The threshold problem for a FitzHugh-Nagumo system

Author(s):  
C. Corduneanu
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Jessica Brown

This chapter distinguishes between fallibilism and infallibilism by appeal to entailment: infallibilists hold that knowledge that p requires evidence which entails that p; fallibilists deny that. It outlines some of the recent motivations for infallibilism, including the infelicity of concessive knowledge attributions, the threshold problem, closure, and the knowledge norm of practical reasoning. Further, we see how contemporary infallibilists attempt to avoid scepticism by appeal either to a generous conception of evidence or a shifty view of knowledge, such as contextualism. The chapter explains the book’s focus on non-shifty versions of infallibilism which defend a generous conception of evidence. It ends by defending the entailment definition of infallibilism over other potential definitions, and outlining the chapters to come.


1970 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-92
Author(s):  
Yishai A. Cohen

In this paper I articulate and defend a new anti-theodicy challenge to Skeptical Theism. More specifically, I defend the Threshold Problem according to which there is a threshold to the kinds of evils that are in principle justifiable for God to permit, and certain instances of evil are beyond that threshold. I further argue that Skeptical Theism does not have the resources to adequately rebut the Threshold Problem. I argue for this claim by drawing a distinction between a weak and strong version of Skeptical Theism, such that the strong version must be defended in order to rebut the Threshold Problem. However, the skeptical theist’s appeal to our limited cognitive faculties only supports the weak version.


Author(s):  
Michael Hannon

This chapter attempts to solve the “threshold problem”: how to provide a plausible account of what fixes the threshold (level, degree) of justification (evidence, probability, warrant, supporting ground) for knowledge in a nonarbitrary way that also makes sense of the perceived value of knowledge. Epistemologists have been largely silent about how strong the justificatory component of fallible knowledge must be. Indeed, nothing like a precise specification of this level of justification has ever been seriously suggested, let alone more widely endorsed. This chapter attempts to answer this challenge. By appealing to the hypothesis that the concept of knowledge is used to identify reliable informants, we can determine the level of justification required for fallible knowledge. Further, we may explain why this level of justification has the significance that makes knowledge valuable. This chapter also explores the alleged payoffs of rejecting fallibilism and shows these benefits to be illusory.


Semiotica ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (208) ◽  
pp. 203-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Le Cheng ◽  
Winnie Cheng ◽  
Jian Li

AbstractDefamation law is a long-standing research focus. Previous studies on defamation law have pointed out the importance of balancing two fundamental issues in law, namely, protection of reputation and freedom of speech. The present corpus-based legal study, using ConcGram 1.0 as the analytical tool, examined the phraseological profile of reported cases on defamation in Hong Kong in order to find out the types of defense and the approach to meaning in the defamation case law in Hong Kong. Regarding defenses to a defamation claim, the results show that fair comment, qualified privilege, and justification are the most prevalent types, that unintentional defamation is not used at all, and that there has been a noticeable shift from fair comment to honest comment. As for the approach to meaning, the ordinary and natural approach is found to be a pivotal means of solving the threshold problem in defamation cases, that is, whether the words involved are defamatory or not.


2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
GIORGIO BACCI ◽  
GIOVANNI BACCI ◽  
KIM G. LARSEN ◽  
RADU MARDARE

We study two well-known linear-time metrics on Markov chains (MCs), namely, the strong and strutter trace distances. Our interest in these metrics is motivated by their relation to the probabilistic linear temporal logic (LTL)-model checking problem: we prove that they correspond to the maximal differences in the probability of satisfying the same LTL and LTL−X(LTL without next operator) formulas, respectively.The threshold problem for these distances (whether their value exceeds a given threshold) is NP-hard and not known to be decidable. Nevertheless, we provide an approximation schema where each lower and upper approximant is computable in polynomial time in the size of the MC.The upper approximants are bisimilarity-like pseudometrics (hence, branching-time distances) that converge point-wise to the linear-time metrics. This convergence is interesting in itself, because it reveals a non-trivial relation between branching and linear-time metric-based semantics that does not hold in equivalence-based semantics.


Episteme ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Daniel Immerman
Keyword(s):  

Abstract The threshold problem is the task of adequately answering the question: “Where does the threshold lie between knowledge and lack thereof?” I start this paper by articulating two conditions for solving it. The first is that the threshold be neither too high nor too low; the second is that the threshold accommodate the significance of knowledge. In addition to explaining these conditions, I also argue that it is plausible that they can be met. Next, I argue that many popular accounts of knowledge cannot meet them. In particular, I lay out a number of problems that standard accounts of knowledge face in trying to meet these conditions. Finally, near the end of this paper, I argue that there is one sort of account that seems to evade these problems. This sort of account, which is called a cluster account of knowledge, says that knowledge is to be accounted for in terms of truth, belief and a cluster of epistemic properties and also that knowledge doesn't require having all members of the cluster, but merely some subset.


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