102 found
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  1. Logic and Theism: Arguments for and Against Beliefs in God.Jordan Howard Sobel - 2003 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Jordan Howard Sobel.
    This is a wide-ranging 2004 book about arguments for and against beliefs in God. The arguments for the belief are analysed in the first six chapters and include ontological arguments from Anselm to Gödel, the cosmological arguments of Aquinas and Leibniz, and arguments from evidence for design and miracles. The next two chapters consider arguments against belief. The last chapter examines Pascalian arguments for and against belief in God. There are discussions of Cantorian problems for omniscience, of challenges to divine (...)
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  2. Logic and Theism: Arguments For and Against Beliefs in God's Existence.Jordan Howard Sobel - 2004 - Ars Disputandi 4.
     
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  3.  17
    Taking Chances: Essays on Rational Choice.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1994 - Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
    J. Howard Sobel has long been recognized as an important figure in philosophical discussions of rational decision. He has done much to help formulate the concept of causal decision theory. In this volume of essays Sobel explores the Bayesian idea that rational actions maximize expected values, where an action's expected value is a weighted average of its agent's values for its possible total outcomes. Newcomb's Problem and The Prisoner's Dilemma are discussed, and Allais-type puzzles are viewed from the perspective of (...)
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  4. Utilitarianism and past and future mistakes.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1976 - Noûs 10 (2):195-219.
  5. The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities.Jordan Howard Sobel - 2003 - Mind 112 (447):521-525.
  6.  67
    Self-doubts and dutch strategies.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1987 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 65 (1):56 – 81.
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  7. Taking Chances: Essays on Rational Choice.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1995 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (4):628-630.
     
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  8.  75
    Notes on decision theory: Old wine in new bottles.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1986 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 64 (4):407 – 437.
  9. (1 other version)On the evidence of testimony for miracles: A bayesian interpretation of David Hume's analysis.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1987 - Philosophical Quarterly 37 (147):166-186.
    A BAYESIAN ARTICULATION OF HUME’S VIEWS IS OFFERED BASED ON A FORM OF THE BAYES-LAPLACE THEOREM THAT IS SUPERFICIALLY LIKE A FORMULA OF CONDORCET’S. INFINITESIMAL PROBABILITIES ARE EMPLOYED FOR MIRACLES AGAINST WHICH THERE ARE ’PROOFS’ THAT ARE NOT OPPOSED BY ’PROOFS’. OBJECTIONS MADE BY RICHARD PRICE ARE DEALT WITH, AND RECENT EXPERIMENTS CONDUCTED BY AMOS TVERSKY AND DANIEL KAHNEMAN ARE CONSIDERED IN WHICH PERSONS TEND TO DISCOUNT PRIOR IMPROBABILITIES WHEN ASSESSING REPORTS OF WITNESSES.
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  10.  55
    Expected utilities and rational actions and choices.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1983 - Theoria 49 (3):159-183.
  11.  72
    Circumstances and dominance in a causal decision theory.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1985 - Synthese 63 (2):167 - 202.
  12. Partition-theorems for causal decision theories.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1989 - Philosophy of Science 56 (1):70-93.
    Two partition-theorems are proved for a particular causal decision theory. One is restricted to a certain kind of partition of circumstances, and analyzes the utility of an option in terms of its utilities in conjunction with circumstances in this partition. The other analyzes an option's utility in terms of its utilities conditional on circumstances and is quite unrestricted. While the first form seems more useful for applications, the second form may be of theoretical importance in foundational exercises. Comparisons are made (...)
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  13. Infallible predictors.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1988 - Philosophical Review 97 (1):3-24.
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  14.  28
    Puzzles for the Will: Fatalism, Newcomb and Samarra, Determinism and Omniscience.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1998 - University of Toronto Press.
  15.  61
    Utilitarian principles for imperfect agents.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1982 - Theoria 48 (3):113-126.
  16.  99
    Backward-induction arguments: A paradox regained.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1993 - Philosophy of Science 60 (1):114-133.
    According to a familiar argument, iterated prisoner's dilemmas of known finite lengths resolve for ideally rational and well-informed players: They would defect in the last round, anticipate this in the next to last round and so defect in it, and so on. But would they anticipate defections even if they had been cooperating? Not necessarily, say recent critics. These critics "lose" the backward-induction paradox by imposing indicative interpretations on rationality and information conditions. To regain it I propose subjunctive interpretations. To (...)
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  17.  81
    Maximization, stability of decision, and actions in accordance with reason.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1990 - Philosophy of Science 57 (1):60-77.
    Rational actions reflect beliefs and preferences in certain orderly ways. The problem of theory is to explain which beliefs and preferences are relevant to the rationality of particular actions, and exactly how they are relevant. One distinction of interest here is between an agent's beliefs and preferences just before an action's time, and his beliefs and preferences at its time. Theorists do not agree about the times of beliefs and desires that are relevant to the rationality of action. Another distinction (...)
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  18.  77
    Rule-utilitarianism.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1968 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 46 (2):146 – 165.
  19.  35
    Maximizing, Optimizing, and Prospering.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1988 - Dialogue 27 (2):233-.
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  20. Pascalian Wagers.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1996 - Synthese 108 (1):11 - 61.
    A person who does not have good intellectual reasons for believing in God can, depending on his probabilities and values for consequences of believing, have good practical reasons. Pascalian wagers founded on a variety of possible probability/value profiles are examined from a Bayesian perspective central to which is the idea that states and options are pragmatically reasonable only if they maximize subjective expected value. Attention is paid to problems posed by representations of values by Cantorian infinities. An appendix attends to (...)
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  21.  62
    Utilitarianism and Cooperation.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1985 - Dialogue 24 (1):137-.
    Donald Regan's book is a study of forms of utilitarian theory and of properties to which these forms may aspire. He deals exclusively with “fully objective” theories that seek to systematize and set conditions for obligations that an agent is supposed to lie under as a consequence of features of situations in which he finds himself, with no dependence on his possibly defective beliefs, attitudes, and values. Metaethical questions concerning the nature of these obligations are not raised. And practical problems (...)
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  22.  29
    Straight Versus Constrained Maximization.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1993 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23 (1):25-54.
    David Gauthier stages a competition between two arguments, each of which purports to decide once for all transparent agents which is best, being a straight or being a constrained maximizer. The first argument, which he criticizes and rejects, is for the greater utility, on a certain weak assumption, of straight maximization for all transparent agents. The second, which he endorses, is for the greater utility on the same weak assumption of constrained maximization for all transparent agents.In Section I, Gauthier’s account (...)
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  23.  59
    Two envelopes.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1994 - Theory and Decision 36 (1):69-96.
  24.  63
    Cyclical preferences and world bayesianism.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1997 - Philosophy of Science 64 (1):42-73.
    An example shows that 'pairwise preferences' (certain hypothetical choices) can cycle even when rational. General considerations entail that preferences tout court (certain relations of actual valuations) cannot cycle. A world-bayesian theory is explained that accommodates these two kinds of preference, and a theory for rational actions that would have them maximize and be objects of ratifiable choices. It is observed that choices can be unratifiable either because of troublesome credences or because of troublesome preferences. An appendix comments on a third (...)
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  25.  51
    Lies, lies, and more lies: A plea for propositions.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1992 - Philosophical Studies 67 (1):51-69.
    To resolve putative liar paradoxes it is sufficient to attend to the distinction between liar-sentences and the propositions they would express, and to exercise the option of turning would-be deductions of paradox (of contradictions) into reductions of the existence of those propositions. Defending the coherence of particular resolutions along these lines, leads to recognition of the non-extensionality of some liar-sentences. In particular, it turns out that exchanges of terms for identicals in the open-sentence '- does not expression a true proposition' (...)
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  26.  37
    Walls and Vaults: A Natural Science of Morals (Virtue Ethics According to David Hume).Jordan Howard Sobel - 2008 - Wiley.
    The work is a charitable study on what the internationally renowned presenter and author, Howard Sobel, views to be largely the truth about moral thought and talk. Discussions and observations from David Humes own writings oftentimes reinforce and elaborate the authors notions and there is an assertive attempt to weave logical thinking into the book. Applications to such mathematical concepts as game theory, decision-making, and conditionals are dispersed throughout so as to enlighten the theory behind the ideas.
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  27. Blackburn’s Problem: On Its Not Insignificant Residue.Jordan Howard Sobel - 2001 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (2):361-383.
    Moral properties would supervene upon non-moral properties and be conceptually autonomous. That, according to Simon Blackburn, would make them if not impossible at least mysterious, and evidence for them best explained by theorists who say they are not real. In fact moral properties would not challenge in ways Blackburn has contended. There is, however, something new that can be gathered from his arguments. What would the supervenience of moral properties and their conceptual autonomy from at least total non-moral properties entail (...)
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  28.  55
    Constrained Maximization.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1991 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21 (1):25 - 51.
    This paper is about David Gauthier’s concept of constrained maximization. Attending to his most detailed and careful account, I try to say how constrained maximization works, and how it might be changed to work better. In section I, that detailed account is quoted along with amplifying passages. Difficulties of interpretation are explained in section II. An articulation, a spelling out, of Gauthier's account is offered in section III to deal with these difficulties. Next, in section IV, constrained maximization thus articulated (...)
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  29.  81
    Defenses and conservative revisions of evidential decision theories: Metatickles and ratificationism.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1988 - Synthese 75 (1):107 - 131.
    It is plausible that Newcomb problems in which causal maximizers and evidential maximizers would do different things would not be possible for ideal maximizers who are attentive to metatickles. An objection to Eells’s first argument for this makes welcome a second. Against it I argue that even ideal evidential and causal maximizers would do different things in some non-dominance Newcomb problems; and that they would hope for different things in some third-person and non-action problems, which is relevant if a good (...)
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  30.  33
    Everyone's conforming to a rule.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1985 - Philosophical Studies 48 (3):375 - 387.
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  31.  28
    Utility Maximizers in Iterated Prisoner's Dilemmas.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1976 - Dialogue 15 (1):38-53.
    Maximizers in isolated Prisoner's Dilemmas are doomed to frustration. But in Braybrooke's view maximizers might do better in a series, securing Pareto-optimal arrangements if not from the very beginning, at least eventually. Given certain favourable special conditions, it can be shown according to Braybrooke and shown even without question-begging motivational or value assumptions, that in a series of Dilemmas maximizers could manage to communicate a readiness to reciprocate, generate thereby expectations of reciprocation, and so give rise to optimizing reciprocations which, (...)
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  32.  50
    Taking Chances.Brian Skyrms & Jordan Howard Sobel - 1996 - Philosophical Review 105 (3):410.
    When causal decision theory was created in the 1970s, access to Howard Sobel’s contribution was available only in a narrowly circulated mimeographed manuscript. After some time, he allowed his ideas to appear in the form of articles. Here we finally have a book length exposition on Sobel’s causal Bayesian point of view consisting of collected, revised, and amplified papers spanning a period of twenty years.
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  33.  87
    Dummett on fatalism.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1966 - Philosophical Review 75 (1):78-90.
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  34.  94
    Hume's theorem on testimony sufficient to establish a miracle.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1991 - Philosophical Quarterly 41 (163):229-237.
    "It is a general maxim...’ That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact which it endeavors to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.’" A Bayesian interpretation of the first half is proved as a theorem. (...)
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  35.  56
    Value, alternatives, and utilitarianism.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1971 - Noûs 5 (4):373-384.
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  36.  26
    (1 other version)Conditional Probabilities, Conditionalization, and Dutch Books.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1990 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1990:503-515.
    Relations between conditional probabilities, revisions of probabilities in the light of new information, and conditions of ideal rationality are discussed herein. The formal character of conditional probabilities, and their significance for epistemic states of agents is taken up. Then principles are considered that would, under certain conditions, equate rationally revised probabilities on new information with probabilities reached by conditionalizing on this information. And lastly the possibility of kinds of ' books ' against known non-conditionalizers is explored, and the question is (...)
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  37.  76
    Money pumps.Jordan Howard Sobel - 2001 - Philosophy of Science 68 (2):242-257.
    After maintaining in that certain cyclical preferences can be reasonable, the following questions were tabled: “in what circumstances and under what assumptions … these … preferences of George's would turn him into a ”money pump,” and in what circumstances and under what assumptions they would not do that.” Two pumps afford answers. George, who is sufficiently reasonable and well-informed to use backward induction, has, for this reason, nothing to fear from the first pump, but the second, of a nonstandard design (...)
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  38.  83
    ‘Hoist with His Owne Petar’:1 On the Undoing of a Liar Paradox.Jordan Howard Sobel - 2008 - Theoria 74 (2):115-145.
    Abstract: A Liar would express a proposition that is true and not true. A Liar Paradox would, per impossibile, demonstrate the reality of a Liar. To resolve a Liar Paradox it is sufficient to make out of its demonstration a reductio of the existence of the proposition that would be true and not true, and to "explain away" the charm of the paradoxical contrary demonstration. Persuasive demonstrations of the Liar Paradox in this paper trade on allusive scope-ambiguities of English definite (...)
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  39. Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens for Conditional Probabilities, and Updating on Uncertain Evidence.Jordan Howard Sobel - 2009 - Theory and Decision 66 (2):103 - 148.
    There are narrowest bounds for P(h) when P(e) = y and P(h/e) = x, which bounds collapse to x as y goes to 1. A theorem for these bounds -- bounds for probable modus ponens -- entails a principle for updating on possibly uncertain evidence subject to these bounds that is a generalization of the principle for updating by conditioning on certain evidence. This way of updating on possibly uncertain evidence is appropriate when updating by ’probability kinematics’ or ’Jeffrey-conditioning’ is, (...)
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  40.  68
    Ramsey's Foundations Extended to Desirabilities.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1998 - Theory and Decision 44 (3):231-278.
    In his Truth and Probability (1926), Frank Ramsey provides foundations for measures of degrees of belief in propositions and preferences for worlds. Nonquantitative conditions on preferences for worlds, and gambles for worlds and certain near-worlds, are formulated which he says insure that a subject's preferences for worlds are represented by numbers, world values. Numbers, for his degrees of belief in propositions, probabilities, are then defined in terms of his world values. Ramsey does not also propose definitions of desirabilities for propositions, (...)
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  41.  38
    Kant's moral idealism.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1987 - Philosophical Studies 52 (2):277 - 287.
  42.  23
    (1 other version)Metatickles and Ratificationism.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1986 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986:342 - 351.
    It is shown that even if a process of ideal evidential deliberation that paid attention to its own progress would in every case lead to credences that made things probabilistically independent of actions of which they were believed to be causally independent; it would not in every case lead to agreement in the ultimate dictates of evidential and causal decision theories. This point is made by a decision problem in which the action prescribed by causal decision theory is not (as (...)
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  43.  72
    The law student and his teacher.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1987 - Theoria 53 (1):1-18.
  44.  46
    'Hoist with his owne petar':.Jordan Howard Sobel - manuscript
    Key words: liar paradoxes, propositions, definite descriptions A Liar would be a sentence or sentence-token that expresses a proposition that is both true and not true. A Liar Paradox is reasoning that would do the impossible and demonstrate the reality of a Liar. It is sufficient, fully to resolve a Liar Paradox, to turn its purported demonstration that some sentence or sentence-token expresses a proposition that is both true and not true into a reductio of the existence of the proposition (...)
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  45.  94
    On the storeyed revenge of strengthened liars, and the contrary finality of no-proposition resolutions.Jordan Howard Sobel - manuscript
    “To this day, partiality approaches to the paradox have been dogged by the so-called ‘Strengthened Liar’. .... The Strengthened Liar observes that if we follow a partiality theorist and declare the Liar sentence* neither true nor false (or failing to express a proposition,. or suffering from some sort of grave semantic defect), then the paradox is only pushed back. For we can go on to conclude that whatever this status may be, it implies that the Liar sentence is not true. (...)
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  46.  81
    To My Critics with Appreciation: Responses to Taliaferro, Swinburne, and Koons.Jordan Howard Sobel - 2006 - Philosophia Christi 8 (2):249 - 292.
    This response to critics includes elaboration of ideas and arguments in ’Logic and Theism’ regarding cumulative arguments for theism, probabilities, ’fine-tuning’ and many worlds, and Gödel’s ontological proof probabilities subjective and objective, and Mackiean doubts concerning the latter, are explained. There is discussion of ’dividing the evidence’ in Bayesian confirmation exercises, with some of it allowed to target ’priors’ of hypotheses, and there is a note on my problems with old evidence. Tentatively explored are Gödel’s considered modal opinions, which may (...)
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  47.  30
    Cephalus: Republic 331C-D.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1987 - History of Philosophy Quarterly 4 (3):281 - 290.
  48.  48
    Determinism: A small point.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1975 - Dialogue 14 (4):617-621.
  49.  68
    On the significance of conditional probabilities.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1996 - Synthese 109 (3):311 - 344.
    The orthodoxy that conditional probabilities reflect what are for a subject evidential bearings is seconded. This significance suggests that there should be principles equating rationally revised probabilities on new information with probabilities reached by conditionalizing on this information. Several principles, two of which are endorsed, are considered. A book is made against a violator of these, and it is argued that there must be something wrong with a person against whom such books can be made. Appendices comment on Popper-functions, elaborate (...)
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  50.  49
    Egoisms, Psychological and Ethical.Jordan Howard Sobel - 1996 - Cogito 10 (1):22-28.
    Speaking rather grandly, Egoism is the philosophy of self interest. It says that actions are ‘ruled’ by self interest which makes it prima facie a philosophy of selfishness. Whether this is its real character needs to be looked into. But first a complication intrudes, for only a little reflection reveals that egoism as here characterized is not one philosophy, but two. These want to be distinguished, and once distinguished, their relations understood. These preliminaries to investigating the merits of forms of (...)
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