4,100 research outputs found
Observation and Quantum Objectivity
The paradox of Wigner's friend challenges the objectivity of description in
quantum theory. A pragmatist interpretation can meet this challenge by
judicious appeal to decoherence. On this interpretation, quantum theory
provides situated agents with resources for predicting and explaining what
happens in the physical world---not conscious observations of it. Even in
Wigner's friend scenarios, differently situated agents agree on the objective
content of statements about the values of physical magnitudes. In more
realistic circumstances quantum Darwinism also permits differently situated
agents equal observational access to evaluate their truth. In this view,
quantum theory has nothing to say about consciousness or conscious experiences
of observers. But it does prompt us to reexamine the significance even of
everyday claims about the physical world
Mill on logic
Working within the broad lines of general consensus that mark out the core features of John Stuart Mill’s (1806–1873) logic, as set forth in his A System of Logic (1843–1872), this chapter provides an introduction to Mill’s logical theory by reviewing his position on the relationship between induction and deduction, and the role of general premises and principles in reasoning. Locating induction, understood as a kind of analogical reasoning from particulars to particulars, as the basic form of inference that is both free-standing and the sole load-bearing structure in Mill’s logic, the foundations of Mill’s logical system are briefly inspected. Several naturalistic features are identified, including its subject matter, human reasoning, its empiricism, which requires that only particular, experiential claims can function as basic reasons, and its ultimate foundations in ‘spontaneous’ inference. The chapter concludes by comparing Mill’s naturalized logic to Russell’s (1907) regressive method for identifying the premises of mathematics
Inference to the Best Explanation Made Incoherent
Defenders of Inference to the Best Explanation claim that explanatory factors should play an important role in empirical inference. They disagree, however, about how exactly to formulate this role. In particular, they disagree about whether to formulate IBE as an inference rule for full beliefs or for degrees of belief, as well as how a rule for degrees of belief should relate to Bayesianism. In this essay I advance a new argument against non-Bayesian versions of IBE. My argument focuses on cases in which we are concerned with multiple levels of explanation of some phenomenon. I show that in many such cases, following IBE as an inference rule for full beliefs leads to deductively inconsistent beliefs, and following IBE as a non-Bayesian updating rule for degrees of belief leads to probabilistically incoherent degrees of belief
Agreement and Updating For Self-Locating Belief
In this paper, I argue that some plausible principles concerning which credences are rationally permissible for agents given information about one another’s epistemic and credal states have some surprising consequences for which credences an agent ought to have in light of self-locating information. I provide a framework that allows us to state these constraints and draw out these consequences precisely. I then consider and assess the prospects for rejecting these prima facie plausible principles
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