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Interpretations of probability

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2007)

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  1. The Cognitive Science of Credence.Elizabeth Jackson - forthcoming - In Neil Van Leeuwen & Tania Lombrozo (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Cognitive Science of Belief. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
    Credences are similar to levels of confidence, represented as a value on the [0,1] interval. This chapter sheds light on questions about credence, including its relationship to full belief, with an eye toward the empirical relevance of credence. First, I’ll provide a brief epistemological history of credence and lay out some of the main theories of the nature of credence. Then, I’ll provide an overview of the main views on how credences relate to full beliefs. Finally, I’ll turn to the (...)
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  • The Oxford Handbook of the Cognitive Science of Belief.Neil Van Leeuwen & Tania Lombrozo (eds.) - forthcoming - Oxford University Press: Oxford.
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  • The landscape of affective meaning.Víctor Carranza-Pinedo - 2022 - Dissertation, Institut Jean Nicod
    Swear words are highly colloquial expressions that have the capacity to signal the speaker's affective states, i.e., to display the speaker's feelings with respect to a certain stimulus. For this reason, swear words are often called 'expressives'. Which linguistic mechanisms allow swear words display affective states, and, more importantly, how can such 'affective content' be characterized in a theory of meaning? Even though research on expressive meaning has produced models that integrate the affective aspects of swear words in a compositional (...)
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  • Just probabilities.Chad Lee-Stronach - 2024 - Noûs 58 (4):948-972.
    I defend the thesis that legal standards of proof are reducible to thresholds of probability. Many reject this thesis because it appears to permit finding defendants liable solely on the basis of statistical evidence. To the contrary, I argue – by combining Thomson's (1986) causal analysis of legal evidence with formal methods of causal inference – that legal standards of proof can be reduced to probabilities, but that deriving these probabilities involves more than just statistics.
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  • The Luckiest of All Possible Beings: Divine Perfections and Constitutive Luck.Andre Leo Rusavuk - 2024 - Sophia 63 (2):259-277.
    Many theists conceive of God as a perfect being, i.e., as that than which none greater is metaphysically possible. On this grand view of God, it seems plausible to think that such a supreme and maximally great being would not be subject to luck of any sort. Given the divine perfections, God is completely insulated from luck. However, I argue that the opposite is true: precisely because God is perfect, he is subject to a kind of luck called constitutive luck. (...)
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  • The Reliable Route from Nonmoral Evidence to Moral Conclusions.Neil Sinhababu - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (6):2321-2341.
    We can infer moral conclusions from nonmoral evidence using a three-step procedure. First, we distinguish the processes generating belief so that their reliability in generating true belief is statistically predictable. Second, we assess the processes’ reliability, perhaps by observing how frequently they generate true nonmoral belief or logically inconsistent beliefs. Third, we adjust our credence in moral propositions in light of the truth ratios of the processes generating beliefs in them. This inferential route involves empirically discovering truths of the form (...)
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  • Hypothetical Frequencies as Approximations.Jer Steeger - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (4):1295-1325.
    Hájek (Erkenntnis 70(2):211–235, 2009) argues that probabilities cannot be the limits of relative frequencies in counterfactual infinite sequences. I argue for a different understanding of these limits, drawing on Norton’s (Philos Sci 79(2):207–232, 2012) distinction between approximations (inexact descriptions of a target) and idealizations (separate models that bear analogies to the target). Then, I adapt Hájek’s arguments to this new context. These arguments provide excellent reasons not to use hypothetical frequencies as idealizations, but no reason not to use them as (...)
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  • Understanding probability and irreversibility in the Mori-Zwanzig projection operator formalism.Michael te Vrugt - 2022 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 12 (3):1-36.
    Explaining the emergence of stochastic irreversible macroscopic dynamics from time-reversible deterministic microscopic dynamics is one of the key problems in philosophy of physics. The Mori-Zwanzig projection operator formalism, which is one of the most important methods of modern nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, allows for a systematic derivation of irreversible transport equations from reversible microdynamics and thus provides a useful framework for understanding this issue. However, discussions of the MZ formalism in philosophy of physics tend to focus on simple variants rather than (...)
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  • A conceptual problem for Stanford’s New Induction.Bruno Malavolta E. Silva - 2022 - Filosofia Unisinos 23 (1):1-11.
    The problem of unconceived alternatives (or the New Induction) states that, since scientists have recurrently failed to conceive relevant theoretical alternatives for some domains of science, current scientists are probably also failing to do so. Therefore, there may be theories which still exceed the grasp of scientists’ imagination, and one should not endorse a realist stance towards current science. In this paper, I raise a conceptual worry for the formulation of this problem: what does it mean to say that scientists (...)
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  • What is the Bad-Difference View of Disability?Thomas Crawley - 2022 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 21 (3).
    The Bad-Difference View of disability says, roughly, that disability makes one worse off. The Mere-Difference View of disability says, roughly, that it doesn’t. In recent work, Barnes – a MDV proponent – offers a detailed exposition of the MDV. No BDV proponent has done the same. While many thinkers make it clear that they endorse a BDV, they don’t carefully articulate their view. In this paper, I clarify the nature of the BDV. I argue that its best interpretation is probabilistic (...)
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  • Uncertain Values: An Axiomatic Approach to Axiological Uncertainty.Stefan Riedener - 2021 - Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter.
    How ought you to evaluate your options if you're uncertain about what's fundamentally valuable? A prominent response is Expected Value Maximisation (EVM)—the view that under axiological uncertainty, an option is better than another if and only if it has the greater expected value across axiologies. But the expected value of an option depends on quantitative probability and value facts, and in particular on value comparisons across axiologies. We need to explain what it is for such facts to hold. Also, EVM (...)
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  • On the appropriate and inappropriate uses of probability distributions in climate projections and some alternatives.Joel Katzav, Erica L. Thompson, James Risbey, David A. Stainforth, Seamus Bradley & Mathias Frisch - 2021 - Climatic Change 169 (15).
    When do probability distribution functions (PDFs) about future climate misrepresent uncertainty? How can we recognise when such misrepresentation occurs and thus avoid it in reasoning about or communicating our uncertainty? And when we should not use a PDF, what should we do instead? In this paper we address these three questions. We start by providing a classification of types of uncertainty and using this classification to illustrate when PDFs misrepresent our uncertainty in a way that may adversely affect decisions. We (...)
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  • Non-Measurability, Imprecise Credences, and Imprecise Chances.Yoaav Isaacs, Alan Hájek & John Hawthorne - 2021 - Mind 131 (523):892-916.
    – We offer a new motivation for imprecise probabilities. We argue that there are propositions to which precise probability cannot be assigned, but to which imprecise probability can be assigned. In such cases the alternative to imprecise probability is not precise probability, but no probability at all. And an imprecise probability is substantially better than no probability at all. Our argument is based on the mathematical phenomenon of non-measurable sets. Non-measurable propositions cannot receive precise probabilities, but there is a natural (...)
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  • Interpreting the probabilities in Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism.Gary Neels - forthcoming - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion:1-13.
    In this paper, I examine Plantinga’s (1993, 2000, 2011) Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN). While there has been much discussion about Plantinga’s use of probabilities in the argument, I contend that insufficient attention has been paid to the question of how we are to interpret those probabilities. In this paper, I argue that views Plantinga defends elsewhere limit the range of interpretations available to him here. The upshot is that the EAAN is more limited in its applicability than Plantinga alleges.
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  • Tracking probabilistic truths: a logic for statistical learning.Alexandru Baltag, Soroush Rafiee Rad & Sonja Smets - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):9041-9087.
    We propose a new model for forming and revising beliefs about unknown probabilities. To go beyond what is known with certainty and represent the agent’s beliefs about probability, we consider a plausibility map, associating to each possible distribution a plausibility ranking. Beliefs are defined as in Belief Revision Theory, in terms of truth in the most plausible worlds. We consider two forms of conditioning or belief update, corresponding to the acquisition of two types of information: learning observable evidence obtained by (...)
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  • A Refined Propensity Account for GRW Theory.Lorenzo Lorenzetti - 2021 - Foundations of Physics 51 (2):1-20.
    Spontaneous collapse theories of quantum mechanics turn the usual Schrödinger equation into a stochastic dynamical law. In particular, in this paper, I will focus on the GRW theory. Two philosophical issues that can be raised about GRW concern (i) the ontology of the theory, in particular the nature of the wave function and its role within the theory, and (ii) the interpretation of the objective probabilities involved in the dynamics of the theory. During the last years, it has been claimed (...)
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  • The nomological argument for the existence of God.Tyler Hildebrand & Thomas Metcalf - 2021 - Noûs 56 (2):443-472.
    According to the Nomological Argument, observed regularities in nature are best explained by an appeal to a supernatural being. A successful explanation must avoid two perils. Some explanations provide too little structure, predicting a universe without regularities. Others provide too much structure, thereby precluding an explanation of certain types of lawlike regularities featured in modern scientific theories. We argue that an explanation based in the creative, intentional action of a supernatural being avoids these two perils whereas leading competitors do not. (...)
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  • Fragmentation and Old Evidence.Will Fleisher - 2023 - Episteme 20 (3):542-567.
    Bayesian confirmation theory is our best formal framework for describing inductive reasoning. The problem of old evidence is a particularly difficult one for confirmation theory, because it suggests that this framework fails to account for central and important cases of inductive reasoning and scientific inference. I show that we can appeal to the fragmentation of doxastic states to solve this problem for confirmation theory. This fragmentation solution is independently well-motivated because of the success of fragmentation in solving other problems. I (...)
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  • Truth and Gradability.Jared Henderson - 2021 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 50 (4):755-779.
    I argue for two claims: that the ordinary English truth predicate is a gradable adjective and that truth is a property that comes in degrees. The first is a semantic claim, motivated by the linguistic evidence and the similarity of the truth predicate’s behavior to other gradable terms. The second is a claim in natural language metaphysics, motivated by interpreting the best semantic analysis of gradable terms as applied to the truth predicate. In addition to providing arguments for these two (...)
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  • (1 other version)Calling for Explanation.Dan Baras - 2022 - New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
    The idea that there are some facts that call for explanation serves as an unexamined premise in influential arguments for the inexistence of moral or mathematical facts and for the existence of a god and of other universes. This book is the first to offer a comprehensive and critical treatment of this idea. It argues that calling for explanation is a sometimes-misleading figure of speech rather than a fundamental property of facts.
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  • The Epistemic Threat of Deepfakes.Don Fallis - 2020 - Philosophy and Technology 34 (4):623-643.
    Deepfakes are realistic videos created using new machine learning techniques rather than traditional photographic means. They tend to depict people saying and doing things that they did not actually say or do. In the news media and the blogosphere, the worry has been raised that, as a result of deepfakes, we are heading toward an “infopocalypse” where we cannot tell what is real from what is not. Several philosophers have now issued similar warnings. In this paper, I offer an analysis (...)
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  • Bell’s Theorem, Quantum Probabilities, and Superdeterminism.Eddy Keming Chen - 2022 - In Eleanor Knox & Alastair Wilson (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Physics. London, UK: Routledge.
    In this short survey article, I discuss Bell’s theorem and some strategies that attempt to avoid the conclusion of non-locality. I focus on two that intersect with the philosophy of probability: (1) quantum probabilities and (2) superdeterminism. The issues they raised not only apply to a wide class of no-go theorems about quantum mechanics but are also of general philosophical interest.
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  • Warum intellektuelle Toleranz nicht irrational ist.Dominik Balg - 2020 - Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 34 (3):51-78.
    When it comes to disagreements about religious, moral or political questions, many people consider a tolerant ‘live-and-let-live’ attitude to be the best reaction toward conflicting opinions. However, many epistemologists are rather skeptical about the epistemic acceptability of such a tolerant attitude. More specifically, the worry is that a tolerant reaction toward recognized disagreement is necessarily epistemically irrational. After setting out this worry in a little more detail, I will present and discuss three different arguments for the epistemic irrationality of a (...)
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  • Objectivity and the Method of Arbitrary Functions.Chloé de Canson - 2022 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 73 (3):663-684.
    There is widespread excitement in the literature about the method of arbitrary functions: many take it to show that it is from the dynamics of systems that the objectivity of probabilities emerge. In this paper, I differentiate three ways in which a probability function might be objective, and I argue that the method of arbitrary functions cannot help us show that dynamics objectivise probabilities in any of these senses.
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  • Statistical Inference and the Plethora of Probability Paradigms: A Principled Pluralism.Mark L. Taper, Gordon Brittan Jr & Prasanta S. Bandyopadhyay - manuscript
    The major competing statistical paradigms share a common remarkable but unremarked thread: in many of their inferential applications, different probability interpretations are combined. How this plays out in different theories of inference depends on the type of question asked. We distinguish four question types: confirmation, evidence, decision, and prediction. We show that Bayesian confirmation theory mixes what are intuitively “subjective” and “objective” interpretations of probability, whereas the likelihood-based account of evidence melds three conceptions of what constitutes an “objective” probability.
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  • La valeur de l'incertitude : l'évaluation de la précision des mesures physiques et les limites de la connaissance expérimentale.Fabien Grégis - 2016 - Dissertation, Université Sorbonne Paris Cité Université Paris.Diderot (Paris 7)
    Abstract : A measurement result is never absolutely accurate: it is affected by an unknown “measurement error” which characterizes the discrepancy between the obtained value and the “true value” of the quantity intended to be measured. As a consequence, to be acceptable a measurement result cannot take the form of a unique numerical value, but has to be accompanied by an indication of its “measurement uncertainty”, which enunciates a state of doubt. What, though, is the value of measurement uncertainty? What (...)
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  • Evidential Probabilities and Credences.Anna-Maria Asunta Eder - 2023 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74 (1):1 -23.
    Enjoying great popularity in decision theory, epistemology, and philosophy of science, Bayesianism as understood here is fundamentally concerned with epistemically ideal rationality. It assumes a tight connection between evidential probability and ideally rational credence, and usually interprets evidential probability in terms of such credence. Timothy Williamson challenges Bayesianism by arguing that evidential probabilities cannot be adequately interpreted as the credences of an ideal agent. From this and his assumption that evidential probabilities cannot be interpreted as the actual credences of human (...)
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  • Is Logic Distinctively Normative?Ivar Labukt - 2019 - Erkenntnis 86 (4):1025-1043.
    Logic is widely held to be a normative discipline. Various claims have been offered in support of this view, but they all revolve around the idea that logic is concerned with how one ought to reason. I argue that most of these claims—while perhaps correct—only entail that logic is normative in a way that many, if not all, intellectual disciplines are normative. I also identify some claims whose correctness would make logic normative in a way that sets it apart from (...)
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  • Conditional Probabilities.Kenny Easwaran - 2019 - In Richard Pettigrew & Jonathan Weisberg (eds.), The Open Handbook of Formal Epistemology. PhilPapers Foundation. pp. 131-198.
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  • Full & Partial Belief.Konstantin Genin - 2019 - In Richard Pettigrew & Jonathan Weisberg (eds.), The Open Handbook of Formal Epistemology. PhilPapers Foundation. pp. 437-498.
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  • The Nature of Appearance in Kant’s Transcendentalism: A Seman- tico-Cognitive Analysis.Sergey L. Katrechko - 2018 - Kantian Journal 37 (3):41-55.
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  • A Scientific Metaphysical Naturalisation of Information.Bruce Long - 2018 - Dissertation, University of Sydney
    The objective of this thesis is to present a naturalised metaphysics of information, or to naturalise information, by way of deploying a scientific metaphysics according to which contingency is privileged and a-priori conceptual analysis is excluded (or at least greatly diminished) in favour of contingent and defeasible metaphysics. The ontology of information is established according to the premises and mandate of the scientific metaphysics by inference to the best explanation, and in accordance with the idea that the primacy of physics (...)
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  • Post-perceptual confidence and supervaluative matching profile.Tony Cheng - 2022 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 65 (3):249-277.
    ABSTRACT Issues concerning the putative perception/cognition divide are not only age-old, but also resurface in contemporary discussions in various forms. In this paper, I connect a relatively new debate concerning perceptual confidence to the perception/cognition divide. The term ‘perceptual confidence’ is quite common in the empirical literature, but there is an unsettled question about it, namely: are confidence assignments perceptual or post-perceptual? John Morrison in two recent papers puts forward the claim that confidence arises already at the level of perception. (...)
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  • What Are the Odds that Everyone is Depraved?Scott Hill - 2020 - American Philosophical Quarterly 57 (3):299-308.
    Why does God allow evil? One hypothesis is that God desires the existence and activity of free creatures but He was unable to create a world with such creatures and such activity without also allowing evil. If Molinism is true, what probability should be assigned to this hypothesis? Some philosophers claim that a low probability should be assigned because there are an infinite number of possible people and because we have no reason to suppose that such creatures will choose one (...)
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  • Background beliefs and plausibility thresholds: defending explanationist evidentialism.Matt Lutz - 2020 - Synthese 197 (6):2631-2647.
    In a recent paper, Appley and Stoutenburg present two new objections to Explanationist Evidentialism : the Regress Objection and the Threshold Objection. In this paper, I develop a version of EE that is independently plausible and empirically grounded, and show that it can meet Appley and Stoutenburg’s objections.
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  • W(h)ither Metaphysical Necessity?John Divers - 2018 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 92 (1):1-25.
    I argue that a pragmatic scepticism about metaphysical modality is a perfectly reasonable position to maintain. I then illustrate the difficulties and limitations associated with some strategies for defeating such scepticism. These strategies appeal to associations between metaphysical modality and the following: objective probability, counterfactuals and distinctive explanatory value.
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  • Subjective Probability and its Dynamics.Alan Hajek & Julia Staffel - 2021 - In Markus Knauff & Wolfgang Spohn (eds.), The Handbook of Rationality. London: MIT Press.
    This chapter is a philosophical survey of some leading approaches in formal epistemology in the so-called ‘Bayesian’ tradition. According to them, a rational agent’s degrees of belief—credences—at a time are representable with probability functions. We also canvas various further putative ‘synchronic’ rationality norms on credences. We then consider ‘diachronic’ norms that are thought to constrain how credences should respond to evidence. We discuss some of the main lines of recent debate, and conclude with some prospects for future research.
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  • On being difficult: towards an account of the nature of difficulty.Hasko von Kriegstein - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (1):45-64.
    This paper critically assesses existing accounts of the nature of difficulty, finds them wanting, and proposes a new account. The concept of difficulty is routinely invoked in debates regarding degrees of moral responsibility, and the value of achievement. Until recently, however, there has not been any sustained attempt to provide an account of the nature of difficulty itself. This has changed with Gwen Bradford’s Achievement, which argues that difficulty is a matter of how much intense effort is expended. But while (...)
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  • An Empiricist's Guide to Objective Modality.Jenann Ismael - 2017 - In Matthew H. Slater & Zanja Yudell (eds.), Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science: New Essays. New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 109-125.
    In this paper, I defend an empiricist account of modality that keeps a substantive account of modal commitment, but throws out the metaphysics. I suggest that if we pair a deflationary attitude toward representation with a substantive account of how scientific models are constructed and put to use, the result is an account that deflates the metaphysics of modal commitment without deflating the content of modal claims.
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  • The Implementation, Interpretation, and Justification of Likelihoods in Cosmology.C. D. McCoy - 2018 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 62:19-35.
    I discuss the formal implementation, interpretation, and justification of likelihood attributions in cosmology. I show that likelihood arguments in cosmology suffer from significant conceptual and formal problems that undermine their applicability in this context.
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  • Rationality and Moral Risk: A Moderate Defense of Hedging.Christian Tarsney - 2017 - Dissertation, University of Maryland
    How should an agent decide what to do when she is uncertain not just about morally relevant empirical matters, like the consequences of some course of action, but about the basic principles of morality itself? This question has only recently been taken up in a systematic way by philosophers. Advocates of moral hedging claim that an agent should weigh the reasons put forward by each moral theory in which she has positive credence, considering both the likelihood that that theory is (...)
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  • The Logic of “Most” and “Mostly”.Corina Strößner - 2018 - Axiomathes 28 (1):107-124.
    The paper suggests a modal predicate logic that deals with classical quantification and modalities as well as intermediate operators, like “most” and “mostly”. Following up the theory of generalized quantifiers, we will understand them as two-placed operators and call them determiners. Quantifiers as well as modal operators will be constructed from them. Besides the classical deduction, we discuss a weaker probabilistic inference “therefore, probably” defined by symmetrical probability measures in Carnap’s style. The given probabilistic inference relates intermediate quantification to singular (...)
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  • (1 other version)What is Logical about the Logical Interpretation of Probability?Torfehnezhad Parzhad - 2016 - Abstracta 9 (1).
    My goal, in this paper, is to critically assess the categorization of “interpretations of probability” as it appears in the literature. In some sources only Carnap’s treatment of probability is understood to be the best example of “logical” probability. This is surprisingly narrow and I will here suggest otherwise. In fact, I believe that certain forms of Baysianism should also be included in the logical camp.
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  • Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing? A Logical Investigation.Jan Heylen - 2017 - Erkenntnis 82 (3):531-559.
    From Leibniz to Krauss philosophers and scientists have raised the question as to why there is something rather than nothing. Why-questions request a type of explanation and this is often thought to include a deductive component. With classical logic in the background only trivial answers are forthcoming. With free logics in the background, be they of the negative, positive or neutral variety, only question-begging answers are to be expected. The same conclusion is reached for the modal version of the Question, (...)
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  • Bayesian Confirmation: A Means with No End.Peter Brössel & Franz Huber - 2015 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (4):737-749.
    Any theory of confirmation must answer the following question: what is the purpose of its conception of confirmation for scientific inquiry? In this article, we argue that no Bayesian conception of confirmation can be used for its primary intended purpose, which we take to be making a claim about how worthy of belief various hypotheses are. Then we consider a different use to which Bayesian confirmation might be put, namely, determining the epistemic value of experimental outcomes, and thus to decide (...)
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  • Probability in ethics.David McCarthy - 2016 - In Alan Hájek & Christopher Hitchcock (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Probability and Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 705–737.
    The article is a plea for ethicists to regard probability as one of their most important concerns. It outlines a series of topics of central importance in ethical theory in which probability is implicated, often in a surprisingly deep way, and lists a number of open problems. Topics covered include: interpretations of probability in ethical contexts; the evaluative and normative significance of risk or uncertainty; uses and abuses of expected utility theory; veils of ignorance; Harsanyi’s aggregation theorem; population size problems; (...)
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  • Robustness, Diversity of Evidence, and Probabilistic Independence.Jonah N. Schupbach - 2015 - In Uskali Mäki, Stéphanie Ruphy, Gerhard Schurz & Ioannis Votsis (eds.), Recent Developments in the Philosophy of Science. Cham: Springer. pp. 305-316.
    In robustness analysis, hypotheses are supported to the extent that a result proves robust, and a result is robust to the extent that we detect it in diverse ways. But what precise sense of diversity is at work here? In this paper, I show that the formal explications of evidential diversity most often appealed to in work on robustness – which all draw in one way or another on probabilistic independence – fail to shed light on the notion of diversity (...)
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  • The Propensity Interpretation of Probability: A Re-evaluation.Joseph Berkovitz - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (S3):629-711.
    Single-case and long-run propensity theories are among the main objective interpretations of probability. There have been various objections to these theories, e.g. that it is difficult to explain why propensities should satisfy the probability axioms and, worse, that propensities are at odds with these axioms, that the explication of propensities is circular and accordingly not informative, and that single-case propensities are metaphysical and accordingly non-scientific. We consider various propensity theories of probability and their prospects in light of these objections. We (...)
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  • Being at the Centre: Self-location in Thought and Language.Clas Weber - 2016 - In Manuel García-Carpintero & Stephan Torre (eds.), About Oneself: De Se Thought and Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 246-271.
    Self-locating attitudes and assertions provide a challenge to the received view of mental and linguistic intentionality. In this paper I try to show that the best way to meet this challenge is to adopt relativistic, centred possible worlds accounts for both belief and communication. First, I argue that self-locating beliefs support a centred account of belief. Second, I argue that self-locating utterances support a complementary centred account of communication. Together, these two claims motivate a unified centred conception of belief and (...)
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  • Probability and Logic.Kenny Easwaran - 2014 - Philosophy Compass 9 (12):876-883.
    Probability and logic are two branches of mathematics that have important philosophical applications. This article discusses several areas of intersection between them. Several involve the role for probability in giving semantics for logic or the role of logic in governing assignments of probability. Some involve probability over non-classical logic or self-referential sentences.
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