Introducing a new variant on Bayesian decision theory the author offers a compelling case that, while no panacea, decision theory does in fact have the most profound consequences for the way in which philosophers think about inquiry, criticism and rational belief. The new variant on Bayesian theory is presented in such a way that a nonspecialist will be able to understand it. The book also offers new solutions to some classic paradoxes. It focuses on the intuitive motivations of the Bayesian approach to epistemology and addresses the philosophical worries to which it has given rise.

This is the first of a three-volume collection of David Lewis's most recent papers in all the areas to which he has made significant contributions. The purpose of this collection (and the two volumes to follow) is to disseminate even more widely the work of a preeminent and influential late twentieth-century philosopher. The papers are now offered in a readily accessible format. This first volume is devoted to Lewis's work on philosophical logic from the last twenty-five years. The topics covered include: deploying the methods of formal semantics from artificial formalised languages to natural languages, model-theoretic investigations of intensional logic, contradiction, relevance, the differences between analog and digital representation, and questions arising from the construction of ambitious formalised philosophical systems. The volume will serve as an important reference tool for all philosophers and their students.

This is the first of a three-volume collection of David Lewis's most recent papers in all the areas to which he has made significant contributions. The purpose of this collection (and the two volumes to follow) is to disseminate even more widely the work of a preeminent and influential late twentieth-century philosopher. The papers are now offered in a readily accessible format. This first volume is devoted to Lewis's work on philosophical logic from the last twenty-five years. The topics covered include: deploying the methods of formal semantics from artificial formalised languages to natural languages, model-theoretic investigations of intensional logic, contradiction, relevance, the differences between analog and digital representation, and questions arising from the construction of ambitious formalised philosophical systems. The volume will serve as an important reference tool for all philosophers and their students.

Originally published in 1964. This lively, challenging book, written with enthusiasm, conviction and clarity, sets out to elucidate the shadowy concept of Time. This involves central philosophical issues, which are vigorously discussed. Also relativity theory, in a clear-cut exposition, is made intelligible in a new light. All who are interested in science and its philosophical implications will find this book highly controversial but certainly readable. The author believes philosophy to be important, not only for its professionals, but for everyman. He believes that the fact that this is no longer realised shows that something is wrong with professional philosophy; he also indicates what this is. The book ends, surprisingly but pertinently, with a bold plunge into the questions of telepathy, precognition and psychical research generally. Whilst the phenomena are reasonably admitted, trenchant criticism of their significance confronts parapsychologists.

Originally published in 1991. A multidisciplinary guide in the form of a bibliography of selected time-related books and articles divided into 25 existing academic disciplines and about 100 subdisciplines which have a wide application to time studies.

Originally published in 1937. This book is a classic work on the philosophy of time, looking at the pshychology, physics and logic of time before investigating the views of Kant, Bergson, Alexander, McTaggart and Dunne. The second half of the book contains more indepth consideration of prediction, the concepts of past and future, and reality.

This sixth edition of The Power of Logic offers an introduction to informal logic, traditional categorical logic, and modern symbolic logic. The authors' direct and accessible writing style, along with a wealth of engaging examples and challenging exercises, makes this an ideal text for today's logic classes. With balanced and thorough coverage of both informal and symbolic logic, instructors can choose various paths of which they can move through the text depending on the focus of their course, making it a flexible resource for any kind of introductory logic course.

Isaac Levi is one of the preeminent philosophers in the areas of pragmatic rationality and epistemology. This collection of essays constitutes an important presentation of his original and influential ideas about rational choice and belief. A wide range of topics is covered, including consequentialism and sequential choice, consensus, voluntarism of belief, and the tolerance of the opinions of others. The essays elaborate on the idea that principles of rationality are norms that regulate the coherence of our beliefs and values with our rational choices. The norms impose minimal constraints on deliberation and inquiry, but they also impose demands well beyond the capacities of deliberating agents. This major collection will be eagerly sought out by a wide range of philosophers in epistemology, logic, and philosophy of science, as well as economists, decision theorists, and statisticians.

Unlike most texts in critical thinking, Reason in the Balance focuses broadly on the practice of critical inquiry, the process of carefully examining an issue in order to come to a reasoned judgment. Although analysis and critique of individual arguments have an important role to play, this text goes beyond that dimension to emphasize the various aspects that go into the practice of inquiry, including identifying issues and relevant contexts, understanding competing cases, and making a comparative judgment. Distinctive Features of the Text: Emphasis on applying critical thinking to complex issues with competing arguments Inclusion of chapters on inquiry in specific contexts Attention to the dialogical aspects of inquiry, including sample dialogues Emphasis on the spirit of inquiry The Second Edition Features: Updated examples and items of current interest New dialogues on vaccination, prostitution, and climate change New material on biases in reasoning, including emotional, psychological, social, and cognitive The Reason in the Balance Website includes: An Appendix on Logic Exercises Quizzes

Originally published in 1980. What is time? How is its structure determined? The enduring controversy about the nature and structure of time has traditionally been a diametrical argument between those who see time as a container into which events are placed, and those for whom time cannot exist without events. This controversy between the absolutist and the relativist theories of time is a central theme of this study. The author's impressive arguments provide grounds for rejecting both these theories, firstly by establishing that 'empty' time is possible, and secondly by showing, through a discussion of the structure of time which involves considering whether time might be cyclical, branching, beginning or non-beginning, that the absolutist theory of time is untenable. This book then advances two new theories, and succeeds in shifting the traditional debate about time to a consideration of time as a theoretical structure and as a theoretical framework.

This book, first published in 1997, is an introductory overview of decision theory. It is completely non-technical, without a single formula in the book. Written in a crisp and clear style it succinctly covers the full range of philosophical issues of rationality and decision theory, including game theory, social choice theory, prisoner's dilemma and much else. The book aims to expand the scope and enrich the foundations of decision theory. By addressing such issues as ambivalence, inner conflict, and the constraints imposed upon us by our attachments to others, Frederic Schick reveals that our thinking is often more subtle than standard theories of rationality allow. Only a theory that respects that subtlety can illumine what is otherwise puzzling. The book contains many examples drawn from history and literature dealing with subjects such as love, war, friendship, and crime.

This is an important collection of essays dealing with the foundations of probability that will be of value to philosophers of science, mathematicians, statisticians, psychologists and educationalists. The collection falls into three parts. Part I comprises five essays on the axiomatic foundations of probability. Part II contains seven articles on probabilistic causality and quantum mechanics, with an emphasis on the existence of hidden variables. The third part consists of a single extended essay applying probabilistic theories of learning to practical questions of education: it incorporates extensive data analysis. Patrick Suppes is one of the world's foremost philosophers in the area of probability, and has made many contributions to both the theoretical and practical side of education. The statistician Mario Zanotti is a long-time collaborator.

This is an important collection of essays dealing with the foundations of probability that will be of value to philosophers of science, mathematicians, statisticians, psychologists and educationalists. The collection falls into three parts. Part I comprises five essays on the axiomatic foundations of probability. Part II contains seven articles on probabilistic causality and quantum mechanics, with an emphasis on the existence of hidden variables. The third part consists of a single extended essay applying probabilistic theories of learning to practical questions of education: it incorporates extensive data analysis. Patrick Suppes is one of the world's foremost philosophers in the area of probability, and has made many contributions to both the theoretical and practical side of education. The statistician Mario Zanotti is a long-time collaborator.

In informal terms, abductive reasoning involves inferring the best or most plausible explanation from a given set of facts or data. This volume presents new ideas about inferential and information-processing foundations for knowledge and certainty. The authors argue that knowledge arises from experience by processes of abductive inference, in contrast to the view that it arises noninferentially, or that deduction and inductive generalization are enough to account for knowledge. The book tells the story of six generations of increasingly sophisticated generic abduction machines and the discovery of reasoning strategies that make it computationally feasible to form well-justified composite explanatory hypotheses, despite the threat of combinatorial explosion. This book will be of great interest to researchers in AI, cognitive science, and philosophy of science.

Towards Justice and Virtue challenges the rivalry between those who advocate only abstract, universal principles of justice and those who commend only the particularities of virtuous lives. Onora O'Neill traces this impasse to defects in underlying conceptions of reasoning about action. She proposes and vindicates an alternative, more modest, account of ethical reasoning, a reasoned way of answering the question "who counts?," and constructs a linked account of the principles that are basic for moving toward just institutions and virtuous lives.

Professionals today, whether scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, or managers, need to maximize their effectiveness. Real world problems are complex and must be tackled with adequate conceptual tools. Hard work and motivation are not enough. Professionals need to think strategically in order to choose the right problem to solve, to solve it in a cost-effective way, to use resources efficiently, and to be innovative and productive. Written in a concise, accessible style, Thinking Strategically goes beyond brainstorming motivational books to provide the power tools needed to dissect problems and to find innovative solutions. These tools are based on an understanding of the power of bottlenecks, paradox, scale and perspective constraints, and feedback as leverage points for getting a grip on the problem. The result is a practical book for managers and other professionals about the strategic use of effort that can lead to astonishing levels of productivity.

Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole were philosophers and theologians associated with Port-Royal Abbey, a center of the Catholic Jansenist movement in seventeenth-century France. Their enormously influential Logic or the Art of Thinking, which went through five editions in their lifetimes, treats topics in logic, language, theory of knowledge and metaphysics, and also articulates the response of "heretical" Jansenist Catholicism to orthodox Catholic and Protestant views on grace, free will and the sacraments. This edition presents a new translation of the text, together with a historical introduction and suggestions for further reading.

This book by one of the world's foremost philosophers in the fields of epistemology and logic offers an account of suppositional reasoning relevant to practical deliberation, explanation, prediction, and hypothesis testing. Suppositions made "for the sake of the argument" sometimes conflict with our beliefs, and when they do, some beliefs are rejected and others retained. Thanks to such hypothetical belief contravention, adding content to a supposition can undermine conclusions reached without it. Subversion can also arise because suppositional reasoning is ampliative. These two types of nonmonotonicity are the focus of this book. A detailed comparison of nonmonotonicity appropriate to both belief-contravening and ampliative suppositional reasoning reveals important differences that have been overlooked. In arguing that the distinction between belief contravening and inductive nonmonotonicity plays a far greater role in deliberation and decision than it is given credit for, this major study will be required reading for all philosophers and logicians concerned with conditionals, decision theory, and inductive inference. It will also interest those in artificial intelligence who work on expert systems, default reasoning, and nonmonotonic reasoning.

Aristotle's Modal Logic, first published in 1995, presents an interpretation of Aristotle's logic by arguing that a proper understanding of the system depends on an appreciation of its connection to the metaphysics. Richard Patterson develops three striking theses in the book. First, there is a fundamental connection between Aristotle's logic of possibility and necessity, and his metaphysics, and that this connection extends far beyond the widely recognised tie to scientific demonstration and relates to the more basic distinction between the essential and accidental properties of a subject. Second, Aristotle's views on modal logic depend in very significant ways on his metaphysics without entailing any sacrifice in rigour. Third, once one has grasped the nature of the relationship, one can understand better certain genuine difficulties in the system of logic and appreciate its strengths in terms of the purposes for which it was created.

This book, written by one of the most distinguished of contemporary philosophers of mathematics, is a fully rewritten and updated successor to the author's earlier The Unprovability of Consistency (1979). Its subject is the relation between provability and modal logic, a branch of logic invented by Aristotle but much disparaged by philosophers and virtually ignored by mathematicians. Here it receives its first scientific application since its invention.

This is a state of the art collection of essays on the relation between probabilities, especially conditional probabilities, and conditionals. It provides new negative results which sharply limit the ways conditionals can be related to conditional probabilities. There are also positive ideas and results which will open up new areas of research. The collection is intended to honour Ernest W. Adams, whose seminal work is largely responsible for creating this area of inquiry. As well as describing, evaluating, and applying Adams' work, the contributions extend his ideas in directions he may or may not have anticipated, but that he certainly inspired. In addition to a wide range of philosophers of science, the volume should also interest computer scientists and linguists.

In informal terms, abductive reasoning involves inferring the best or most plausible explanation from a given set of facts or data. This volume presents new ideas about inferential and information-processing foundations for knowledge and certainty. The authors argue that knowledge arises from experience by processes of abductive inference, in contrast to the view that it arises noninferentially, or that deduction and inductive generalization are enough to account for knowledge. The book tells the story of six generations of increasingly sophisticated generic abduction machines and the discovery of reasoning strategies that make it computationally feasible to form well-justified composite explanatory hypotheses, despite the threat of combinatorial explosion. This book will be of great interest to researchers in AI, cognitive science, and philosophy of science.

J. Howard Sobel has long been recognized as an important figure in philosophical discussions of rational decision. He has done much to help formulate the concept of causal decision theory. In this volume of essays Sobel explores the Bayesian idea that rational actions maximize expected values, where an action's expected value is a weighted average of its agent's values for its possible total outcomes. Newcomb's Problem and The Prisoner's Dilemma are discussed, and Allais-type puzzles are viewed from the perspective of causal world Bayesianism. The author establishes principles for distinguishing options in decision problems, and studies ways in which perfectly rational causal maximizers can be capable of resolute choices. Sobel also views critically Gauthier's revisionist ideas about maximizing rationality. This collection will be a desideratum for anyone working in the field of rational choice theory, whether in philosophy, economics, political science, psychology or statistics. Howard Sobel's work in decision theory is certainly among the most important, interesting and challenging that is being done by philosophers.

This is the only book to chart the history and development of modern probability theory. It shows how in the first thirty years of this century probability theory became a mathematical science. The author also traces the development of probabilistic concepts and theories in statistical and quantum physics. There are chapters dealing with chance phenomena, as well as the main mathematical theories of today, together with their foundational and philosophical problems. Among the theorists whose work is treated at some length are Kolmogorov, von Mises and de Finetti. The principal audience for the book comprises philosophers and historians of science, mathematicians concerned with probability and statistics, and physicists. The book will also interest anyone fascinated by twentieth-century scientific developments because the birth of modern probability is closely tied to the change from a determinist to an indeterminist world-view.

Lacan and the Formulae of Sexuation provides the first critical reading of Lacan's formulae of sexuation, examining both their logical consistency and clinical consequences. Are there two different entities named Man and Woman, separated by the gulf of sexual difference? Or is it better to conceive of this difference as something purely relative, each human being situated on a sort of continuum from more or less 'man' to more or less 'woman'? Sigmund Freud established the strange way through which sexuality determines being human: his concept of drive was no longer the heteronormative sexual instinct used by the psychiatrists of his time. With his provocative formula according to which 'there is no sexual relationship', Lacan has reinforced this perspective, combining logic and sexuality through the invention of a new operator, the concept 'not all', which points to a form of incompleteness at stake in his 'formulae of sexuation'. This book examines how these formulae have been constructed, and how we should read them in connection with, on one hand, their own logical consistency (a logical square different from Aristotelian tradition) and, on the other hand, a 'part object' in a very different sense to Melanie Klein's. The book also investigates the underlying logic of clinical vignettes, so much in favour in psychoanalytical literature today. The book represents essential reading for Lacanian psychoanalysts, as well as researchers at the cross-section of psychoanalysis, philosophy, and gender studies.