Download or read book Epistemology and Probability written by Arkady Plotnitsky and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-10-20 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an exploration of the relationships between epistemology and probability in the work of Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schro- ̈ dinger, and in quantum mechanics and in modern physics as a whole. It also considers the implications of these relationships and of quantum theory itself for our understanding of the nature of human thinking and knowledge in general, or the ‘‘epistemological lesson of quantum mechanics,’’ as Bohr liked 1 to say. These implications are radical and controversial. While they have been seen as scientifically productive and intellectually liberating to some, Bohr and Heisenberg among them, they have been troublesome to many others, such as Schro ̈ dinger and, most prominently, Albert Einstein. Einstein famously refused to believe that God would resort to playing dice or rather to playing with nature in the way quantum mechanics appeared to suggest, which is indeed quite different from playing dice. According to his later (sometime around 1953) remark, a lesser known or commented upon but arguably more important one: ‘‘That the Lord should play [dice], all right; but that He should gamble according to definite rules [i. e. , according to the rules of quantum mechanics, rather than 2 by merely throwing dice], that is beyond me. ’’ Although Einstein’s invocation of God is taken literally sometimes, he was not talking about God but about the way nature works. Bohr’s reply on an earlier occasion to Einstein’s question 1 Cf.
Download or read book Probabilistic Knowledge written by Sarah Moss and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sarah Moss argues that in addition to full beliefs, credences can constitute knowledge. She introduces the notion of probabilistic content and shows how it plays a central role not only in epistemology, but in the philosophy of mind and language. Just you can believe and assert propositions, you can believe and assert probabilistic contents.
Download or read book Philosophy of Probability written by J.P. Dubucs and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophy of Probability provides a comprehensive introduction to theoretical issues that occupy a central position in disciplines ranging from philosophy of mind and epistemology to cognitive science, decision theory and artificial intelligence. Some contributions shed new light on the standard conceptions of probability (Bayesianism, logical and computational theories); others offer detailed analyses of two important topics in the field of cognitive science: the meaning and the representation of (partial) belief, and the management of uncertainty. The authors of this well-balanced account are philosophers as well as computer scientists (among them, L.J. Cohen, D. Miller, P. Gärdenfors, J. Vickers, D. Dubois and H. Prade). This multidisciplinary approach to probability is designed to illuminate the intricacies of the problems in the domain of cognitive inquiry. No one interested in epistemology or aritificial intelligence will want to miss it.
Download or read book Introduction to Philosophy written by Guy Axtell and published by . This book was released on 2022-01-26 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology engages first-time philosophy readers on a guided tour through the core concepts, questions, methods, arguments, and theories of epistemology-the branch of philosophy devoted to the study of knowledge. After a brief overview of the field, the book progresses systematically while placing central ideas and thinkers in historical and contemporary context. The chapters cover the analysis of knowledge, the nature of epistemic justification, rationalism vs. empiricism, skepticism, the value of knowledge, the ethics of belief, Bayesian epistemology, social epistemology, and feminist epistemologies. Along the way, instructors and students will encounter a wealth of additional resources and tools: Chapter learning outcomes Key terms Images of philosophers and related art Useful diagrams and tables Boxes containing excerpts and other supplementary material Questions for reflection Suggestions for further reading A glossary For an undergraduate survey epistemology course, Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology is ideal when used as a main text paired with primary sources and scholarly articles. For an introductory philosophy course, select book chapters are best used in combination with chapters from other books in the Introduction to Philosophy series: https: //www1.rebus.community/#/project/4ec7ecce-d2b3-4f20-973c-6b6502e7cbb2.
Download or read book Resonance From Probability To Epistemology And Back written by Krzysztof Burdzy and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2016-05-26 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Resonance examines some building blocks of epistemology as a prelude to the careful analysis of the foundations of probability. The concept of resonance is introduced to shed light on the philosophical problems of induction, consciousness, intelligence and free will. The same concept is later applied to provide support for a new philosophical theory of probability.Although based on existing ideas and theories, the epistemological concept of resonance is investigated for the first time in this book. The best-known philosophical theories of probability, frequency and subjective, are shown to be unrealistic and dissociated from the two main branches of statistics: frequency statistics and Bayesian statistics.Written in an accessible style, this book can be enjoyed by philosophers, statisticians and mathematicians, and also by anyone looking to expand their understanding of the disciplines of epistemology and probability.
Download or read book Formal Epistemology and Cartesian Skepticism written by Tomoji Shogenji and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-15 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops new techniques in formal epistemology and applies them to the challenge of Cartesian skepticism. It introduces two formats of epistemic evaluation that should be of interest to epistemologists and philosophers of science: the dual-component format, which evaluates a statement on the basis of its safety and informativeness, and the relative-divergence format, which evaluates a probabilistic model on the basis of its complexity and goodness of fit with data. Tomoji Shogenji shows that the former lends support to Cartesian skepticism, but the latter allows us to defeat Cartesian skepticism. Along the way, Shogenji addresses a number of related issues in epistemology and philosophy of science, including epistemic circularity, epistemic closure, and inductive skepticism.
Download or read book Philosophy and Probability written by Timothy Childers and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-05-30 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Probability is increasingly important for our understanding of the world. What is probability? How do we model it, and how do we use it? Timothy Childers presents a lively introduction to the foundations of probability and to philosophical issues it raises. He keeps technicalities to a minimum, and assumes no prior knowledge of the subject. He explains the main interpretations of probability-frequentist, propensity, classical, Bayesian, and objective Bayesian-and uses stimulating examples to bring the subject to life. All students of philosophy will benefit from an understanding of probability, and this is the book to provide it.
Download or read book Bayesian Epistemology written by Luc Bovens and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2004-01-08 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Probabilistic models have much to offer to philosophy. We continually receive information from a variety of sources: from our senses, from witnesses, from scientific instruments. When considering whether we should believe this information, we assess whether the sources are independent, how reliable they are, and how plausible and coherent the information is. Bovens and Hartmann provide a systematic Bayesian account of these features of reasoning. Simple Bayesian Networks allow us to model alternative assumptions about the nature of the information sources. Measurement of the coherence of information is a controversial matter: arguably, the more coherent a set of information is, the more confident we may be that its content is true, other things being equal. The authors offer a new treatment of coherence which respects this claim and shows its relevance to scientific theory choice. Bovens and Hartmann apply this methodology to a wide range of much discussed issues regarding evidence, testimony, scientific theories, and voting. Bayesian Epistemology is an essential tool for anyone working on probabilistic methods in philosophy, and has broad implications for many other disciplines.
Download or read book Probability Theory written by Vincent F. Hendricks and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2001-06-30 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of papers presented at the conference on Probability Theory - Philosophy, Recent History and Relations to Science, University of Roskilde, Denmark, September 16-18, 1998. Since the measure theoretical definition of probability was proposed by Kolmogorov, probability theory has developed into a mature mathematical theory. It is today a fruitful field of mathematics that has important applications in philosophy, science, engineering, and many other areas. The measure theoretical definition of probability and its axioms, however, are not without their problems; some of them even puzzled Kolmogorov. This book sheds light on some recent discussions of the problems in probability theory and their history, analysing their philosophical and mathematical significance, and the role pf mathematical probability theory in other sciences.
Download or read book Bayesian Epistemology written by Luc Bovens and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Probabilistic models have much to offer to philosophy. We continually receive information from many sources - our senses, witnesses, scientific instruments - and assess whether to believe it. The authors provide a systematic Bayesian account of these features of reasoning.
Download or read book Probability in the Philosophy of Religion written by Jake Chandler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-26 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Probability theory promises to deliver an exact and unified foundation for inquiry in epistemology and philosophy of science. But philosophy of religion is also fertile ground for the application of probabilistic thinking. This volume presents original contributions from twelve contemporary researchers, both established and emerging, to offer a representative sample of the work currently being carried out in this potentially rich field of inquiry. Grouped into five parts, the chapters span a broad range of traditional issues in religious epistemology. The first three parts discuss the evidential impact of various considerations that have been brought to bear on the question of the existence of God. These include witness reports of the occurrence of miraculous events, the existence of complex biological adaptations, the apparent 'fine-tuning' for life of various physical constants and the existence of seemingly unnecessary evil. The fourth part addresses a number of issues raised by Pascal's famous pragmatic argument for theistic belief. A final part offers probabilistic perspectives on the rationality of faith and the epistemic significance of religious disagreement.
Download or read book Philosophy of Probability written by Antony Eagle and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alan Hajek, The Australian National University, Australia.
Download or read book Subjective Probability written by Richard Jeffrey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-04-12 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sample Text
Download or read book Epistemology and Inference written by Henry Ely Kyburg and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Epistemology and Inference was first published in 1983. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Henry Kyburg has developed an original and important perspective on probabilistic and statistical inference. Unlike much contemporary writing by philosophers on these topics, Kyburg's work is informed by issues that have arisen in statistical theory and practice as well as issues familiar to professional philosophers. In two major books and many articles, Kyberg has elaborated his technical proposals and explained their ramifications for epistemology, decision-making, and scientific inquiry. In this collection of published and unpublished essays, Kyburg presents his novel ideas and their applications in a manner that makes them accessible to philosophers and provides specialists in probability and induction with a concise exposition of his system.
Download or read book Philosophical Foundations of Probability Theory written by Roy Weatherford and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-06-01 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1982, Philosophical Foundations of Probability Theory starts with the uses we make of the concept in everyday life and then examines the rival theories that seek to account for these applications. It offers a critical exposition of the major philosophical theories of probability, with special attention given to the metaphysical and epistemological assumptions and implications of each. The Classical Theory suggests probability is simply the ratio of favorable cases to all equi-possible cases: it is this theory that is relied on by gamblers and by most non-specialists. The A Priori Theory, on the other hand, describes probability as a logical relation between statements based on evidence. The Relative Frequency theories locate it not in logic but among empirical rates of occurrence in the real world, while the Subjectivist Theory identifies probability with the degree of a person’s belief in a proposition. Each of these types of theory is examined in turn, and the treatment is unified by the use of running examples and parallel analyses of each theory. The final chapter includes a summary and the author’s conclusions. This book is an essential read for scholars and researchers of Philosophy.
Download or read book Epistemic Justification written by Richard Swinburne and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2001-06-21 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Swinburne offers an original treatment of a question at the heart of epistemology: what makes a belief a rational one, or one which the believer is justified in holding? He maps the various totally different and purportedly rival accounts that philosophers give of epistemic justification ('internalist' and 'externalist'), and argues that they are really accounts of different concepts. He distinguishes (as most epistemologists do not) between synchronic justification (justification at a time) and diachronic justification (synchronic justification resulting from adequate investigation) — both internalist and externalist. He argus that most kinds of justification are worth having because (for different reasons) indicative of truth. However, it is only justification of intermalist kinds that can guide a believer's actions. Swinburne goes on to show the usefulness of the probability calculus in elucidating how empirical evidence makes beliefs probably true: every proposition has an intrinsic probability (an a priori probability independent of empirical evidence) which may be increased or decreased by empirical evidence. This innovative and challenging book will refresh epistemology and rewrite its agenda.
Download or read book Reading Bohr Physics and Philosophy written by Arkady Plotnitsky and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-11-15 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a new perspective on Niels Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics as complementarity, and on the relationships between physics and philosophy in Bohr's work. The importance of quantum field theory for Bohr's thinking has not been adequately addressed in the literature on Bohr. This book provides clarification of Bohr's writings (which usually pose problems of reading), and an analysis of the role of quantum field theory in Bohr's thinking.
