Ceteris paribus conditionals and comparative normalcy

Our understanding of subjunctive conditionals has been greatly enhanced through the use of possible world semantics and, more precisely, by the idea that they involve variably strict quantification over possible worlds. I propose to extend this treatment to ceteris paribus conditionals – that is, conditionals that incorporate a ceteris paribus or ‘other things being equal’ clause. Although such conditionals are commonly invoked in scientific theorising, they traditionally arouse suspicion and apprehensiveness amongst philosophers. By treating ceteris paribus conditionals as a species of variably strict conditional I hope to shed new light upon their content and their logic

Rationality, pragmatics, and sources

This thesis contributes to the Great Rationality Debate in cognitive science. It introduces and explores a triangular scheme for understanding the relationship between rationality and two key abilities: pragmatics – roughly, inferring implicit intended utterance meanings – and learning from sources. The thesis argues that these three components – rationality, pragmatics, and sources – should be considered together: that each one informs the others. The thesis makes this case through literature review and theoretical work (principally, in Chapters 1 and 8) and through a series of empirical chapters focusing on different parts of the triangular scheme. Chapters 2 to 4 address the relationship between pragmatics and sources, focusing on how people change their beliefs when they read a conditional with a partially reliable source. The data bear on theories of the conditional and on the literature assessing people’s rationality with conditionals. Chapter 5 addresses the relationship between rationality and pragmatics, focusing on conditionals ‘in action’ in a framing effect known as goal framing. The data suggest a complex relationship between pragmatics and utilities, and support a new approach to goal framing. Chapter 6 addresses the relationship between rationality and sources, using normative Bayesian models to explore how people respond to simple claims from sources of different reliabilities. The data support a two-way relationship between claims and source information and, perhaps most strikingly, suggest that people readily treat sources as ‘anti-reliable’: as negatively correlated with the truth. Chapter 7 extends these experiments to test the theory that speakers can guard against reputational damage using hedging. The data do not support this theory, and raise questions about whether trust and vigilance against deception are prerequisites for pragmatics. Lastly, Chapter 8 synthesizes the results; argues for new ways of understanding the relationships between rationality, pragmatics, and sources; and relates the findings to emerging formal methods in psychology

Where causality, conditionals and epistemology meet:A logical inquiry

This dissertation is an intellectual journey along topics at the intersection of the study of conditionals, causality and epistemology. It will focus on a couple of problems at this intersection pointed out in recent research. I will demonstrate how by combining knowledge and tools from all three fields we can make substantial progress on solving these issues. I will also show that this integrated approach provides us with a better understanding of the relation between conditionals, causality and epistemology

A Model of Dynamic Resource Allocation in Workflow Systems

Current collaborative work environments are characterized by dynamically changing organizational structures. Although there have been several efforts to refine work distribution, especially in workflow management, most literature assumes a static database approach which captures organizational roles, groups and hierarchies and implements a dynamic roles based agent assignment protocol. However, in practice only partial information may be available for organizational models, and in turn a large number of exceptions may emerge at the time of work assignment. In this paper we present an organizational model based on a policy based normative system. The model is based on a combination of an intentional logic of agency and a flexible, but computationally feasible, non-monotonic formalism (Defeasible Logic). Although this paper focuses on the model specification, the proposed approach to modelling agent societies provides a means of reasoning with partial and unpredictable information as is typical of organizational agents in workflow system

Scientific counterfactuals as make-believe

Counterfactuals abound in science, especially when reasoning about and with models. This often requires entertaining counterfactual conditionals with nomologically or metaphysically impossible antecedents, namely, counternomics or counterpossibles. In this paper I defend the make-believe view of scientific counterfactuals, a naturalised fiction-based account of counterfactuals in science which provides a means to evaluate their meanings independently of the possibility of the states of affairs their antecedents describe, and under which they have non-trivial truth-values. Fiction is here understood as imagination (in contrast with its most typical association with falsity), characterised as a propositional attitude of pretense or ‘make-believe’ (Walton 1990). The application of this theory to scientific counterfactuals makes their evaluation a game of make-believe: a counterfactual is (fictionally) true iff its antecedent and the rules of the game prescribe the imagining of its consequent (Kimpton-Nye 2020). The result is a practice-based account of counterfactuals and counterfactual reasoning in science which incorporates insights from theoretical and experimental analytic philosophy as well as cognitive science. This way, the make-believe view of scientific counterfactuals shows that the evaluation of scientific counterfactuals is none other than a question of scientific representation in disguise

Automated Analysis of Compositional Multi-Agent Systems

Abstract. An approach for handling the complex dynamics of a multi-agent system is based on distinguishing aggregation levels. The behaviour at a given aggregation level is specified by a set of dynamic properties at that level, expressed in some (temporal) language. Such behavioural specifications may be complex and difficult to analyse. To enable automated analysis of system specifications, a simpler format is required. To this end, a specification at a lower aggregation level can be created, describing basic steps in the processes of a system. This paper presents a method and tool to support the automated creation of such a specification, as a refinement of a given higher level specification. The generated specification has a simple format which can easily be used for analysis. This paper describes an approach for automated verification of logical consequences of specifications using model checking techniques