Mainstream and Formal Epistemology provides the first, easily accessible, yet erudite and original analysis of the meeting point between mainstream and formal theories of knowledge. These two strands of thinking have traditionally proceeded in isolation from one another, but in this book, Vincent F. Hendricks brings them together for a systematic comparative treatment. He demonstrates how mainstream and formal epistemology may significantly benefit from one another, paving the way for a new unifying program of 'plethoric' epistemology. His book will both (...) define and further the debate between philosophers from two very different sides of the epistemological spectrum. (shrink)

This open access book looks at how a democracy can devolve into a post-factual state. The media is being flooded by populist narratives, fake news, conspiracy theories and make-believe. Misinformation is turning into a challenge for all of us, whether politicians, journalists, or citizens. In the age of information, attention is a prime asset and may be converted into money, power, and influence – sometimes at the cost of facts. The point is to obtain exposure on the air and in (...) print media, and to generate traffic on social media platforms. With information in abundance and attention scarce, the competition is ever fiercer with truth all too often becoming the first victim. Reality Lost: Markets of Attention, Misinformation and Manipulation is an analysis by philosophers Vincent F. Hendricks and Mads Vestergaard of the nuts and bolts of the information market, the attention economy and media eco-system which may pave way to postfactual democracy. Here misleading narratives become the basis for political opinion formation, debate, and legislation. To curb this development and the threat it poses to democratic deliberation, political self-determination and freedom, it is necessary that we first grasp the mechanisms and structural conditions that cause it. (shrink)

This book will be a rewarding reading for everybody who is interested in logical aspects of scientific knowledge acquisition. The presentation of the issues discussed in the book is exemplary. The author was able to present in parallel way three different perspectives under which the issues discussed in the book might be approached.

This book provides a valuable look at the work of up and coming epistemologists. The topics covered range from the central issues of mainstream epistemology to the more formal issues in epistemic logic and confirmation theory. This book should be read by anyone interested in seeing where epistemology is currently focused and where it is heading. - Stewart Cohen , Arizona State University..

The purpose of this survey is twofold: (1) to place some centralthemes of epistemic logic in a general epistemological context,and (2) to outline a new framework for epistemic logic developedjointly with S. Andur Pedersen unifying some key ``mainstream''epistemological concerns with the ``formal'' epistemologicalapparatus.

Epistemic logic begins with the recognition that our everyday talk about knowing and believing has some systematic features that we can track and re‡ect upon. Epistemic logicians have studied and extended these glints of systematic structure in fascinating and important ways since the early 1960s. However, for one reason or another, mainstream epistemologists have shown little interest. It is striking to contrast the marginal role of epistemic logic in contemporary epistemology with the centrality of modal logic for metaphysicians. This article (...) is intended to help in correcting this oversight by presenting some important developments in epistemic logic and suggesting ways to understand their applicability to traditional epistemological problems. Obviously, by itself, tweaking the formal apparatus of epistemic logic does not solve traditional epistemological problems. Epistemic logic can help us to navigate through problems in a systematic fashion by unpacking the logic of the problematic concepts, it can also lead us to recognize problems that we had not anticipated. This is basically analogous to the role that modal logic has played in contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

Epistemic logic is the logic of knowledge and belief. It provides insight into the properties of individual knowers, has provided a means to model complicated scenarios involving groups of knowers and has improved our understanding of the dynamics of inquiry.

Philosophical logicians proposing theories of rational belief revision have had little to say about whether their proposals assist or impede the agent's ability to reliably arrive at the truth as his beliefs change through time. On the other hand, reliability is the central concern of formal learning theory. In this paper we investigate the belief revision theory of Alchourron, Gardenfors and Makinson from a learning theoretic point of view.

The essays both represent a variety of epistemological approaches, including those of the humanities, social studies, natural science, sociology, psychology, and engineering sciences and reflect a diversity of philosophical traditions such ...

In 1974, a wonderful little book came out entitled Formal Philosophy: Selected Papers of Richard Montague, edited by Richmond H. Thomason. The book was a beautiful testimony to the fact that formal methods may indeed clarify, sharpen and solve philosophical problems, defusing airy philosophical intuitions in clear, crisp and concise ways while at the same time turning philosophical wonder into scientific inquiry.

It has become a truism that we live in so-called information societies where new information technologies have made information abundant. At the same time, information science has made us aware of many phenomena tied to the way we process information. This article explores a series of socio-epistemic information phenomena resulting from processes that track truth imperfectly: pluralistic ignorance, informational cascades, and belief polarization. It then couples these phenomena with the hypothesis that modern information technologies may lead to their amplification so (...) as to give rise to what are called “infostorms.” This points to the need for studying further the exact relations between information technologies and such infostorms, as well as the ways we may design technologies to avoid being misled away from what we have good reasons to believe. (shrink)

Skeptics argue that the acquisition of knowledge is impossible given the standing possibility of error. We present the limiting convergence strategy for responding to skepticism and discuss the relationship between conceivable error and an agent’s knowledge in the limit. We argue that the skeptic must demonstrate that agents are operating with a bad method or are in an epistemically cursed world. Such demonstration involves a significant step beyond conceivability and commits the skeptic to potentially convergent inquiry.

Abstract: Pluralistic ignorance is a nasty informational phenomenon widely studied in social psychology and theoretical economics. It revolves around conditions under which it is "legitimate" for everyone to remain ignorant. In formal epistemology there is enough machinery to model and resolve situations in which pluralistic ignorance may arise. Here is a simple first stab at recovering from pluralistic ignorance by means of knowledge transmissibility.

The aim of this thematically unified anthology is to track the history of epistemic logic, to consider some important applications of these logics of knowledge and belief in a variety of fields, and finally to discuss future directions of research with particular emphasis on 'active agenthood' and multi-modal systems. It is accessible to researchers and graduate students in philosophy, computer science, game theory, economics and related disciplines utilizing the means and methods of epistemic logic.

Engineering science is a scientific discipline that from the point of view of epistemology and the philosophy of science has been somewhat neglected. When engineering science was under philosophical scrutiny it often just involved the question of whether engineering is a spin-off of pure and applied science and their methods. We, however, hold that engineering is a science governed by its own epistemology, methodology and ontology. This point is systematically argued by comparing the different sciences with respect to a particular (...) set of characterization criteria. (shrink)

Formal Philosophy is a collection of short interviews based on 5 questions presented tosome of the most influential and prominent scholars in formal philosophy.

Much like the trade and traits of bubbles in financial markets, similar bubbles appear on the science market. When economic bubbles burst, the drop in prices causes the crash of unsustainable investments leading to an investor confidence crisis possibly followed by a financial panic. But when bubbles appear in science, truth and reliability are the first victims. This paper explores how fashions in research funding and research management may turn science into something like a bubble economy.

An anthology of previously unpublished essays from some of the most outstanding scholars working in philosophy, mathematics, and computer science today, _Self-Reference_ reexamines the latest theories of self-reference, including those that attempt to explain and resolve the semantic and set-theoretic paradoxes. With a thorough introduction that contextualizes the subject for students, this book will be important reading for anyone interested in the general area of self-reference and philosophy.

Hintikka’s Knowledge and Belief from 1962 is considered the seminal treatise on epistemic logic. It provides the nuts and bolts of what is now a flourishing paradigm of significance to philosophy, economics, mathematics and theoretical computer science—in theory as well as practice. And in theory and for practice epistemic logic has been extensively articulated, refined and developed especially with respect to capturing the dynamics of reasoning about knowledge. But although the robust narrative about Hintikka’s epistemic logic is rather static, the (...) leap to dynamic epistemic logic is right there back in 1962 as this paper will show. (shrink)

Formal epistemology is the study of crucial concepts in general or main- stream epistemology including knowledge, belief , certainty, ra- tionality, reasoning, decision, justi cation, learning, agent interaction and information processing using a spread of di¤erent formal tools. These formal tools may be drawn from elds such as logic, probability theory, game theory, decision theory, formal learning theory, and distributed com- puting –such variety is typical in formal epistemology, a eld in which interaction with topics outside of philosophy proper is (...) the rule rather than the exception. Practitioners of formal epistemology include philosophers, computer scientists, social scientists, cognitive psychologists, theoretical economists, mathematicians, and theoretical linguists. The interdiscipli- nary nature of formal epistemology can make it di¢ cult for those new to the eld to have a sense of some of its basic agendas, actors, and issues. What follows is a breezy overview of formal epistemology as organized around notions of agency and interaction. (shrink)

As part of the conference commemorating Theoria's 75th anniversary, a round table discussion on philosophy publishing was held in Bergendal, Sollentuna, Sweden, on 1 October 2010. Bengt Hansson was the chair, and the other participants were eight editors-in-chief of philosophy journals: Hans van Ditmarsch (Journal of Philosophical Logic), Pascal Engel (Dialectica), Sven Ove Hansson (Theoria), Vincent Hendricks (Synthese), Søren Holm (Journal of Medical Ethics), Pauline Jacobson (Linguistics and Philosophy), Anthonie Meijers (Philosophical Explorations), Henry S. Richardson (Ethics) and Hans Rott (Erkenntnis).

Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3..

Epistemic Logic: 5 Questions is a collection of short interviews based on 5 questions presented to some of the most influential and prominent scholars in the field. We hear their views on the field, the aim, the scopes, the future direction of research and how their work fits in these respects.

This volume presents 38 classic texts in formal epistemology, and strengthens the ties between research into this area of philosophy and its neighbouring intellectual disciplines. The editors provide introductions to five subsections: Bayesian Epistemology, Belief Change, Decision Theory, Interactive Epistemology and Epistemic Logic. 'Formal epistemology' is a term coined in the late 1990s for a new constellation of interests in philosophy, the origins of which are found in earlier works of epistemologists, philosophers of science and logicians. It addresses a growing (...) agenda of problems concerning knowledge, belief, certainty, rationality, deliberation, decision, strategy, action and agent interaction - and it does so using methods from logic, probability, computability, decision and game theory. The volume also includes a thorough index and suggestions for further reading, and thus offers a complete teaching and research package for students as well as research scholars of formal epistemology, philosophy, logic, computer science, theoretical economics and cognitive psychology. (shrink)

Masses of Formal Philosophy is an outgrowth of Formal Philosophy. That book gathered the responses of some of the most prominent formal philosophers to five relatively open and broad questions initiating a discussion of metaphilosophical themes and problems surrounding the use of formal methods in philosophy. Including contributions from a wide range of philosophers, Masses of Formal Philosophy contains important new responses to the original five questions.

Probability and Statistics: 5 Questions is a collection of short interviews based on 5 questions presented to some of the most influential and prominent scholars in probability and statistics. We hear their views on the fields, aims, scopes, the future direction of research and how their work fits in these respects. Interviews with Nick Bingham, Luc Bovens, Terrence L. Fine, Haim Gaifman, Donald Gillies, James Hawthorne, Carl Hoefer, James M. Joyce, Joseph B. Kadane Isaac Levi, D.H. Mellor, Patrick Suppes, Jan (...) von Plato, Carl Wagner, Sandy Zabell. (shrink)

hiS volume in the Synthese Library Series is the result of a conference T held at the University of Roskilde, Denmark, October 31st-November 1st, 1997. The aim was to provide a forum within which philosophers, math ematicians, logicians and historians of mathematics could exchange ideas pertaining to the historical and philosophical development of proof theory. Hence the conference was called Proof Theory: History and Philosophical Significance. To quote from the conference abstract: Proof theory was developed as part of Hilberts Programme. (...) According to Hilberts Programme one could provide mathematics with a firm and se cure foundation by formalizing all of mathematics and subsequently prove consistency of these formal systems by finitistic means. Hence proof theory was developed as a formal tool through which this goal should be fulfilled. It is well known that Hilbert's Programme in its original form was unfeasible mainly due to Gtldel's incompleteness theorems. Additionally it proved impossible to formalize all of mathematics and impossible to even prove the consistency of relatively simple formalized fragments of mathematics by finitistic methods. In spite of these problems, Gentzen showed that by extending Hilbert's proof theory it would be possible to prove the consistency of interesting formal systems, perhaps not by finitis tic methods but still by methods of minimal strength. This generalization of Hilbert's original programme has fueled modern proof theory which is a rich part of mathematical logic with many significant implications for the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

This book sheds light on some recent discussions of the problems in probability theory and their history, analysing their philosophical and mathematical significance, and the role pf mathematical probability theory in other sciences.

In 1953, exactly 50 years ago to this day, the first volume of Studia Logica appeared under the auspices of The Philosophical Committee of The Polish Academy of Sciences. Now, five decades later the present volume is dedicated to a celebration of this 50th Anniversary of Studia Logica. The volume features a series of papers by distinguished scholars reflecting both the aim and scope of this journal for symbolic logic.

The essays both represent a variety of epistemological approaches, including those of the humanities, social studies, natural science, sociology, psychology, ...

Social Epistemology: 5 Questions is a collection of interviews with some of the world's most influential scholars working on social epistemology from a range of disciplinary perspectives. We hear their views on social epistemology; its aim, scope, use, broader intellectual environment, future direction, and how the work of the interviewees fits in these respects. Interviews with David Bloor, Cristina Bicchieri, Richard Bradley, Lorraine Code, Hans van Ditmarsch, Miranda Fricker, Steve Fuller, Sanford Goldberg, Alvin Goldman, Philip Kitcher, Martin Kusch, Jennifer Lackey, (...) Helen E. Longino, Philip Petit, Erik Olsson, Frederick Schmitt. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed impressive leaps forward in modelling the dynamics of inquiry. Different models have been suggested to fathom various aspects of the reasoning processes relevant to inquiry; belief revision, dynamic epistemic and doxastic logics, stit-theory, logics of action, intention and doxastic voluntarism—in general, logics and formal models for – using an adequately covering term coined by Parikh – social software [Par02]. Many of these logics and formal frameworks rely on combining different modal logics in the realization that inquiry (...) incorporates a multiplicity of parameters including time, change, relevant alternatives, epistemological forcing and learning just to mention a few. The result: Multi-modal systems. (shrink)

The goal with these questions is to gain a sense of what contemporary epistemology is up to and its broader intellectual environment , with particular emphasis on the meeting point between mainstream and formal epistemology.

Pluralistic ignorance is a nasty informational phenomenon studied widely in social psychology and theoretical economics. It revolves around conditions under which it is "legitimate" for everyone to remain ignorant. In formal epistemology there is enough machinery to model and resolve situations in which pluralististic ignorance may arise. Here is a simple …rst stab at recovering from pluralistic ignorance by means of knowledge transmissibility.

A view among methodologists is that truth and convergence are related in such a way that scienti…c theories in their historical order of appearance contribute to the convergence to an ultimate ideal theory. It is not a fact that science develops accordingly but rather a hypothetical thought experiment to explain why science develops at all. Here, a simple formal model is presented for scrutinizing the relations between two truths and convergence.

'Possible worlds' have been one of the true conundrum notions in philosophy. On the hand possible worlds have proved very useful in philosophical logic for obtaining significant formal results with sunbstantial philosophical import. Yet on the other they have generated much noise and commotion in especially metaphysics and epistemology. From a logical point of view they are useful tools or conceptual constructions, from a philosophical point of view troublesome entitites generating endless discussions.

From the point of view of the KaLC-paradigm this paper has two aims. First of all it attempts to sketch some of the pertinent problems of scientific discovery and secondly, it outlines how these problems can be treated in the KaLC -paradigm.

Contemporary epistemologists are roughly divided into those relying largely on common-sense considerations and focusing on examples and counterexamples for advancing or rejecting various epistemological theses, and those applying a variety of tools and methods from logic, computability theory or probability theory to the theory of knowledge. The two sorts, and the traditions to which they hitherto are taken to belong, have unfortunately proceeded largely in isolation from one another. But on closer examination the approaches have much in common, may be (...) bridged for their mutual benefit and the advancement of epistemology in general. Here are 7 ways of doing it as the invited papers in this special issue of Philosophical Studies demonstrate the fruitful interaction between informal considerations and various formal apparata in order to support, sharpen, undermine, realize, or contribute in some other pertinent way to fundamental epistemological themes. (shrink)

Epistemology: 5 Questions is a collection of short interviews based on 5 questions presented to some of the most influential and prominent scholars in epistemology. We hear their views on epistemology with particular emphasis on the intersection between mainstream and formal approaches to the field, the aim, scope, the future direction of epistemology and how their work fits in these respects.