Belief Revision from an Epistemological Point of View

2004 ◽  
pp. 255-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Ove Hansson
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Andree Weber

Abstract The evidence that we get from peer disagreement is especially problematic from a Bayesian point of view since the belief revision caused by a piece of such evidence cannot be modelled along the lines of Bayesian conditionalisation. This paper explains how exactly this problem arises, what features of peer disagreements are responsible for it, and what lessons should be drawn for both the analysis of peer disagreements and Bayesian conditionalisation as a model of evidence acquisition. In particular, it is pointed out that the same characteristic of evidence from disagreement that explains the problems with Bayesian conditionalisation also suggests an interpretation of suspension of belief in terms of imprecise probabilities.


Author(s):  
Lev D. Lamberov ◽  

In recent decades, some epistemological issues have become especially acute in mathematics. These issues are associated with long proofs of various important mathematical results, as well as with a large and constantly increasing number of publications in mathematics. It is assumed that (at least partially) these difficulties can be resolved by referring to computer proofs. However, computer proofs also turn out to be problematic from an epistemological point of view. With regard to both proofs in ordinary (informal) mathematics and computer proofs, the problem of their surveyability appears to be fundamental. Based on the traditional concept of proof, it must be surveyable, otherwise it will not achieve its main goal — the formation of conviction in the correctness of the mathematical result being proved. About 15 years ago, a new approach to the foundations of mathematics began to develop, combining constructivist, structuralist features and a number of advantages of the classical approach to mathematics. This approach is built on the basis of homotopy type theory and is called the univalent foundations of mathematics. Due to itspowerful notion of equality, this approach can significantly reduce the length of formalized proofs, which outlines a way to resolve the epistemological difficulties that have arisen


Author(s):  
Lorenzo Magnani ◽  
Emanuele Bardone

According to Raskin (2000), the way we interact with a product, what we do, and how it responds are what define an interface. This is a good starting definition in one important respect: an interface is not something given or an entirely predefined property, but it is the dynamic interaction that actually takes place when a product meets the users. More precisely, an interface is that interaction that mediates the relation between the user and a tool explaining which approach is necessary to exploit its functions. Hence, an interface can be considered a mediating structure. A useful exemplification of a mediating structure is provided by the so-called stigmergy. Looking at the animal-animal interactions, Raskin (2000) noted that termites were able to put up their collective nest, even if they did not seem to collaborate or communicate with each other. The explanation provided by Grassé (Susi et al., 2001) is that termites do interact with each other, even if their interactions are mediated through the environment. According to the stigmergy theory, each termite acts upon the work environment, changing it in a certain way. The environment physically encodes and stores the change made upon it so that every change becomes a clue that affects a certain reaction from it. Analogously, we might claim that an interface mediates the relation between the user and a tool affording him or her to use it a certain way1. Understanding the kind of mediation involved can be fruitfully investigated from an epistemological point of view. More precisely, we claim that the process of mediating can be understood better when it is considered to be an inferential one.


Author(s):  
Ekaterina A. Nechaeva

The present paper concerns the discourse of metamodernism problem as a type of the anthropological myth. The anthropological myth is considered as a project for describing reality, which models a systematic consistent idea of a human being, reality, status of reality and develops ethic, aesthetic, axiological views of a subject. The article aims to determine the peculiarities of metamodernism as a fictional discourse of the anthropological myth on the basis of XXI century European novel analysis. The analysis is carried out with the use of the comparative method, contextual description methods, axiomatic method, discourse analysis method etc. The topicality of the undertaken research is determined by the appearance of a new fictional discourse in art at the beginning of the XXI century as well as a new aesthetic paradigm, not described yet. The texts of Western European novels written in the first two decades of the XXI century reveal authors’ consistent refusal of the principles traditionally viewed as post-modernist – novels featuring a simulated nature of reality, novels problematizing the relationships between the signifying and the signified, decentralizing the subject etc. The attempts to describe a particular cultural situation as an alternative to postmodernism have been taken since the 80’s of the XX century; metamodernism acts as one of such projects for describing the modern cultural situation. The paper analyzes the interpretation models referring to XXI century art on the basis Western European novels of XXI century. The author of the paper concludes that metamodernism as a fictional discourse of the new anthropological myth reflects a different idea of the reality. Metamodernism as a cultural project aims to “return” ontology, assume the availability of reality outside the cognizing subject’s consciousness, and surpass the iconic nature of reality. From the epistemological point of view, metamodernism offers cognition of the world and “Ego” via experience of “Another Ego”.


Author(s):  
Marcela Ridao ◽  
Jorge Horacio Doorn

Requirements Engineering is frequently seen as the activity of the Software Engineering process with fewer tools. Usually there are only available graphic and text editing aids. This is supported by the perception that it is a human being intensive task. This chapter is based on the understanding that such perception is just partially true. Models used along the Requirements Engineering process have underlying structures holding semantic information difficult to be seen by the reader. In fact, models created with well defined objective, were designed to maximize their expressiveness for that objective. However they may hold some useful shadowed information. Here is where a specialized tool may become valuable. From an epistemological point of view, this situation is similar to what happens in data mining. In this chapter, a tool able to make visible any clustering existing in Universe of Discourse glossaries is described. It is based on the automatic constructions of graphs using references embedded in the glossary itself.


Author(s):  
Dorothea E. Olkowski

Luce Irigaray’s view of her relationship to Beauvoir’s work is that “there are important differences between our positions.” This should not be surprising given that these two philosophers belong to different even if overlapping philosophical eras. Beauvoir is identified primarily with phenomenological–existentialism and Irigaray with psychoanalysis and linguistics. This essay takes up those differences from an ontological and epistemological point of view suggested by a number of feminist philosophers but not fully examined in the work of Beauvoir and Irigaray. This includes Beauvoir’s rejection of dualist thinking produced by the binary logic of the Law of Excluded Middle, and Irigaray’s critique of formal logic based on her psychoanalytic perspective. Beginning with Beauvoir and moving from there to Irigaray, the essay takes up the question of the ontological and epistemological structures utilized by each of these two feminist philosophers with an eye to their subsequent ethical implications.


Prejudice ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Endre Begby

This introductory chapter seeks a preliminary clarification of what prejudice is and why it is a cause of persistent normative concern. It then distinguishes between two normative vocabularies in which that concern can be framed: the moral and the epistemic. When we consider prejudice from a moral point of view, we are concerned with the harms suffered by people who are targeted by prejudiced beliefs, and the moral responsibilities incurred by those who hold these beliefs. When we consider prejudice from an epistemological point of view we are concerned with the cognitive processes by which people come to hold these beliefs. This book is primarily focused on the epistemology of prejudice: the first order of the day is to explain why we should not hope to ground our account of the moral wrongs flowing from prejudice in an account of the epistemic wrongs committed by those who hold these beliefs.


2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Magnani

AbstractThe concept ofmanipulative abductionis devoted to capture the role of action in many interesting cognitive situations: action provides otherwise unavailable information that enables the agent to solve problems by starting and performing a suitable abductive process of generation or selection of hypotheses. We observe that many external things, usually inert from an epistemological point of view, can be transformed intoepistemic mediators. I will present some details derived from the history of the discovery of the non-Euclidean geometries that illustrate the relationships between strategies for anomaly resolution and visual thinking. Geometrical diagrams are external representations that play both amirrorrole (to externalize rough mental models) and anunveilingrole (as gateways to imaginary entities). I describe them as epistemic mediators able to perform various explanatory, non-explanatory, and instrumental abductive tasks (discovery of new properties or new propositions/hypotheses, provision of suitable sequences of models as able to convincingly verifying theorems, etc.). I am also convinced that they can be exploited and studied in everyday non-mathematical applications also to the aim of promoting new trends in artificial intelligence modeling of various aspects of hypothetical reasoning: finding routes, road signs, buildings maps, for example, in connection with various zooming effects of spatial reasoning. I also think that the cognitive activities of optical, mirror, and unveiling diagrams can be studied in other areas of manipulative and model-based reasoning, such as the ones involving creative, analogical, and spatial inferences, both in science and everyday situations so that this can extend the epistemological, computational, and the psychological theory.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document