Information may be extracted from a quantum–mechanical system only by means of inference. For this reason, the observer, although not required as such for obtaining an eigenstate of the measured observable on a given system, is necessary for obtaining information.

It is sometimes suggested that there are two kinds of reasoning: inferential reasoning and non-inferential reasoning. However, it is not entirely clear what the difference between these two kinds of reasoning is. In this paper, I try to answer the question what this difference is. I first discuss three answers to this question that I argue are unsatisfactory. I then give a different answer to this question, and I argue that this answer is satisfactory. (...) I end by showing that this answer can help to resolve some disagreements in which the difference between inferential and noninferential reasoning plays a role. (shrink)

Causal pluralism can be defended not only in respect to causal concepts and methodological guidelines, but also at the finer-grained level of causal inference from a particular source of evidence for causation. An argument for this last variety of pluralism is made based on an analysis of causal inference from randomized experiments (RCTs). Here, the causal interpretation of a statistically significant association can be established via multiple paths of reasoning, each relying on different assumptions and providing distinct elements of (...) information in favour of a causal interpretation. (shrink)

I pursue an answer to the psychological question “what is it for S to presuppose that p?” I will not attempt a general answer. Rather, I will explore a particular kind of presuppositions that are constituted by the mental act of reasoning: Inferential presuppositions. Indeed, I will consider a specific kind of inferential presuppositions—one that is constituted by a specific reasoning competence: The univocality competence. Roughly, this is the competence that reliably governs the univocal thought-components’ operation (...) as univocal in a line of reasoning. I will argue that the exercise of this reasoning competence constitutes certain inferential presuppositions. More specifically, I outline a conception of an inferential presupposition as a non-attitudinal but genuinely psychological and rationally committing relation that holds between a reasoner and a proposition. Thus, inferential presuppositions may be distinguished from tacit or standing attitudes that function as premise-beliefs in reasoning. Likewise inferential presuppositions may be distinguished from other kinds of presuppositions. In conclusion, I note some features of inferential presuppositions that bear on the epistemology of inference. (shrink)

Alex Byrne (2005; 2011a; 2011b; 2018) has argued that we can gain self-knowledge of our current mental states through the use of a transparency method. A transparency method provides an extrospective rather than introspective route to self-knowledge. For example, one comes to know whether one believes P not by thinking about oneself but by considering the world-directed question of whether P is true. According to Byrne, this psychological process consists in drawing inferences from world-directed propositions to mind-directed conclusions. In this (...) article, I consider whether this ‘Inferential Transparency Method’ can provide us with the self-knowledge that some philosophers have thought we require in order to “critically reason” (Burge 1996), and I conclude that it cannot provide such self-knowledge. The force of this objection depends on how much stock we should place in our status as critical reasoners. However, I conclude by suggesting a more general worry for Byrne’s account. (shrink)

We present a general formalism of causal reasoning that encompasses both Pearl’s approach to causality and a number of key systems of nonmonotonic reasoning in artificial intelligence.

Several legal arguments use the notion of ratio legis in order to sustain a normative conclusion, in particular the argument from analogy and some forms of teleological argumentation. However, determining the ratio is often a difficult and controversial task. In this paper we look firstly at the speech acts typically performed by legal practitioners in order to determine the ratio and, secondly, we take into account the argumentative commitments they undertake in so doing and the argumentative constraints put on them. (...) This will lead us to distinguish different uses of the notion of ratio legis and to ask on what conditions each of them is justified. (shrink)

This book discusses how scientific and other types of cognition make use of models, abduction, and explanatory reasoning in order to produce important and innovative changes in theories and concepts. Gathering revised contributions presented at the international conference on Model-Based Reasoning, held on October 24–26 2018 in Seville, Spain, the book is divided into three main parts. The first focuses on models, reasoning, and representation. It highlights key theoretical concepts from an applied perspective, and addresses issues concerning (...) information visualization, experimental methods, and design. The second part goes a step further, examining abduction, problem solving, and reasoning. The respective papers assess different types of reasoning, and discuss various concepts of inference and creativity and their relationship with experimental data. In turn, the third part reports on a number of epistemological and technological issues. By analyzing possible contradictions in modern research and describing representative case studies, this part is intended to foster new discussions and stimulate new ideas. All in all, the book provides researchers and graduate students in the fields of applied philosophy, epistemology, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence alike with an authoritative snapshot of the latest theories and applications of model-based reasoning. (shrink)

This paper defends an inferential conception of scientific representation. It approaches the notion of representation in a deflationary spirit, and minimally characterizes the concept as it appears in science by means of two necessary conditions: its essential directionality and its capacity to allow surrogate reasoning and inference. The conception is defended by showing that it successfully meets the objections that make its competitors, such as isomorphism and similarity, untenable. In addition the inferential conception captures the objectivity of (...) the cognitive representations used by science, it sheds light on their truth and completeness, and it explains the source of the analogy between scientific and artistic modes of representation. (shrink)

In “Weak Inferential Internalism” I defended the frequently voiced criticism that any internalist account of inferential justification generates a vicious regress. My defense involved criticizing a recent form of internalism, “Weak Inferential Internalism” (WII) defended by Hookway and Rhoda. I argued that while WII does not generate a vicious regress, the position is only distinguishable from externalism insofar as it makes an arbitrary distinction between individuals who believe for the very same reason. Either way, WII is not (...) a defensible internalist account of inferential justification. In his “In Defense of Weak Inferential Internalism,” Rhoda has responded to my dilemma argument. He argues that it is mistaken to assume that WII must be incompatible with externalism, and that contrary to my claims, WII is distinguishable from externalism in several ways. In this reply, I explain why none of Rhoda’s replies suggest that there is a defensible internalist account of inferential justification. (shrink)

Inferential internalism holds that for one to be inferentially justified in believing P on the basis of E one must be justified in believing that E makes probable P. Inferential internalism has long been accused of generating a vicious regress on inferential justification that has drastic skeptical consequences. However, recently Hookway and Rhoda have defended a more modest form of internalism that avoids this problem. They propose a form of weak inferential internalism according to which internalist (...) conditions are restricted to only certain kinds of inferential justification. In this paper, I clarify and argue against weak internalism. I contend that while weak internalism avoids the vicious regress, it does so at the cost of compromising its internalist credentials. For I show that unless weak internalism makes an arbitrary distinction between individuals who believe for the very same reasons, the view collapses into externalism. (shrink)

Logical inferentialism maintains that the formal rules of inference fix the meanings of the logical terms. The categoricity problem points out to the fact that the standard formalizations of classical logic do not uniquely determine the intended meanings of its logical terms, i.e., these formalizations are not categorical. This means that there are different interpretations of the logical terms that are consistent with the relation of logical derivability in a logical calculus. In the case of the quantificational logic, the categoricity (...) problem is generated by the finite nature of the standard calculi and one direction in which it can be solved is to strengthen the deductive systems by adding infinitary rules (such as the ω-rule), i.e., to construct a full formalization. Another main direction is to provide a natural semantics for the standard rules of inference, i.e., a semantics for which these rules are categorical. My aim in this paper is to analyze some recent approaches for solving the categoricity problem and to argue that a logical inferentialist should accept the infinitary rules of inference for the first order quantifiers, since our use of the expressions “all” and “there is” leads us beyond the concrete and finite reasoning, and human beings do sometimes employ infinitary rules of inference in their reasoning. (shrink)

In “Weak Inferential Internalism” I defended the frequently voiced criticism that any internalist account of inferential justification generates a vicious regress. My defense involved criticizing a recent form of internalism, “Weak Inferential Internalism” , defended by Hookway and Rhoda. I argued that while WII does not generate a vicious regress, the position is only distinguishable from externalism insofar as it makes an arbitrary distinction between individuals who believe for the very same reason. Either way, WII is not (...) a defensible internalist account of inferential justification. In his “In Defense of Weak Inferential Internalism,” Rhoda has responded to my dilemma argument. He argues that it is mistaken to assume that WII must be incompatible with externalism, and that contrary to my claims, WII is distinguishable from externalism in several ways. In this reply, I explain why none of Rhoda’s replies suggest that there is a defensible internalist account of inferential justification. (shrink)

In this paper, I flesh out an account of the inferential basing relation using a theory about how humans reason: the mental models theory. I critically assess some of the notions that are used by that theory to account for inferential phenomena. To the extent that the mental models theory is well confirmed, that account of basing would be motivated on empirical grounds. This work illustrates how epistemologists could offer explications of the basing relation which are more detailed (...) and less empirically risky. (shrink)

This dissertation is concerned with normativity both as an explanatory device in the philosophy of language, logic and epistemology and as a philosophical issue in its own right. Following later Wittgenstein and Sellars, it is argued that language is normative, in the first instance because of the fact that speech acts take place within a structure of social norms and institutions. This fact is then utilized to show that important features of semantic content can be explained in terms of such (...) norms. ;This Sellarsian conception of linguistic usage as the performance of acts within a linguistic game of giving and asking for reasons, leads us to focus on inferential proprieties as central to semantic content. It is, then, natural to look at logical vocabulary, paradigmatically 'entails', as expressing the very normative relations definitive of this content. An idea of Brandom's is developed in providing a formal theory of the inferential content of logical vocabulary. Such normative-inferentialist semantic analyses are developed for a wide range of logical systems. ;A certain conception of justification also falls naturally out of this general theory of language. If asserting is an act performed within a linguistic game, then justification can be thought of as a matter of winning such a game, a successfully defending one's assertion in the face of licensed challenges to it. This account is developed, drawing consequences for the theory of rationality and knowledge. ;The second major issue of the dissertation is the theory of the normative itself and much of the constructive work in the philosophy of language, philosophy of logic and epistemology forms a case study for a particular theory of the normative. On the basis of Wittgensteinian considerations, it is argued that normativity must be understood as resting ultimately on social practice. ;We solve problems of earlier accounts of norms by introducing a novel normative relation between assertions of normative propriety and social practices. Normative assertions do not describe existing social standards, but do nonetheless derive their semantic content from those standards. This argument carried through in detail for cases of logical and epistemic vocabulary in the dissertation. (shrink)

In this paper, I flesh out an account of the inferential basing relation using a theory about how humans reason: the mental models theory. I critically assess some of the notions that are used by that theory to account for inferential phenomena. To the extent that the mental models theory is well confirmed, that account of basing would be motivated on empirical grounds. This work illustrates how epistemologists could offer explications of the basing relation which are more detailed (...) and less empirically risky. (shrink)

The paper is a study of properties of quasi-consequence operation which is a key notion of the so-called inferential approach in the theory of sentential calculi established in [5]. The principal motivation behind the quasi-consequence, q-consequence for short, stems from the mathematical practice which treats some auxiliary assumptions as mere hypotheses rather than axioms and their further occurrence in place of conclusions may be justified or not. The main semantic feature of the q-consequence reflecting the idea is that its (...) rules lead from the non-rejected assumptions to the accepted conclusions.First, we focus on the syntactic features of the framework and present the q-consequence as related to the notion of proof. Such a presentation uncovers the reasons for which the adjective inferential is used to characterize the approach and, possibly, the term inference operation replaces q-consequence. It also shows that the inferential approach is a generalisation of the Tarski setting and, therefore, it may potentially absorb several concepts from the theory of sentential calculi, cf. [10]. However, as some concrete applications show, see e.g.[4], the new approach opens perspectives for further exploration. (shrink)

Many of our beliefs are the product of inference and depend on chains of reasoning from other beliefs we hold. Inferential internalism is the view that an inference can only provide justification if one is aware of the support relation that holds between the premises and conclusion. This inferential internalist requirement is controversial even among epistemologists who accept internalist conditions on justification more generally. In this paper, we argue that the intuition underlying a central motivation for internalism (...) more generally is the same intuition that motivates inferential internalism. As such, internalists who reject the more demanding requirements of inferential internalism are prima facie involved in a problematic inconsistency. We finish the paper by considering a dilemma for inferential internalism and presenting two strategies for responding. (shrink)

The ability to extrapolate essential gist through the analysis and synthesis of information, prediction of potential outcomes, abstraction of ideas, and integration of relationships with world knowledge is critical for higher-order learning. The present study investigated the efficacy of cognitive training to elicit improvements in gist-reasoning and fact recall ability in 556 public middle-school students (grades seven and eight), versus a sample of 357 middle school students who served as a comparison group, to determine if changes in gist-reasoning (...) and fact recall were demonstrated without cognitive training. The results showed that, in general, cognitive training increased gist-reasoning and fact recall abilities in students from families in poverty as well as students from families living above poverty. However, the magnitude of gains in gist-reasoning varied as a function of gender and grade-level. Our primary findings were that seventh and eighth grade girls and eighth grade boys showed significant increases in gist-reasoning after training regardless of socioeconomic status. There were no significant increases in gist-reasoning or fact recall ability for the 357 middle school students who served in the comparison group. We postulate that cognitive training in middle school is efficacious for improving gist-reasoning ability and fact recall in students from all socioeconomic levels. (shrink)

I present an account of how agents can know what they are doing when they intentionally execute object-oriented actions. When an agent executes an object-oriented intentional action, she uses perception in such a way that it can fulfil a justificatory role for her knowledge of her own action and it can fulfil this justificatory role without being inferentially linked to the cognitive states that it justifies. I argue for this proposal by meeting two challenges: in an agent's knowledge of her (...) action perception can only play an enabling role (and no justificatory role) for the agent's knowledge and if perception has a justificatory role, then the agent's knowledge must be inferential. (shrink)

The first part of the paper focuses on the role played in thought and action by possession of the first‐person concept. It is argued that only one who possesses the I concept is in a position to fully articulate certain fundamental, a priori aspects of the concept of reason. A full understanding of the concept of reason requires being inclined to be affected or immediately motivated by reasons—to form, change or confirm beliefs or other attitudes in accordance with them—when those (...) reasons apply to one's own attitudes. The cases where rational evaluations of acts and attitudes rationally motivate immediate implementation of the evaluations to shape the acts and attitudes are distinguished from cases where they do not, by the use of the first‐person concept to mark those acts and attitudes as one's own. The second part of the paper examines asymmetries between self‐knowledge and knowledge of other minds. The usual view that self‐knowledge has an immediate and a priori warrant, whereas knowledge of others’ minds rests on observation and inference is disputed. A sketch is given of knowledge of other minds that can be non‐inferential and can rest on an intellectual, non‐perceptual entitlement. When one seemingly understands an utterance in interlocution, one is a priori prima facie entitled to suppose that it comes from a rational source, and because knowledge of other minds can be immediate and epistemically grounded in intellectual, non‐empirical entitlements, it is distinguished from self‐knowledge not by being necessarily inferential or by being necessarily grounded in perception, but by being in some known contrast with thought known as one's own. (shrink)

Proof-theoretic semantics provides meanings to the connectives of intuitionistic logic without the need for a semantics in the standard sense of an attribution of semantic values to formulas. Meanings are given by the inference rules that, in this case, do not express preservation of truth but rather preservation of availability of a constructive proof. Elsewhere we presented two paraconsistent systems of natural deduction: the Basic Logic of Evidence and the Logic of Evidence and Truth. The rules of BLE have been (...) conceived to preserve a notion weaker than truth, namely, evidence, understood as reasons for believing in or accepting a given proposition. \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$LET_{J}$$\end{document}, on the other hand, is a logic of formal inconsistency and undeterminedness that extends \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$BLE$$\end{document} by adding resources to recover classical logic for formulas taken as true, or false. We extend the idea of proof-theoretic semantics to these logics and argue that the meanings of the connectives in BLE are given by the fact that its rules are concerned with preservation of the availability of evidence. An analogous idea also applies to \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$LET_{J}$$\end{document}. (shrink)

This paper aims to propose an inferential and dynamic approach to understanding with models in biology. Understanding plays a central role in the practice of modeling. From its links with the other two central elements of scientific research, experimentation, and explanation, we show its epistemic relevance to the case of explanation in biology. Furthermore, by including the notion of understanding, we propose a non-referentialist perspective on scientific models, which is determined by their use.

This paper aims to propose an inferential and dynamic approach to understanding with models in biology. Understanding plays a central role in the practice of modeling. From its links with the other two central elements of scientific research, experimentation, and explanation, we show its epistemic relevance to the case of explanation in biology. Furthermore, by including the notion of understanding, we propose a non-referentialist perspective on scientific models, which is determined by their use.

Logical inferentialism maintains that the formal rules of inference fix the meanings of the logical terms. The categoricity problem points out to the fact that the standard formalizations of classical logic do not uniquely determine the intended meanings of its logical terms, i.e., these formalizations are not categorical. This means that there are different interpretations of the logical terms that are consistent with the relation of logical derivability in a logical calculus. In the case of the quantificational logic, the categoricity (...) problem is generated by the finite nature of the standard calculi and one direction in which it can be solved is to strengthen the deductive systems by adding infinitary rules (such as the ω-rule), i.e., to construct a full formalization. Another main direction is to provide a natural semantics for the standard rules of inference, i.e., a semantics for which these rules are categorical. My aim in this paper is to analyze some recent approaches for solving the categoricity problem and to argue that a logical inferentialist should accept the infinitary rules of inference for the first order quantifiers, since our use of the expressions “all” and “there is” leads us beyond the concrete and finite reasoning, and human beings do sometimes employ infinitary rules of inference in their reasoning. (shrink)

Robert B. Brandom is one of the most original philosophers of our day, whose book Making It Explicit covered and extended a vast range of topics in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language--the very core of analytic philosophy. This new work provides an approachable introduction to the complex system that Making It Explicit mapped out. A tour of the earlier book's large ideas and relevant details, Articulating Reasons offers an easy entry into two of the main themes of Brandom's work: (...) the idea that the semantic content of a sentence is determined by the norms governing inferences to and from it, and the idea that the distinctive function of logical vocabulary is to let us make our tacit inferential commitments explicit. Brandom's work, making the move from representationalism to inferentialism, constitutes a near-Copernican shift in the philosophy of language--and the most important single development in the field in recent decades. Articulating Reasons puts this accomplishment within reach of nonphilosophers who want to understand the state of the foundations of semantics. Table of Contents: Introduction 1. Semantic Inferentialism and Logical Expressivism 2. Action, Norms, and Practical Reasoning 3. Insights and Blindspots of Reliabilism 4. What Are Singular Terms, and Why Are There Any? 5. A Social Route from Reasoning to Representing 6. Objectivity and the Normative Fine Structure of Rationality Notes Index Displaying a sovereign command of the intricate discussion in the analytic philosophy of language, Brandom manages successfully to carry out a program within the philosophy of language that has already been sketched by others, without losing sight of the vision inspiring the enterprise in the important details of his investigation ' Using the tools of a complex theory of language, Brandom succeeds in describing convincingly the practices in which the reason and autonomy of subjects capable of speech and action are expressed. --J'rgen Habermas. (shrink)

In previous published research (“Conditionals and Inferential Connections: A Hypothetical Inferential Theory,” Cognitive Psychology, 2018), we investigated experimentally what role the presence and strength of an inferential connection between a conditional’s antecedent and consequent plays in how people process that conditional. Our analysis showed the strength of that connection to be strongly predictive of whether participants evaluated the conditional as true, false, or neither true nor false. In this article, we re-analyse the data from our previous research, (...) now focussing on the semantics of conditionals rather than on how they are processed. Specifically, we use those data to compare the main extant semantics with each other and with inferentialism, a semantics according to which the truth of a conditional requires the presence of an inferential connection between the conditional’s component parts. (shrink)

Bergmann argues that we should accept epistemically circular reasoning since, he claims, it is a consequence of the plausible assumption that some justification is noninferential (Bergmann, M. "Epistemic Circularity, Malignant and Benign", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research forthcoming). I show that epistemically circular reasoning does not follow merely from the assumption that some justification is noninferential, but only from that view combined with the assumption of basic justification or knowledge. Thus, we have reason to endorse epistemically circular reasoning (...) only to the extent that basic knowledge or justification can be defended. (shrink)

Material traces of the past are notoriously inscrutable; they rarely speak with one voice, and what they say is never unmediated. They stand as evidence only given a rich scaffolding of interpretation which is, itself, always open to challenge and revision. And yet archaeological evidence has dramatically expanded what we know of the cultural past, sometimes demonstrating a striking capacity to disrupt settled assumptions. The questions we address in Evidential Reasoning are: How are these successes realized? What gives us (...) confidence in the credibility and robustness, the trustworthiness, of the evidential claims based on archaeological data? And, what constitute best practices in building evidential claims, critically scrutinizing them and putting them to work in archaeological contexts? Rather than retreat to abstractions about how how science operates in the ideal, we approach this question by interrogating a number of close-to-the-ground case studies with the aim of teasing out the wisdom embodied in archaeological practice. The cases we consider – of fieldwork, strategies for working with old evidence, and the role of external resources – illuminate the role of various types of inferential scaffolding and bring into focus practice-grounded epistemic norms that we believe serve archaeologists better than the all-or-nothing ideals of truth and objectivity that dominate programmatic debate. (shrink)

This book aims to lay bare the logical foundations of tractable reasoning. It draws on Marvin Minsky's seminal work on frames, which has been highly influential in computer science and, to a lesser extent, in cognitive science. Only very few people have explored ideas about frames in logic, which is why the investigation in this book breaks new ground. The apparent intractability of dynamic, inferential reasoning is an unsolved problem in both cognitive science and logic-oriented artificial intelligence. (...) By means of a logical investigation of frames and frame concepts, Andreas devises a novel logic of tractable reasoning, called frame logic. Moreover, he devises a novel belief revision scheme, which is tractable for frame logic. These tractability results shed new light on our logical and cognitive means to carry out dynamic, inferential reasoning. Modularity remains central for tractability, and so the author sets forth a logical variant of the massive modularity hypothesis in cognitive science. (shrink)

Richard Fumerton’s “Principle of Inferential Justification” holds that, in order to be justified in believing P on the basis of E, one must be justified in believing that E makes P probable. I argue that the plausibility of this principle rests upon two kinds of mistakes: first, a level confusion; and second, a fallacy of misconditionalisation. Furthermore, Fumerton’s principle leads to skepticism about inferential justification, for which reason it should be rejected. Instead, the examples Fumerton uses to motivate (...) his principle can be accounted for using a different principle: in order for S to be justified in believing P on the basis of E, it must be true that E makes P probable. The latter principle can be independently motivated and does not lead to skepticism. (shrink)

Richard Fumerton’s “Principle of Inferential Justification” holds that, in order to be justified in believing P on the basis of E, one must be justified in believing that E makes P probable. I argue that the plausibility of this principle rests upon two kinds of mistakes: first, a level confusion; and second, a fallacy of misconditionalisation. Furthermore, Fumerton’s principle leads to skepticism about inferential justification, for which reason it should be rejected. Instead, the examples Fumerton uses to motivate (...) his principle can be accounted for using a different principle: in order for S to be justified in believing P on the basis of E, it must be true that E makes P probable. The latter principle can be independently motivated and does not lead to skepticism. (shrink)

The paper is an opinionated tour of the literature on the reasons for which we hold beliefs and other doxastic attitudes, which I call ‘operative epistemic reasons’. After drawing some distinctions in §1, I begin in §2 by discussing the ontology of operative epistemic reasons, assessing arguments for and against the view that they are mental states. I recommend a pluralist non-mentalist view that takes seriously the variety of operative epistemic reasons ascriptions and allows these reasons to be both propositions (...) and truth-making facts. In §3, I turn to consider what it takes for a consideration to be an operative epistemic reason, examining three conditions – the representational, treating, and explanatory conditions – that have been proposed. I offer a novel view about the explanatory condition. In §4, I discuss the special case of inferential operative reasons and examine attempts to understand them in terms of rule-following, sketching a competence-based spinoff of dispositionalism. Finally, in §5, I consider whether there are non-inferential operative reasons, observing that one needn't countenance them to be a foundationalist but then developing a view about what they are and how they do and don't differ from inferential reasons. (shrink)

I argue that Richard Fumerton’s controversial “Principle of Inferential Justification” (PIJ) can be satisfactorily defended against several charges that have been leveled against it, namely, that it leads to skepticism, that it confuses different levels of justification, and that it involves a fallacy of “misconditionalization.”The basis of my defense of PIJ is a distinction between two theories of the nature of inference—an internalist conception (IC), according to which inferring requires that the reasoner have a conscious perspective on the evidential (...) relation between premises and conclusion, and an externalist conception (EC), which does not require any such perspective. Given IC, the above charges against PIJ fail, and PIJ emerges as a plausible thesis. Given EC, however, the above charges stick, and PIJ is untenable. An internalist position on inferential justification is tenable, therefore, if and only if it is held in conjunction with an internalist conception of inference. (shrink)

David Alexander has argued that “weak inferential internalism” (WII), a position which amounts to a qualified endorsement of Richard Fumerton’s controversial “principle of inferential justification,” is subject to a fatal dilemma: Either it collapses into externalism or it must make an arbitrary epistemic distinction between persons who believe the same proposition for the same reasons. In this paper, I argue that the dilemma is a false one, for weak inferential internalism does not entail internalism simpliciter. Indeed, WII (...) is compatible with modest externalism, and so is consistent with what Armstrong calls “Type II justification,” the rejection of which leads to the arbitrary epistemic distinctions to which he rightly objects. (shrink)

We remark that the A Contrario Argument is an ambiguous technique of justification of judicial decisions. We distinguish two uses and versions of it, strong and weak, taking as example the normative sentence “Underprivileged citizens are permitted to apply for State benefit”. According to the strong version, only underprivileged citizens are permitted to apply for State benefit, so stateless persons are not. According to the weak, the law does not regulate the position of underprivileged stateless persons in this respect. We (...) propose an inferential analysis of the two uses along the lines of the scorekeeping practice as described by Robert Brandom, and try to point out what are the ontological assumptions of the two. We conclude that the strong version is justified if and only if there is a relevant incompatibility between the regulated subject and the present case. (shrink)

We describe a computational model of two central aspects of people's probabilistic reasoning: descriptive probability estimation and inferential probability judgment. This model assumes that people's reasoning follows standard frequentist probability theory, but it is subject to random noise. This random noise has a regressive effect in descriptive probability estimation, moving probability estimates away from normative probabilities and toward the center of the probability scale. This random noise has an anti-regressive effect in inferential judgement, however. These regressive (...) and anti-regressive effects explain various reliable and systematic biases seen in people's descriptive probability estimation and inferential probability judgment. This model predicts that these contrary effects will tend to cancel out in tasks that involve both descriptive estimation and inferential judgement, leading to unbiased responses in those tasks. We test this model by applying it to one such task, described by Gallistel et al. ). Participants' median responses in this task were unbiased, agreeing with normative probability theory over the full range of responses. Our model captures the pattern of unbiased responses in this task, while simultaneously explaining systematic biases away from normatively correct probabilities seen in other tasks. (shrink)

I argue that Richard Fumerton’s controversial “Principle of Inferential Justification” (PIJ) can be satisfactorily defended against several charges that have been leveled against it, namely, that it leads to skepticism, that it confuses different levels of justification, and that it involves a fallacy of “misconditionalization.”The basis of my defense of PIJ is a distinction between two theories of the nature of inference—an internalist conception (IC), according to which inferring requires that the reasoner have a conscious perspective on the evidential (...) relation between premises and conclusion, and an externalist conception (EC), which does not require any such perspective. Given IC, the above charges against PIJ fail, and PIJ emerges as a plausible thesis. Given EC, however, the above charges stick, and PIJ is untenable. An internalist position on inferential justification is tenable, therefore, if and only if it is held in conjunction with an internalist conception of inference. (shrink)

Currently, there is a focus in science education on preparing students for lives as innovative and resilient citizens of the twenty-first century. Key to this is providing students with opportunities, mainly through inquiry processes, for discovery making and developing their creative reasoning by bringing school science closer to authentic science. I propose, building on the work of Woods, Magnani and the authors of a 2005 special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory on Peirce, that these efforts can be advanced (...) through the adoption of a Peircean logic of discovery in the science classroom. I further suggest that this can only take place if a classical logic that frames school science, which deems abduction—the creative element of reasoning that drives discovery—as fallacious and not valuable as an inference making process, is replaced with a naturalised logic. Such a logic positions students as practical, not ideal agents of reasoning who in their hypothesis making are inferential-experts... (shrink)

A thought process is an unfolding causal chain. Some thoughts cause others in virtue of their contents. Paradigmatic cases of personal level inference involve something more, some kind of appreciation or feeling that the conclusion follows from the premises. First- order processes are inadequate to account for the phenomenon. Attempts to capture the additional ingredient in terms of second-order beliefs have proven problematic. An intermediate position has, however, been overlooked. The extra ingredient could be an epistemic feeling, a form of (...) procedural metacognition. Extensive psychological research has shown that epistemic feelings are involved in monitoring many kinds of cognitive process, affecting how the processes unfold. Inferences may be no different. Inferences are also plausibly accompanied by an epistemic feeling, something like a feeling of reliability or unreliability. Such a feeling accounts for the phenomenological datum. It can also play a significant epistemic role for the thinker. (shrink)

David Alexander has argued that “weak inferential internalism” (WII), a position which amounts to a qualified endorsement of Richard Fumerton’s controversial “principle of inferential justification,” is subject to a fatal dilemma: Either it collapses into externalism or it must make an arbitrary epistemic distinction between persons who believe the same proposition for the same reasons. In this paper, I argue that the dilemma is a false one, for weak inferential internalism does not entail internalism simpliciter. Indeed, WII (...) is compatible with modest externalism, and so is consistent with what Armstrong calls “Type II justification,” the rejection of which leads to the arbitrary epistemic distinctions to which he rightly objects. (shrink)

Tmagists' hold that inferential thinking is built up from combinations of sensory and sensorimotor images in various patterns and modalities, and that the images are a more basic mental and neurophysiological operation than the logical thinking and conceptualization that are built up front them. 'Computationalists' hold just the opposite view — that images result from previous inferential processing which is more basic than the images. Suppose we define inference as the kind of thought process that we actually undergo (...) when we do logical thinking, and not in the trivial sense in which any natural phenomenon which receives an 'input' from another then 'responds' to this 'input'. And suppose we define an 'image ' as any instance of imagining what it would be like to entertain some conscious state which we are not undergoing at the time — as for example when we imagine what it would be like to see something, to ride a roller coaster or to have a headache. I. e., 'images ' can be kinaesthetic and proprioceptive s well as sensory. Then it can be shown that inferential thinking is built up from patterns of images, including importantly the imaging of rhythm patterns corresponding to logical syntax. Furthermore, the acquisition of these inference rules can also be traced to a process of trying to imagine scenarios which might serve as counterexamples to the rules, and this kind of 'imagining ' can also be explained in terms of both sensory and proprioceptive images. The reason for this is twofold: First, even the apparently 'imageless ' concepts used to imagine such scenarios consist in each case of a feeling of preparedness to entertain a pattern of images which would be appropriate to provide a directly or indirectly ostensive definition of the concept in question, and this feeling of preparedness can be sensed proprioceptively. Secondly, a concept, even if it is not experienced as involving imagery, may nonetheless occur as an element of a larger pattern whose rhythm can be imaged. This paper defends an expanded version of the imagist approach, suggesting an important pragmatic role for the proprioceptive sensing of rhythm patterns in the acquisition and use of inference skills. (shrink)

David Alexander has argued that “weak inferential internalism” , a position which amounts to a qualified endorsement of Richard Fumerton’s controversial “principle of inferential justification,” is subject to a fatal dilemma: Either it collapses into externalism or it must make an arbitrary epistemic distinction between persons who believe the same proposition for the same reasons. In this paper, I argue that the dilemma is a false one, for weak inferential internalism does not entail internalism simpliciter. Indeed, WII (...) is compatible with modest externalism, and so is consistent with what Armstrong calls “Type II justification,” the rejection of which leads to the arbitrary epistemic distinctions to which he rightly objects. (shrink)

David Alexander has argued that “weak inferential internalism” (WII), a position which amounts to a qualified endorsement of Richard Fumerton’s controversial “principle of inferential justification,” is subject to a fatal dilemma: Either it collapses into externalism or it must make an arbitrary epistemic distinction between persons who believe the same proposition for the same reasons. In this paper, I argue that the dilemma is a false one, for weak inferential internalism does not entail internalism simpliciter. Indeed, WII (...) is compatible with modest externalism, and so is consistent with what Armstrong calls “Type II justification,” the rejection of which leads to the arbitrary epistemic distinctions to which he rightly objects. (shrink)

How do we construct ad hoc concepts, especially those characterised by emergent properties? A reasonable hypothesis, suggested both in psychology and in pragmatics , is that some sort of inferential processing must be involved. I argue that this inferential processing can be accounted for in associative terms. My argument is based on the notion of inference as associative pattern completion based on schemata, with schemata being conceived in turn as patterns of concepts and their relationships. The possible role (...) of conscious attention in inferential processes of this sort is also addressed. (shrink)

The concepts of reasons as supporting elements, of practical reason as a capacity, and of practical reasoning as a process are central in the theory of action. This paper provides a brief account of each. Several kinds of reason for action are distinguished. Practical reason is characterized both as a capacity whose exercise is largely constituted by a kind of responsiveness to reasons and as governed by certain normative principles; and practical reasoning is described as a kind of (...) mental process in which reasons figure as premises and, from those premises, a practical conclusion is drawn. Much of the paper undertakes two related tasks: to distinguish the main kinds of practical reasoning and the associated criteria of assessment and to formulate some important substantive principles of practical reason. These principles yield criteria of several sorts: logical, inferential, epistemic, and material. On the theory presented, although any (non‐basic) intentional act can be grounded in practical reasoning, the same acts can be performed for the relevant reason(s) without being so grounded, and in either case their rationality depends on adequate support by the reason(s). One kind of reason is commonly thought to be captured by Kantian hypothetical imperatives. The final sections explore what constitutes a hypothetical imperative and what other principles are needed to account for practical rationality. A major conclusion is that in the domain of practical reason, if there are no categorical imperatives, there are no hypothetical imperatives either. (shrink)

By and large, Inferential Erotetic Logic (IEL, for short) is an approach to the logic of questions which puts in the centre of attention inferential aspects of questioning. IEL is not an enterprise of the last few years only. The idea originates from the late 1980s. It evolved through time. Initially, the stress was put on the phenomenon of question raising. This changed gradually, as some forms of reasoning that involve questions have appeared to be analyzable by (...) means of the conceptual apparatus developed. In this essay I present the basics of IEL and comment on them. Most, though not all, of the ideas discussed here have been scattered across my earlier publications. The invitation from the organizers of the Asking and Answering workshop (Greifswald, September 2020) resulted in an attempt of presenting the themes of IEL in a concise but, as I hope, also comprehensible way. (shrink)

Closure is the principle that a person, who knows a proposition p and knows that p entails q, also knows q. Closure is usually regarded as expressing the commonplace assumption that persons can increase their knowledge through inference from propositions they already know. In this paper, I will not discuss whether closure as a general principle is true. The aim of this paper is to explore the various relations between closure and knowledge through inference. I will show that closure can (...) hold for two propositions p and q for numerous different reasons. The standard reason that S knows q through inference from p, if S knows p and knows that p entails q, is only one of them. Therefore, the relations between closure and inferential knowledge are more complex than one might suspect. (shrink)