Naturalized formal epistemology of uncertain reasoning. Second doctoral dissertation

Pfeifer, Niki (2012): Naturalized formal epistemology of uncertain reasoning. Second doctoral dissertation. Habilitationsschrift, The Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science

Abstract

This thesis consists of a collection of five papers on naturalized formal epistemology of uncertain reasoning. In all papers I apply coherence based probability logic to make fundamental epistemological questions precise and propose new solutions to old problems. I investigate the rational evaluation of uncertain arguments, develop a new measure of argument strength, and explore the semantics of uncertain indicative conditionals. Specifically, I study formally and empirically the semantics of negated apparently selfcontradictory conditionals (Aristotle’s theses), resolve a number of paradoxes of the material conditional in a purely semantical way without employing pragmatics and investigate the psychological plausibility of the proposed semantics. Moreover, I defend the formalization of defeasible inferences within a probabilistic framework of nonmonotonic reasoning and empirically justify the formalizations by a series of psychological experiments. I investigate general properties of uncertain argument forms and the interrelations among logical validity, Adams’ p-validity and probabilistic informativeness.

• Dokumententyp: Hochschulschrift (Habilitationsschrift)
• Fakultät: Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Religionswissenschaft > Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP) ; Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Religionswissenschaft > Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP) > Logic ; Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Religionswissenschaft > Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP) > Philosophy of Science ; Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Religionswissenschaft > Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP) > Philosophy of Mind
• Themengebiete: 100 Philosophie und Psychologie > 100 Philosophie ; 100 Philosophie und Psychologie > 150 Psychologie ; 100 Philosophie und Psychologie > 160 Logik
• Sprache: Englisch