Frank Plumpton Ramsey

On the work of Frank Ramsey, emphasizing topics most relevant to philosophy of science

On the Relation of Informal to Formal Logic

The distinction between formal and informal logic is clarified as a prelude to considering their ideal relation. Aristotle\u27s syllogistic describes forms of valid inference, and is in that sense a formal logic. Yet the square of opposition and rules of middle term distribution of positive or negative propositions in an argument\u27s premises and conclusion are standardly received as devices of so-called informal logic and critical reasoning. I propose a more exact criterion for distinguishing between formal and informal logic, and then defend a model for fruitful interaction between informal and formal methods of investigating and critically assessing the logic of arguments

A Consistent Way with Paradox

Consideration of a paradox originally discovered by John Buridan provides a springboard for a general solution to paradoxes within the Liar family. The solution rests on a philosophical defence of truth-value-gaps and is consistent (non-dialetheist), avoids ‘revenge’ problems, imports no ad hoc assumptions, is not applicable to only a proper subset of the semantic paradoxes and implies no restriction of the expressive capacities of language

The Fragility of Consensus: Public Reason, Diversity and Stability

John Rawls\u27s transition from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism was driven by his rejection of Theory\u27s account of stability. The key to his later account of stability is the idea of public reason. We see Rawls\u27s account of stability as an attempt to solve a mutual assurance problem. We maintain that Rawls\u27s solution fails because his primary assurance mechanism, in the form of public reason, is fragile. His conception of public reason relies on a condition of consensus that we argue is unrealistic in modern, pluralistic democracies. After rejecting Rawls\u27s conception of public reason, we offer an ‘indirect alternative’ that we believe is much more robust. We cite experimental evidence to back up this claim

Some Neglected Problems of Omniscience

One set of neglected problems consists of paradoxes of omniscience clearly recognizable as forms of the Liar, and these I have never seen raised at all. Other neglected problems are difficulties for omniscience posed by recent work on belief de se and essential indexicals. These have not yet been given the attention they deserve

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThe goal of this dissertation is to offer an empirically informed evaluation of testimony as a source of knowledge. Epistemologists have assumed that testimony is a generally reliable source of true beliefs because human cognitive faculties would have evolved to be reliable at getting the truth. However, complementary evidence from the signaling theory and social psychology literature shows that testimony is a practical tool with a variety of nonepistemic functions, including forming and maintaining social relationships, coordinating group behavior, and prescribing conduct. Since the value of using testimony is very often independent of its accuracy, humans have evolved to expend as little resources on checking for accuracy as is necessary to satisfy their other needs. In other words, "truth is expendable" to humans trying to get along well in the world and with each other. This implies that testimony is a far less epistemically reliable source of information than philosophers have assumed, and although it is very often prudent to simply believe what people say, it is not epistemically rational to do so. At the end, I offer preliminary empirically informed prescriptions for judging the reliability of testimony

Modelling religious signalling

The origins of human social cooperation confound simple evolutionary explanation. But from Darwin and Durkheim onwards, theorists (anthropologists and sociologists especially) have posited a potential link with another curious and distinctively human social trait that cries out for explanation: religion. This dissertation explores one contemporary theory of the co-evolution of religion and human social cooperation: the signalling theory of religion, or religious signalling theory (RST). According to the signalling theory, participation in social religion (and its associated rituals and sanctions) acts as an honest signal of one's commitment to a religiously demarcated community and its way of doing things. This signal would allow prosocial individuals to positively assort with one another for mutual advantage, to the exclusion of more exploitative individuals. In effect, the theory offers a way that religion and cooperation might explain one another, but which that stays within an individualist adaptive paradigm. My approach is not to assess the empirical adequacy of the religious signalling explanation or contrast it with other explanations, but rather to deal with the theory in its own terms - isolating and fleshing out its core commitments, explanatory potential, and limitations. The key to this is acknowledging the internal complexities of signalling theory, with respect to the available models of honest signalling and the extent of their fit (or otherwise) with religion as a target system. The method is to take seriously the findings of formal modelling in animal signalling and other disciplines, and to apply these (and methods from the philosophy of biology more generally) to progressively build up a comprehensive picture of the theory, its inherent strengths and weaknesses. The first two chapters outline the dual explanatory problems that cooperation and religion present for evolutionary human science, and surveys contemporary approaches toward explaining them. Chapter three articulates an evolutionary conception of the signalling theory, and chapters four to six make the case for a series of requirements, limitations, and principles of application. Chapters seven and eight argue for the value of formal modelling to further flesh out the theory's commitments and potential and describe some simple simulation results which make progress in this regard. Though the inquiry often problematizes the signalling theory, it also shows that it should not be dismissed outright, and that it makes predictions which are apt for empirical testing