes' Theorem, Bayesian Epistemology, Inductive Logic, Decision Theory, etc. |
| Introductions | Hájek 2007; Joyce 2008; Hawthorne 2011; Talbott 2006; Vineberg 2011; Weirich 2009; Hitchcock 2008. |
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- A Hybrid Theory of Induction.Adrià Segarra - 2023 - Dissertation, University of CambridgeIn this thesis I motivate and develop a Hybrid Theory of Induction (HTI), and I explore some of its virtues and implications. The HTI is a hybrid second-order model of inductive support. It is a "hybrid" model of inductive support because it holds that two ingredients play a necessary role in understanding inductive support: rules and facts. It is a "second-order" model of inductive support because it is a model within which first-order models of inductive support (i.e. logics of induction) (...)
- Incentivising Metacognition with Probabilistic Grading.Paul Mayer - manuscriptThe vast majority of grading exams that contain true-false and multiple choice questions encourages students to guess. This leads to two issues: the first is it incentivizes students to be overconfident rather than honestly quantify their level of belief and the second is that instructors cannot see which questions students are certain about versus these where students guess. This paper explores how Probabilistic Grading solves these issues, encouraging students to be honest about their true beliefs and discouraging them from guessing. (...)
- Random Emeralds.Sven Neth - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.Suppose we observe many emeralds which are all green. This observation usually provides good evidence that all emeralds are green. However, the emeralds we have observed are also all grue, which means that they are either green and already observed or blue and not yet observed. We usually do not think that our observation provides good evidence that all emeralds are grue. Why? I argue that if we are in the best case for inductive reasoning, we have reason to assign (...)
- Random Emeralds.Sven Neth - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.Suppose we observe many emeralds which are all green. This observation usually provides good evidence that all emeralds are green. However, the emeralds we have observed are also all grue, which means that they are either green and already observed or blue and not yet observed. We usually do not think that our observation provides good evidence that all emeralds are grue. Why? I argue that if we are in the best case for inductive reasoning, we have reason to assign (...)
- Why I Am Not a Boltzmann Brain.Sinan Dogramaci & Miriam Schoenfield - 2025 - Philosophical Review 134 (1):1-33.This article gives a Bayesian argument showing that, even if your total empirical evidence confirms that you have zillions of duplicate Boltzmann Brains, that evidence does not confirm that you are a Boltzmann Brain. The article also attempts to explain what goes wrong with several of the sources of the temptation for thinking that such evidence does have skeptical implications.
- Testimonial authority and knowledge transmission.Christoph Jäger & Nicholas Shackel - 2025 - Social Epistemology 2025.Is speaker knowledge necessary or sufficient for enabling hearers to know from testimony? Here, we offer a novel argument for the answer no, based on the systematic effects of partial belief and the hearer’s view prior to hearing testimony. Modelling partial belief by credence, we show that a requirement entailed by the principles of necessity and sufficiency apparent in the literature is inconsistent with Bayesian updating. Consequently, even when the other grounds of knowledge are in place, the audience correctly updating (...)
- Indexicality, Bayesian background and self‐location in fine‐tuning arguments for the multiverse.Quentin Ruyant - 2025 - Noûs 59 (1):140-159.Our universe seems to be miraculously fine-tuned for life. Multiverse theories have been proposed as an explanation for this on the basis of probabilistic arguments, but various authors have objected that we should consider our total evidence that this universe in particular has life in our inference, which would block the argument. The debate thus crucially hinges on how Bayesian background and evidence are distinguished and on how indexical or demonstrative terms are analysed. The aim of this article is to (...)
- Truth-Ratios, Evidential Fit, and Deferring to Informants with Low Error Probabilities.Michael Roche & William Roche - 2025 - Acta Analytica 40 (1).Suppose that an informant (test, expert, device, perceptual system, etc.) is unlikely to err when pronouncing on a particular subject matter. When this is so, it might be tempting to defer to that informant when forming beliefs about that subject matter. How is such an inferential process expected to fare in terms of truth (leading to true beliefs) and evidential fit (leading to beliefs that fit one’s total evidence)? Using a medical diagnostic test as an example, we set out a (...)
- Explanatory Reasoning and Informativeness.Ted Poston & Kevin McCain - 2023 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 53 (5):433-443.Bas van Fraassen has argued that explanatory reasoning does not provide confirmation for explanatory hypotheses because explanatory reasoning increases information and increasing information does not provide confirmation. We compare this argument with a skeptical argument that one should never add any beliefs because adding beliefs increases information and increasing information does not provide confirmation. We discuss the similarities between these two arguments and identify several problems with van Fraassen’s argument.
- Convergence to the Truth.Hanti Lin - forthcoming - In Kurt Sylvan, Ernest Sosa, Jonathan Dancy & Matthias Steup, The Blackwell Companion to Epistemology, 3rd edition. Wiley Blackwell.This article reviews and develops an epistemological tradition in the philosophy of science, known as convergentism, which holds that inference methods should be assessed based on their ability to converge to the truth across a range of possible scenarios. Emphasis is placed on its historical origins in the work of C. S. Peirce and its recent developments in formal epistemology and data science (including statistics and machine learning). Comparisons are made with three other traditions: (1) explanationism, which holds that theory (...)
- (1 other version)A causal theory of confirmation for Bayesians.Shimin Zhao - 2024 - Synthese 204 (167).This paper proposes a new Bayesian confirmation theory, according to which confirmational relations are causal relations between credences. The idea is that proposition E is evidentially relevant to proposition H relative to a credence distribution cr just in case cr(E) is a cause of cr(H), which is understood from an interventionist perspective as intervening on cr(E) would make a difference to the value of cr(H). E confirms H means that under an intervention on cr(E), cr(H) and cr(E) would covary in (...)
- The material and the suppositional conditional.Jan Sprenger - manuscriptThe material conditional and the suppositional analysis of the indicative conditional are based on different philosophical foundations and they leave important successes of their competitor unexplained. This paper unifies both accounts within a truth-functional, trivalent model of the suppositional analysis. In this model, we observe that the material and the suppositional conditional exhibit the same logical behavior while they have different truth conditions and different probabilities. The result is a unified semantic analysis that closes an important gap in the suppositional (...)
- An Improved Argument for Superconditionalization.Julia Staffel & Glauber De Bona - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (8):3247-3273.Standard arguments for Bayesian conditionalizing rely on assumptions that many epistemologists have criticized as being too strong: (i) that conditionalizers must be logically infallible, which rules out the possibility of rational logical learning, and (ii) that what is learned with certainty must be true (factivity). In this paper, we give a new factivity-free argument for the superconditionalization norm in a personal possibility framework that allows agents to learn empirical and logical falsehoods. We then discuss how the resulting framework should be (...)
- Ambiguous Decisions in Bayesianism and Imprecise Probability.Mantas Radzvilas, William Peden & Francesco De Pretis - 2024 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Short Reads.Do imprecise beliefs lead to worse decisions under uncertainty? This BJPS Short Reads article provides an informal introduction to our use of agent-based modelling to investigate this question. We explain the strengths of imprecise probabilities for modelling evidential states. We explain how we used an agent-based model to investigate the relative performance of Imprecise Bayesian reasoners against a standard Bayesian who has precise credences. We found that the very features of Imprecise Bayesianism which give it representational strengths also cause relative (...)
- A comparison of imprecise Bayesianism and Dempster–Shafer theory for automated decisions under ambiguity.Mantas Radzvilas, William Peden, Daniele Tortoli & Francesco De Pretis - forthcoming - Journal of Logic and Computation.Ambiguity occurs insofar as a reasoner lacks information about the relevant physical probabilities. There are objections to the application of standard Bayesian inductive logic and decision theory in contexts of significant ambiguity. A variety of alternative frameworks for reasoning under ambiguity have been proposed. Two of the most prominent are Imprecise Bayesianism and Dempster–Shafer theory. We compare these inductive logics with respect to the Ambiguity Dilemma, which is a problem that has been raised for Imprecise Bayesianism. We develop an agent-based (...)
- The Augustine-Braude Bigelow Survival Debate: A Postmortem and Prospects for Future Directions.Michael Sudduth - 2024 - Journal of Scientific Exploration 38 (3):468-531.In 2021, the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (hereafter, BICS) sponsored an essay competition (hereafter, the Contest) designed to solicit the best evidence for the hypothesis that human consciousness survives bodily death, and more specifically, evidence that would prove this hypothesis beyond a reasonable doubt. The summer 2022 issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration featured a special subsection on the BICS contest and its winning essays. Robert Bigelow and Colm Kelleher outlined the motivation, design, and judging criteria for the (...)
- Sleeping Beauty: Why Everyone Should Be a Thirder.Lennart B. Ackermans - manuscriptThe last two decades have seen a heated debate between "halfers" and "thirders": those who believe Sleeping Beauty’s credence in a coin landing heads is 1/2 and those who believe it is 1/3 – as well as quite some alternative positions. This paper attempts to settle the debate in favour of thirdism. I present a new argument for thirdism which cannot be resisted using any of the previously used halfer strategies. My argument uses an analogy in which Sleeping Beauty has (...)
- Center indifference and skepticism.David Builes - 2024 - Noûs 58 (3):778-798.Many philosophers have been attracted to a restricted version of the principle of indifference in the case of self‐locating belief. Roughly speaking, this principle states that, within any given possible world, one should be indifferent between different hypotheses concerning who one is within that possible world, so long as those hypotheses are compatible with one's evidence. My first goal is to defend a more precise version of this principle. After responding to several existing criticisms of such a principle, I argue (...)
- (1 other version)“Xuất khẩu” BMF sang châu Phi qua “ngả đường” Indonesia.Công Thường - 2024 - Tạp Chí Khoa Học Và Công Nghệ.Mới đây, phương pháp phân tích BMF (Bayesian Mindsponge Framework) do các nhà khoa học Việt Nam phát triển đang được triển khai ở Đại học Pretoria (Nam Phi). Đáng chú ý, việc phát triển tiếp các ứng dụng của phương pháp có xuất xứ từ Việt Nam lại được thực hiện bởi một nhà nghiên cứu trẻ tại Đại học Công giáo Widya Mandala Surabaya của Indonesia, tên là Ni Putu Wulan Purnama Sari.
- On Algebra Relativisation.Chloé de Canson - forthcoming - Mind.Katie Steele and H. Orri Stefánsson argue that, to reflect an agent’s limited awareness, the algebra of propositions on which that agent’s credences are defined should be relativised to their awareness state. I argue that this produces insurmountable difficulties. But the project of relativising the agent’s algebra to reflect their partial perspective need not be abandoned: the algebra can be relativised, not to the agent’s awareness state, but to what we might call their subjective modality.
- A Higher-Order Credal Account of Suspension (and Other Doxastic Attitudes).Peter Brössel & Eder Anna-Maria - 2025 - In Verena Wagner & Zinke Alexandra, Suspension in epistemology and beyond. New York, NY: Routledge.When is it (epistemically) rational to suspend judgment on a proposition? Before addressing this question, one has to clarify what suspension of judgment (in short: suspension) is and establish rationality standards for the attitudes that constitute suspension. Ideally, suspending can be reduced to attitudes for which one already has established rationality standards. This paper distinguishes two kinds of suspension, weak and strong, and offers a reductionist account of suspension based on credence. However, it does not reduce suspension to credence alone (...)
- Should Clergy be Exempt From Mandatory Reporting Laws?Levi Durham - 2024 - Public Affairs Quarterly 38 (4):330-349.Mandatory reporting laws are one of the main tools that governments in the US use to curb abuse. While clergy have historically been exempted from these laws, this privilege has increasingly come under fire. This essay argues a certain degree of clergy privilege is warranted. Specifically, it argues three main points. First, laws that require every adult to report credible evidence of abuse are problematic and ought to be repealed. Second, if religion is special, there should be widespread exemptions for (...)
- Nhìn lại 5 năm phát triển chương trình phân tích thống kê Bayes của người Việt.Nguyễn Thị Hồng Huệ - 2024 - Kinh Tế Và Dự Báo (28/4/2024).Chỉ còn một vài ngày nữa cả nước ta sẽ đón chào ngày lễ Quốc tế Lao động 1/5. Sẽ thật ý nghĩa khi ta kiểm đếm và nhìn lại các tác động và giá trị của thành quả lao động trước đây, để từ đó tạo động lực cùng hướng tới tương lai hăng say lao động.
- Natural Theology and Divine Freedom.Philipp Kremers - 2024 - Sophia 63 (1):135-150.Many philosophers of theistic religions claim (1) that there are powerful a posteriori arguments for God’s existence that make it rational to believe that He exists and at the same time maintain (2) that God always has the freedom to do otherwise. In this article, I argue that these two positions are inconsistent because the empirical evidence on which the a posteriori arguments for God’s existence rest can be explained better by positing the existence of a God-like being without the (...)
- Knowledge of One's Own Credences.T. Parent - 2025 - In Adam Andreotta & Benjamin Winokur, New perspectives on transparency and self-knowledge. New York, NY: Routledge.This paper begins with a problem stemming from Hume regarding credences about credences. Suppose one has a credence of .95 in p, and suppose one assesses the credence to be such. But suppose one’s second-order credence in this assessment is less than 1. Then, by a standard conditionalization rule, one’s credence in p becomes less than .95. Moreover, such “erosion” can iterate by considering one’s, third-, fourth-, fifth-order credences, etc. (In light of this, some have rejected higher-order credences; however, it (...)
- Empirical evidence for moral Bayesianism.Haim Cohen, Ittay Nissan-Rozen & Anat Maril - 2024 - Philosophical Psychology 37 (4):801-830.Many philosophers in the field of meta-ethics believe that rational degrees of confidence in moral judgments should have a probabilistic structure, in the same way as do rational degrees of belief. The current paper examines this position, termed “moral Bayesianism,” from an empirical point of view. To this end, we assessed the extent to which degrees of moral judgments obey the third axiom of the probability calculus, ifP(A∩B)=0thenP(A∪B)=P(A)+P(B), known as finite additivity, as compared to degrees of beliefs on the one (...)
- Non-Ideal Decision Theory.Sven Neth - 2023 - Dissertation, University of California, BerkeleyMy dissertation is about Bayesian rationality for non-ideal agents. I show how to derive subjective probabilities from preferences using much weaker rationality assumptions than other standard representation theorems. I argue that non-ideal agents might be uncertain about how they will update on new information and consider two consequences of this uncertainty: such agents should sometimes reject free information and make choices which, taken together, yield sure loss. The upshot is that Bayesian rationality for non-ideal agents makes very different normative demands (...)
- The Resurrection of the Messianic Prophet.Joshua Sijuwade - forthcoming - Philosophy and Theology.This article aims to provide an a posteriori argument for the veracity of the Christian conception of the Abrahamic religion that centres on God’s action of sending a divine and atoning prophet—the ‘Messianic Prophet’—into the world, who we can identify as the person of Jesus of Nazareth. This specific argument will be presented through Richard Swinburne’s (modified) explanatory framework, which focuses on assessing the prior and posterior evidence in support of this identification. This, however, will be done in light of (...)
- Rational updating at the crossroads.Silvia Milano & Andrés Perea - 2024 - Economics and Philosophy 40 (1):190-211.In this paper we explore the absentminded driver problem using two different scenarios. In the first scenario we assume that the driver is capable of reasoning about his degree of absentmindedness before he hits the highway. This leads to a Savage-style model where the states are mutually exclusive and the act-state independence is in place. In the second we employ centred possibilities, by modelling the states (i.e. the events about which the driver is uncertain) as the possible final destinations indexed (...)
- Suspension of judgment, non-additivity, and additivity of possibilities.Aldo Filomeno - forthcoming - Acta Analytica:1-22.In situations where we ignore everything but the space of possibilities, we ought to suspend judgment—that is, remain agnostic—about which of these possibilities is the case. This means that we cannot sum our degrees of belief in different possibilities, something that has been formalized as an axiom of non-additivity. Consistent with this way of representing our ignorance, I defend a doxastic norm that recommends that we should nevertheless follow a certain additivity of possibilities: even if we cannot sum degrees of (...)
- Học liệu BMF analytics hiện diện tại Harvard University HOLLIS.Tổ Kỹ Thuật Aisdl - 2024 - Bmf Method.Cuốn tài liệu học thuật trình bày phương pháp “BMF analytics” hiện đã bước sang năm thứ ba phục vụ cộng đồng nghiên cứu. Cuốn sách đã góp phần hỗ trợ nhiều nhà nghiên cứu trẻ triển khai và hoàn thành công việc.
- The BMF analytics title at Harvard University HOLLIS.A. I. S. D. L. Team - 2024 - Sm3D Portal.The methodology title on BMF analytics is now in its third year of service to our research community, enabling many researchers to implement their research pursuits. We recently stumbled upon its listing on the Harvard University Library HOLLIS system. Its appearance at the Harvard University HOLLIS helps boost our confidence and strengthen our determination to bring its uses to the community, together with the computing capabilities of the bayesvl R package.
- The Chances of Choices.Reuben Stern - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.It is sometimes thought that if we treat decision-theoretic options as interventions, then we can use evidential decision theory to vindicate causal dominance reasoning. This is supposed to be guaranteed by a causal modeling axiom that implies that interventions are probabilistically independent of their non-effects—namely, the Causal Markov Condition. But there are two concerns for this line of reasoning. First, the Causal Markov Condition doesn’t imply that an agent should regard their intervention as probabilistically independent from its non-effects when the (...)
- Cuộc thảo luận kỳ quặc của 3 ông bói cá.P. V. Chẫu Quê - 2024 - Bayesvl 2..Đến khúc này, 3 ông bói cá cũng bí nên chuyển chủ đề. Hướng sang vấn đề ăn cá vậy. Đây là vấn đề truyền thống lâu đời. Có chuyện gì lớn?
- The Epistemic and the Deontic Preface Paradox.Lina Maria Lissia & Jan Sprenger - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.This paper generalizes the preface paradox beyond the conjunctive aggregation of beliefs and constructs an analogous paradox for deontic reasoning. The analysis of the deontic case suggests a systematic restriction of intuitive rules for reasoning with obligations. This proposal can be transferred to the epistemic case: it avoids the preface and the lottery paradox and saves one of the two directions of the Lockean Thesis (i.e., high credence is sufficient, but not necessary for rational belief). The resulting account compares favorably (...)
- ‘Stargazing’ and p-hacking behaviours in social sciences: some insights from a developing country.Quan-Hoang Vuong, Tung Manh Ho & Phuong Viet La - 2019 - European Science Editing 45 (2):54-55.The persistence of “stargazing,” p-hacking and HARKing4 are among the main causes for the severity of the irreproducibility problem in social sciences.
- Bayesians Commit the Gambler's Fallacy.Kevin Dorst - manuscriptThe gambler’s fallacy is the tendency to expect random processes to switch more often than they actually do—for example, to think that after a string of tails, a heads is more likely. It’s often taken to be evidence for irrationality. It isn’t. Rather, it’s to be expected from a group of Bayesians who begin with causal uncertainty, and then observe unbiased data from an (in fact) statistically independent process. Although they converge toward the truth, they do so in an asymmetric (...)
- Sơ kết năm 2023 của bayesvl.Hannah Chau - 2024 - Bayesvl.Trưa ngày 1-1 năm mới, R Documentation cho biết mức downloads tạm tính của chương trình bayesvl trong tháng 12-2023. Hiện đang đứng ở mức 157, tháng thấp nhất trong năm.
- Realism and instrumentalism in Bayesian cognitive science.Danielle Williams & Zoe Drayson - 2023 - In Tony Cheng, Ryoji Sato & Jakob Hohwy, Expected Experiences: The Predictive Mind in an Uncertain World. Routledge.There are two distinct approaches to Bayesian modelling in cognitive science. Black-box approaches use Bayesian theory to model the relationship between the inputs and outputs of a cognitive system without reference to the mediating causal processes; while mechanistic approaches make claims about the neural mechanisms which generate the outputs from the inputs. This paper concerns the relationship between these two approaches. We argue that the dominant trend in the philosophical literature, which characterizes the relationship between black-box and mechanistic approaches to (...)$52.95 new (collection) View on Amazon.comRemove from this list Direct download (2 more)Export citation
Bookmark 2 citations - Tác động của việc giới thiệu bayesvl qua chương trình VIASM HANU lên lượng tải về.Nguyễn Phương Tri - 2023 - Bmf Analytics.Từ thực tế dữ liệu, có thể thấy nếu như mức độ quan tâm ứng dụng thực sự của BMF analytics cho công việc trở nên phổ biến, thì khả năng bayesvl sẽ được tải về và sử dụng sẽ có nhiều cơ hội để cải thiện.
- BMF Analytics Training Course at VIASM HANU Conference.A. I. S. D. L. Team - 2023 - Viasm-Hanu.On November 3 and 4, 2023, Dr. Nguyen Minh Hoang (Phenikaa University), co-author of the BMF Analytics [1], gave a lecture on computational approaches using bayesvl and BMF application for social science research.
- BMF tại khóa học VIASM HANU.Chẫu Chàng - 2023 - Bmf.TS. Nguyễn Minh Hoàng (ĐH Phenikaa), đã giảng bài về tiếp cận tính toán sử dụng bayesvl và ứng dụng BMF cho công việc nghiên cứu KHXH.
- Slurs' variability, emotional dimensions, and game-theoretic pragmatics.Víctor Carranza-Pinedo - 2023 - In D. Bekki, K. Mineshima & E. McCready, Logic and Engineering of Natural Language Semantics. LENLS 2022. Springer.Slurs’ meaning is highly unstable. A slurring utterance like ‘Hey, F, where have you been?’ (where F is a slur) may receive a wide array of interpretations depending on various contextual factors such as the speaker’s social identity, their relationship to the target group, tone of voice, and more. Standard semantic, pragmatic, and non-content theories of slurs have proposed different mechanisms to account for some or all types of variability observed, but without providing a unified framework that allows us to (...)
- Waarom we beter denken dan we denken.Maarten van Doorn - 2023 - Noordboek Uitgeverij.Genomineerd voor de Socratesbeker 2024. De mens is irrationeel. Verliefd op zijn eigen gelijk. Doof voor feiten argumenten. Verblind door honderden denkfouten. Een makkelijke prooi voor nepnieuws. Gevangen in filterbubbels. Zo is het heersende idee. Maar klopt het wel? In dit boek verweeft filosoof Maarten van Doorn de jongste inzichten uit de psychologie, communicatiewetenschappen, filosofie en politicologie. Hij neemt ons mee op een reis langs verrassende onderzoeksresultaten en scherpzinnige filosofen en geeft nieuwe antwoorden op dringende vragen: Waarom geloven we wat (...)
- Towards an empirically informed normative Bayesian scheme-based account of argument from expert opinion.Kong Ngai Pei & Chin Shing Arthur Chin - 2023 - Thinking and Reasoning 29 (4):726-759.This article seeks, first, to show that much of the existing normative work on argument from expert opinion (AEO) is problematic for failing to be properly informed by empirical findings on expert performance. Second, it seeks to show how, with the analytic tool of Bayesian reasoning, the problem diagnosed can be remedied to circumvent some of the problems facing the scheme-based treatment of AEOs. To establish the first contention, we will illustrate how empirical studies on factors conditioning expert reliability can (...)
- Probability for Trivalent Conditionals.Paul Égré, Lorenzo Rossi & Jan Sprenger - manuscriptThis paper presents a unified theory of the truth conditions and probability of indicative conditionals and their compounds in a trivalent framework. The semantics validates a Reduction Theorem: any compound of conditionals is semantically equivalent to a simple conditional. This allows us to validate Stalnaker's Thesis in full generality and to use Adams's notion of $p$-validity as a criterion for valid inference. Finally, this gives us an elegant account of Bayesian update with indicative conditionals, establishing that despite differences in meaning, (...)
- Rational Aversion to Information.Sven Neth - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.Is more information always better? Or are there some situations in which more information can make us worse off? Good (1967) argues that expected utility maximizers should always accept more information if the information is cost-free and relevant. But Good's argument presupposes that you are certain you will update by conditionalization. If we relax this assumption and allow agents to be uncertain about updating, these agents can be rationally required to reject free and relevant information. Since there are good reasons (...)
- Learning from experience and conditionalization.Peter Brössel - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (9):2797-2823.Bayesianism can be characterized as the following twofold position: (i) rational credences obey the probability calculus; (ii) rational learning, i.e., the updating of credences, is regulated by some form of conditionalization. While the formal aspect of various forms of conditionalization has been explored in detail, the philosophical application to learning from experience is still deeply problematic. Some philosophers have proposed to revise the epistemology of perception; others have provided new formal accounts of conditionalization that are more in line with how (...)
- Credal imprecision and the value of evidence.Nilanjan Das - 2023 - Noûs 57 (3):684-721.This paper is about a tension between two theses. The first is Value of Evidence: roughly, the thesis that it is always rational for an agent to gather and use cost‐free evidence for making decisions. The second is Rationality of Imprecision: the thesis that an agent can be rationally required to adopt doxastic states that are imprecise, i.e., not representable by a single credence function. While others have noticed this tension, I offer a new diagnosis of it. I show that (...)
- The Myside Bias in Argument Evaluation: A Bayesian Model.Edoardo Baccini & Stephan Hartmann - 2022 - Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society 44:1512-1518.The "myside bias'' in evaluating arguments is an empirically well-confirmed phenomenon that consists of overweighting arguments that endorse one's beliefs or attack alternative beliefs while underweighting arguments that attack one's beliefs or defend alternative beliefs. This paper makes two contributions: First, it proposes a probabilistic model that adequately captures three salient features of myside bias in argument evaluation. Second, it provides a Bayesian justification of this model, thus showing that myside bias has a rational Bayesian explanation under certain conditions.
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