Results for 'Elliott Bonal'

129 found
Order:
  1. Foundations of Metaphysical Cosmology : Type System and Computational Experimentation.Elliott Bonal - manuscript
    The ambition of this paper is extensive: to bring about a new paradigm and firm mathematical foundations to Metaphysics, to aid its progress from the realm of mystical speculation to the realm of scientific scrutiny. -/- More precisely, this paper aims to introduce the field of Metaphysical Cosmology. The Metaphysical Cosmos here refers to the complete structure containing all entities, both existent and non-existent, with the physical universe as a subset. Through this paradigm, future endeavours in Metaphysical Science could thus (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. The impossibility of a satisfactory population prospect axiology (independently of Finite Fine-Grainedness).Elliott Thornley - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 178 (11):3671-3695.
    Arrhenius’s impossibility theorems purport to demonstrate that no population axiology can satisfy each of a small number of intuitively compelling adequacy conditions. However, it has recently been pointed out that each theorem depends on a dubious assumption: Finite Fine-Grainedness. This assumption states that there exists a finite sequence of slight welfare differences between any two welfare levels. Denying Finite Fine-Grainedness makes room for a lexical population axiology which satisfies all of the compelling adequacy conditions in each theorem. Therefore, Arrhenius’s theorems (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  3. A Framework for Analyzing Broadly Engaged Philosophy of Science.Kathryn S. Plaisance & Kevin C. Elliott - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (4):594-615.
    Philosophers of science are increasingly interested in engaging with scientific communities, policy makers, and members of the public; however, the nature of this engagement has not been systematically examined. Instead of delineating a specific kind of engaged philosophy of science, as previous accounts have done, this article draws on literature from outside the discipline to develop a framework for analyzing different forms of broadly engaged philosophy of science according to two key dimensions: social interaction and epistemic integration. Clarifying the many (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  4. Towards Shutdownable Agents via Stochastic Choice.Elliott Thornley, Alexander Roman, Christos Ziakas, Leyton Ho & Louis Thomson - 2024 - Global Priorities Institute Working Paper.
    Some worry that advanced artificial agents may resist being shut down. The Incomplete Preferences Proposal (IPP) is an idea for ensuring that doesn't happen. A key part of the IPP is using a novel 'Discounted REward for Same-Length Trajectories (DREST)' reward function to train agents to (1) pursue goals effectively conditional on each trajectory-length (be 'USEFUL'), and (2) choose stochastically between different trajectory-lengths (be 'NEUTRAL' about trajectory-lengths). In this paper, we propose evaluation metrics for USEFULNESS and NEUTRALITY. We use a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. The procreation asymmetry, improvable-life avoidance and impairable-life acceptance.Elliott Thornley - 2023 - Analysis 83 (3):517-526.
    Many philosophers are attracted to a complaints-based theory of the procreation asymmetry, according to which creating a person with a bad life is wrong (all else equal) because that person can complain about your act, whereas declining to create a person who would have a good life is not wrong (all else equal) because that person never exists and so cannot complain about your act. In this paper, I present two problems for such theories: the problem of impairable-life acceptance and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  6. The Shutdown Problem: Incomplete Preferences as a Solution.Elliott Thornley - manuscript
    I explain and motivate the shutdown problem: the problem of creating artificial agents that (1) shut down when a shutdown button is pressed, (2) don’t try to prevent or cause the pressing of the shutdown button, and (3) otherwise pursue goals competently. I then propose a solution: train agents to have incomplete preferences. Specifically, I propose that we train agents to lack a preference between every pair of different-length trajectories. I suggest a way to train such agents using reinforcement learning: (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  7. The Shutdown Problem: An AI Engineering Puzzle for Decision Theorists.Elliott Thornley - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies:1-28.
    I explain the shutdown problem: the problem of designing artificial agents that (1) shut down when a shutdown button is pressed, (2) don’t try to prevent or cause the pressing of the shutdown button, and (3) otherwise pursue goals competently. I prove three theorems that make the difficulty precise. These theorems show that agents satisfying some innocuous-seeming conditions will often try to prevent or cause the pressing of the shutdown button, even in cases where it’s costly to do so. And (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  8. Critical Levels, Critical Ranges, and Imprecise Exchange Rates in Population Axiology.Elliott Thornley - 2022 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 22 (3):382–414.
    According to Critical-Level Views in population axiology, an extra life improves a population only if that life’s welfare exceeds some fixed ‘critical level.’ An extra life at the critical level leaves the new population equally good as the original. According to Critical-Range Views, an extra life improves a population only if that life’s welfare exceeds some fixed ‘critical range.’ An extra life within the critical range leaves the new population incommensurable with the original. -/- In this paper, I sharpen some (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  9. A Non-Identity Dilemma for Person-Affecting Views.Elliott Thornley - manuscript
    Person-affecting views state that (in cases where all else is equal) we’re permitted but not required to create people who would enjoy good lives. In this paper, I present an argument against every possible variety of person-affecting view. The argument is a dilemma over trilemmas. Narrow person-affecting views imply a trilemma in a case that I call ‘Expanded Non-Identity.’ Wide person-affecting views imply a trilemma in a case that I call ‘Two-Shot Non-Identity.’ One plausible practical upshot of my argument is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  10. A Fission Problem for Person-Affecting Views.Elliott Thornley - forthcoming - Ergo.
    On person-affecting views in population ethics, the moral import of a person’s welfare depends on that person’s temporal or modal status. These views typically imply that – all else equal – we’re never required to create extra people, or to act in ways that increase the probability of extra people coming into existence. -/- In this paper, I use Parfit-style fission cases to construct a dilemma for person-affecting views: either they forfeit their seeming-advantages and face fission analogues of the problems (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  11. A dilemma for lexical and Archimedean views in population axiology.Elliott Thornley - 2022 - Economics and Philosophy 38 (3):395-415.
    Lexical views in population axiology can avoid the Repugnant Conclusion without violating Transitivity or Separability. However, they imply a dilemma: either some good life is better than any number of slightly worse lives, or else the ‘at least as good as’ relation on populations is radically incomplete. In this paper, I argue that Archimedean views face an analogous dilemma. I thus conclude that the lexical dilemma gives us little reason to prefer Archimedean views. Even if we give up on lexicality, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  12. Critical-Set Views, Biographical Identity, and the Long Term.Elliott Thornley - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
    Critical-set views avoid the Repugnant Conclusion by subtracting some constant from the welfare score of each life in a population. These views are thus sensitive to facts about biographical identity: identity between lives. In this paper, I argue that questions of biographical identity give us reason to reject critical-set views and embrace the total view. I end with a practical implication. If we shift our credences towards the total view, we should also shift our efforts towards ensuring that humanity survives (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  13. ‘Ramseyfying’ Probabilistic Comparativism.Edward Elliott - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (4):727-754.
    Comparativism is the view that comparative confidences (e.g., being more confident that P than that Q) are more fundamental than degrees of belief (e.g., believing that P with some strength x). In this paper, I outline the basis for a new, non-probabilistic version of comparativism inspired by a suggestion made by Frank Ramsey in `Probability and Partial Belief'. I show how, and to what extent, `Ramseyan comparativism' might be used to weaken the (unrealistically strong) probabilistic coherence conditions that comparativism traditionally (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  14. Radical Misinterpretation.Edward Elliott - 2023 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 104 (3):646-684.
    This paper provides an exposition and defence of Lewis' theory of radical interpretation. The first part explains what Lewis' theory was; the second part explains what it wasn't, and in so doing addresses a number of common objections that arise as a result of widespread myths and misunderstandings about how Lewis' theory is supposed to work.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  15. Research Problems.Steve Elliott - 2021 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 72 (4):1013-1037.
    To identify and conceptualize research problems in science, philosophers and often scientists rely on classical accounts of problems that focus on intellectual problems defined in relation to theories. Recently, philosophers have begun to study the structures and functions of research problems not defined in relation to theories. Furthermore, scientists have long pursued research problems often labeled as practical or applied. As yet, no account of problems specifies the description of both so-called intellectual problems and so-called applied problems. This article proposes (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  16. Nietzsche’s Physiology of Aesthetics, and the Aesthetics of Physiology.Richard J. Elliott - 2024 - Studi di Estetica 27 (3):71 - 90.
    Nietzsche announces his intentions to publish a “physiology of aesthetics”, namely a naturalistic explanation for how aesthetic judgements are grounded in the physiology of both the one experiencing the work, and the creator of it. But as well as the physiological reduction of aesthetic judgements, Nietzsche in many places across his oeuvre frames the apparatus of physiology, especially the prescriptive dimension of self-cultivation, in terms amenable to being treated as ‘aesthetic’. The first section will mount a (re-) defense of the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  17. Conjunctive forks and temporally asymmetric inference.Elliott Sober & Martin Barrett - 1992 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 70 (1):1 – 23.
    We argue against some of Reichenbach's claims about causal forks are incorrect. We do not see why the Second Law of Thermodynamics rules out the existence of conjunctive forks open to the past. In addition, we argue that a common effect rarely forms a conjunctive fork with its joint causes, but it sometimes does. Nevertheless, we think there is something to be said for Reichenbach's idea that forks of various kinds are relevant to explaining why we know more about the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  18. Betting against the Zen Monk: on preferences and partial belief.Edward Elliott - 2019 - Synthese 198 (4):3733-3758.
    According to the preference-centric approach to understanding partial belief, the connection between partial beliefs and preferences is key to understanding what partial beliefs are and how they’re measured. As Ramsey put it, the ‘degree of a belief is a causal property of it, which we can express vaguely as the extent to which we are prepared to act on it’ The Foundations of Mathematics and Other Logical Essays, Routledge, Oxon, pp 156–198, 1931). But this idea is not as popular as (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  19. The contest between parsimony and likelihood.Elliott Sober - 2004 - Systematic Biology 53 (4):644-653.
    Maximum Parsimony (MP) and Maximum Likelihood (ML) are two methods for evaluating which phlogenetic tree is best supported by data on the characteristics of leaf objects (which may be species, populations, or individual organisms). MP has been criticized for assuming that evolution proceeds parsimoniously -- that if a lineage begins in state i and ends in state j, the way it got from i to j is by the smallest number of changes. MP has been criticized for needing to assume (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  20. Fitness and the Twins.Elliott Sober - 2020 - Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 12 (1):1-13.
    Michael Scriven’s (1959) example of identical twins (who are said to be equal in fitness but unequal in their reproductive success) has been used by many philosophers of biology to discuss how fitness should be defined, how selection should be distinguished from drift, and how the environment in which a selection process occurs should be conceptualized. Here it is argued that evolutionary theory has no commitment, one way or the other, as to whether the twins are equally fit. This is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  21. Normative Decision Theory.Edward Elliott - 2019 - Analysis 79 (4):755-772.
    A review of some major topics of debate in normative decision theory from circa 2007 to 2019. Topics discussed include the ongoing debate between causal and evidential decision theory, decision instability, risk-weighted expected utility theory, decision-making with incomplete preferences, and decision-making with imprecise credences.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  22. Comparativism and the Measurement of Partial Belief.Edward Elliott - 2022 - Erkenntnis 87 (6):2843-2870.
    According to comparativism, degrees of belief are reducible to a system of purely ordinal comparisons of relative confidence. (For example, being more confident that P than that Q, or being equally confident that P and that Q.) In this paper, I raise several general challenges for comparativism, relating to (i) its capacity to illuminate apparently meaningful claims regarding intervals and ratios of strengths of belief, (ii) its capacity to draw enough intuitively meaningful and theoretically relevant distinctions between doxastic states, and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  23. Is global consequentialism more expressive than act consequentialism?Elliott Thornley - 2022 - Analysis 82 (1):75-84.
    Act consequentialism states that an act is right if and only if the expected value of its outcome is at least as great as the expected value of any other act’s outcome. Two objections to this view are as follows. The first is that act consequentialism cannot account for our normative ambivalence in cases where agents perform the right act out of bad motives. The second is that act consequentialism is silent on questions of character: questions like ‘What are the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  24. What Is ‘Real’ in Interpersonal Comparisons of Confidence.Edward Elliott - 2022 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (1):102-116.
    ABSTRACT According to comparativism, comparative confidence is more fundamental than absolute confidence. In two recent AJP papers, Stefánsson has argued that comparativism is capable of explaining interpersonal confidence comparisons. In this paper, I will argue that Stefansson’s proposed explanation is inadequate; that we have good reasons to think that comparativism cannot handle interpersonal comparisons; and that the best explanation of interpersonal comparisons requires thinking about confidence in a fundamentally different way than that which comparativists propose: specifically, we should think of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  25. Representation Theorems and Radical Interpretation.Edward J. R. Elliott - manuscript
    This paper begins with a puzzle regarding Lewis' theory of radical interpretation. On the one hand, Lewis convincingly argued that the facts about an agent's sensory evidence and choices will always underdetermine the facts about her beliefs and desires. On the other hand, we have several representation theorems—such as those of (Ramsey 1931) and (Savage 1954)—that are widely taken to show that if an agent's choices satisfy certain constraints, then those choices can suffice to determine her beliefs and desires. In (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  26. Unawareness and Implicit Belief.Edward J. R. Elliott - manuscript
    Possible worlds models of belief have difficulties accounting for unawareness, the inability to entertain (and hence believe) certain propositions. Accommodating unawareness is important for adequately modelling epistemic states, and representing the informational content to which agents have in principle access given their explicit beliefs. In this paper, I develop a model of explicit belief, awareness, and informational content, along with an sound and complete axiomatisation. I furthermore defend the model against the seminal impossibility result of Dekel, Lipman and Rustichini, according (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  27. Inference to the best explanation and the new size elitism1.Katrina Elliott - 2021 - Philosophical Perspectives 35 (1):170-188.
    Philosophical Perspectives, Volume 35, Issue 1, Page 170-188, December 2021.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  28. How to Read a Representor.Edward Elliott - forthcoming - Ergo.
    Imprecise probabilities are often modelled with representors, or sets of probability functions. In the recent literature, two ways of interpreting representors have emerged as especially prominent: vagueness interpretations, according to which each probability function in the set represents how the agent's beliefs would be if any vagueness were precisified away; and comparativist interpretations, according to which the set represents those comparative confidence relations that are common to all probability functions therein. I argue that these interpretations have some important limitations. I (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  29. A Tapestry of Values: Response to My Critics.Kevin C. Elliott - 2018 - Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 10 (11).
    This response addresses the excellent responses to my book provided by Heather Douglas, Janet Kourany, and Matt Brown. First, I provide some comments and clarifications concerning a few of the highlights from their essays. Second, in response to the worries of my critics, I provide more detail than I was able to provide in my book regarding my three conditions for incorporating values in science. Third, I identify some of the most promising avenues for further research that flow out of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  30. A Representation Theorem for Frequently Irrational Agents.Edward Elliott - 2017 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 46 (5):467-506.
    The standard representation theorem for expected utility theory tells us that if a subject’s preferences conform to certain axioms, then she can be represented as maximising her expected utility given a particular set of credences and utilities—and, moreover, that having those credences and utilities is the only way that she could be maximising her expected utility. However, the kinds of agents these theorems seem apt to tell us anything about are highly idealised, being always probabilistically coherent with infinitely precise degrees (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  31. A Plea for Pseudo‐Processes†.Elliott Sober - 2017 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 66 (3-4):303-309.
    Is all explanations causal explanation? Puzzles about barometer readings "explain" storms and shadow lengths "explaining" flagpole heights make it attractive to think so. Wesley Salmon (1984) has endorsed this causal thesis. One way to test this thesis is to assess the explanatory import of pseudo-processes. I do so by discussing the concept of heritability, which measures a pseudo-process, and one role it played in the theory of natural selection: explaining response to selection. This will show, not just that heritability has (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  32. Holism, Individualism, and the Units of Selection.Elliott Sober - 1980 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1980:93 - 121.
    Developing a definition of group selection, and applying that definition to the dispute in the social sciences between methodological holists and methodological individualists, are the two goals of this paper. The definition proposed distinguishes between changes in groups that are due to group selection and changes in groups that are artefacts of selection processes occurring at lower levels of organization. It also explains why the existence of group selection is not implied by the mere fact that fitness values of organisms (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  33. Moral Kombat: Analytic Naturalism and Moral Disagreement.Edward Elliott & Jessica Isserow - 2023 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 53 (4):366-382.
    Moral naturalists are often said to have trouble making sense of inter-communal moral disagreements. The culprit is typically thought to be the naturalist’s metasemantics and its implications for the sameness of meaning across communities. The most familiar incarnation of this metasemantic challenge is the Moral Twin Earth argument. We address the challenge from the perspective of analytic naturalism and argue that making sense of inter-communal moral disagreement creates no special issues for this view.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  34. Philosophy in Science: Some Personal Reflections.Elliott Sober - 2022 - Philosophy of Science 89 (5):899-907.
    The task of Philosophy in Science (PinS) is to use philosophical tools to help solve scientific problems. This article describes how I stumbled into this line of work and then addressed several topics in philosophy of biology—units of selection, cladistic parsimony, robustness and trade-offs in model building, adaptationism, and evidence for common ancestry—often in collaboration with scientists. I conclude by offering advice for would-be PinS practitioners.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  35. (2 other versions)Running up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes: A response to Woodward on causal and explanatory asymmetries.Katrina Elliott & Marc Lange - forthcoming - Theoria : An International Journal for Theory, History and Fundations of Science.
    Does smoke cause fire or does fire cause smoke? James Woodward’s “Flagpoles anyone? Causal and explanatory asymmetries” argues that various statistical independence relations not only help us to uncover the directions of causal and explanatory relations in our world, but also are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. We raise questions about Woodward’s envisioned epistemology, but our primary focus is on his metaphysics. We argue that any alleged connection between statistical (in)dependence and causal/explanatory direction is contingent, at best. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  36. What is wrong with intelligent design?Elliott Sober - 2007 - Quarterly Review of Biology 82 (1):3-8.
    This article reviews two standard criticisms of creationism/intelligent design (ID): it is unfalsifiable, and it is refuted by the many imperfect adaptations found in nature. Problems with both criticisms are discussed. A conception of testability is described that avoids the defects in Karl Popper’s falsifiability criterion. Although ID comes in multiple forms, which call for different criticisms, it emerges that ID fails to constitute a serious alternative to evolutionary theory.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   23 citations  
  37. Adorno's Critique of Aesthetic Intentionalism & its Limits.Richard J. Elliott - 2021 - Phenomenological Reviews 1.
    In this critical review I explore the anti-intentionalist stance Adorno offers in his aesthetics, specifically focusing on his Notes to Literature, and the internal limits to this stance. Adorno rejects the primacy of authorial intentionalism: The presuppositions of its aesthetic methodology, he claims, place the individual in a position of epistemic priority, without exploring the social totalities which constitute the conditions of the presentation of aesthetic knowledge by any such individual. The role of the creator for Adorno is inherently mediated (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  38. How Much Should Governments Pay to Prevent Catastrophes? Longtermism's Limited Role.Carl Shulman & Elliott Thornley - forthcoming - In Jacob Barrett, Hilary Greaves & David Thorstad (eds.), Essays on Longtermism. Oxford University Press.
    Longtermists have argued that humanity should significantly increase its efforts to prevent catastrophes like nuclear wars, pandemics, and AI disasters. But one prominent longtermist argument overshoots this conclusion: the argument also implies that humanity should reduce the risk of existential catastrophe even at extreme cost to the present generation. This overshoot means that democratic governments cannot use the longtermist argument to guide their catastrophe policy. In this paper, we show that the case for preventing catastrophe does not depend on longtermism. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  39.  63
    Causal Factors, Causal Inference, Causal Explanation.Elliott Sober & David Papineau - 1986 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 60 (1):97 - 136.
    There are two concepts of causes, property causation and token causation. The principle I want to discuss describes an epistemological connection between the two concepts, which I call the Connecting Principle. The rough idea is that if a token event of type Cis followed by a token event of type E, then the support of the hypothesis that the first event token caused the second increases as the strength of the property causal relation of C to E does. I demonstrate (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  40. Education and Knowledge.Elliott R. Crozat - 2022 - Logos and Episteme 13 (3):245-263.
    In this paper, I challenge a traditional assumption concerning the nature and aims of education. According to epistemic infallibilism, propositional knowledge requires epistemic certainty. Though some philosophers accept infallibilism, others consider it implausible because it does not recognize ordinary cases of supposed knowledge. On this objection, we possess many items of propositional knowledge, notwithstanding the fallibleness of these items. Infallibilism is inconsistent with such items and thus considered unwarranted. I articulate this kind of objection to infallibilism as it concerns education. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  41. Fodor’s B ubbe Meise Against Darwinism.Elliott Sober - 2008 - Mind and Language 23 (1):42-49.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  42. On The Incompatibility of Faith and Intellectual Humility.James Elliott - 2019 - In Gregory E. Trickett & John R. Gilhooly (eds.), Open-mindedness in Philosophy of Religion. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. pp. 121-139.
    Although the relationship between faith and intellectual humility has yet to be specifically addressed in the philosophical literature, there are reasons to believe that they are at least in some sense incompatible, especially when judging from pre-theoretical intuitions. In this paper I attempt to specify and explicate this incompatibility, which is found in specific conflicting epistemic attitudes they each respectively invite. I first suggest general definitions of both faith and intellectual humility (understood as intellectual virtues), building off current proposals in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  43. Impossible worlds and partial belief.Edward Elliott - 2019 - Synthese 196 (8):3433-3458.
    One response to the problem of logical omniscience in standard possible worlds models of belief is to extend the space of worlds so as to include impossible worlds. It is natural to think that essentially the same strategy can be applied to probabilistic models of partial belief, for which parallel problems also arise. In this paper, I note a difficulty with the inclusion of impossible worlds into probabilistic models. Under weak assumptions about the space of worlds, most of the propositions (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  44. Parsimony and models of animal minds.Elliott Sober - 2009 - In Robert W. Lurz (ed.), The Philosophy of Animal Minds. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 237.
    The chapter discusses the principle of conservatism and traces how the general principle is related to the specific one. This tracing suggests that the principle of conservatism needs to be refined. Connecting the principle in cognitive science to more general questions about scientific inference also allows us to revisit the question of realism versus instrumentalism. The framework deployed in model selection theory is very general; it is not specific to the subject matter of science. The chapter outlines some non-Bayesian ideas (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  45. Proof of Concept Research.Steve Elliott - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (2):258-280.
    Researchers often pursue proof of concept research, but criteria for evaluating such research remain poorly specified. This article proposes a general framework for proof of concept research that k...
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  46. Papers in Population Ethics.Elliott Thornley - 2023 - Dissertation, University of Oxford
    This thesis consists of a series of papers in population ethics: a subfield of normative ethics concerned with the distinctive issues that arise in cases where our actions can affect the identities or number of people of who ever exist. Each paper can be read independently of the others. In Chapter 1, I present a dilemma for Archimedean views in population axiology: roughly, those views on which adding enough good lives to a population can make that population better than any (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  47. Natural selection, causality, and laws: What Fodor and piatelli-palmarini got wrong.Elliott Sober - 2010 - Philosophy of Science 77 (4):594-607.
    In their book What Darwin Got Wrong, Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini construct an a priori philosophical argument and an empirical biological argument. The biological argument aims to show that natural selection is much less important in the evolutionary process than many biologists maintain. The a priori argument begins with the claim that there cannot be selection for one but not the other of two traits that are perfectly correlated in a population; it concludes that there cannot be an evolutionary (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  48. (1 other version)Instrumentalism Revisited.Elliott Sober - 1999 - Critica 31 (91):3-39.
    The logical empiricists said some good things about epistemology and scientific method. However, they associated those epistemological ideas with some rather less good ideas about philosophy of language. There is something epistemologically suspect about statements that cannot be tested. But to say that those statements are meaningless is to go too far. And there is something impossible about trying to figure out which of two empirically equivalent theories is true. But to say that those theories are synonymous is also to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  49. Reasons, Dispositions, and Value.Aaron P. Elliott - 2017 - Philosophers' Imprint 17.
    In this paper, I will discuss an objection to Buck-Passing accounts of value, such as Reasons Fundamentalism. Buck-Passing views take value to be derivative of or reducible to reasons. The objection is that since there can be value in possible worlds in which there are no reasons, value must not be ontologically derivative of reasons. Thus, BP is false. In this paper, I show that by accepting a dispositionalist revision, BP can allow such worlds while maintaining that reasons are interestingly (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  50. Contrastive Causal Explanation and the Explanatoriness of Deterministic and Probabilistic Hypotheses Theories.Elliott Sober - forthcoming - European Journal for Philosophy of Science.
    Carl Hempel (1965) argued that probabilistic hypotheses are limited in what they can explain. He contended that a hypothesis cannot explain why E is true if the hypothesis says that E has a probability less than 0.5. Wesley Salmon (1971, 1984, 1990, 1998) and Richard Jeffrey (1969) argued to the contrary, contending that P can explain why E is true even when P says that E’s probability is very low. This debate concerned noncontrastive explananda. Here, a view of contrastive causal (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
1 — 50 / 129