Coping with uncertainty is a necessary part of ordinary life and is crucial to an understanding of how the mind works. For example, it is a vital element in developing artificial intelligence that will not be undermined by its own rigidities. There have been many approaches to the problem of uncertain inference, ranging from probability to inductive logic to nonmonotonic logic. Thisbook seeks to provide a clear exposition of these approaches within a unified framework. The principal market for the book (...) will be students and professionals in philosophy, computer science, and AI. Among the special features of the book are a chapter on evidential probability, which has not received a basic exposition before; chapters on nonmonotonic reasoning and theory replacement, matters rarely addressed in standard philosophical texts; and chapters on Mill's methods and statistical inference that cover material sorely lacking in the usual treatments of AI and computer science. (shrink)

Arranged and integrated to reveal epistemology, phenomenology, theory of signs, other major topics.

John Dewey's Gifford Lectures, given at Edinburgh in 1929.

In this brief book one of the most distinguished living American philosophers takes up the question of whether ethical judgments can properly be considered ...

In this chapter we draw connections between two seemingly opposing approaches to probability and statistics: evidential probability on the one hand and objective Bayesian epistemology on the other.

In a review of my book “Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre”, Dr. Ernest Nagel has recently criticized some of my ideas on probability and induction. His review includes a good exposition of my ideas, and I have to thank him for his serious attempts to do justice to my results. He attacks, however, some very essential points of my theory. I may be allowed, therefore, to answer him as frankly and thoroughly as he attacks me.

At least one of these conceptions of probability underlies any theory of statistical inference (or, to use Neyman's phrase, 'inductive behavior'). ...