Many philosophers hold that all dispositions must have independent causal bases. I challenge this view, hence defending the possibility of bare dispositions. In part 1, I explain more fully what I mean by "disposition," "causal basis," and "bare disposition." In part 2, I consider the claim that the concept of a disposition entails that dispositions are not bare. dispositions necessarily have d...

According to Wolpert's no-free-lunch (NFL) theorems [Wolpert, 1996b, Wolpert, 1996a], generalisation in the absence of domain knowledge is necessarily a zero-sum enterprise. Good generalisation performance in one situation is always offset by bad performance in another. Wolpert notes that the theorems do not demonstrate that effective generalisation is a logical impossibility but merely that a ...

The existing Data Envelopment Analysis models for evaluating the relative eciency of a set of decision making units by using various inputs to produce various outputs are limited to crisp data in crisp production possibility set. In this paper, rst of all the production possibility set is extended to the fuzzy production possibility set by extension principle in constant return to scale, and th...

in a broader context of arguing against the view that conceivability provides epistemic access to the metaphysical modalities. His goal is “to identify the sources and forms of our knowledge of metaphysical possibility and metaphysical necessity” (205). 1 The account proceeds in two stages. First, he contends that “metaphysical necessity and metaphysical possibility can be reductively explained...

If an agent desires that φ and desires that ψ, this agent often also desires that φ and ψ hold at the same time (φ∧ψ). However, there are cases where φ ∧ ψ may be found less satisfactory for the agent than each of φ or ψ alone. This paper is a first attempt at modeling such nonmonotonic desires. The approach is developed in the setting of possibility theory, since it has been recently pointed o...

Preferences and uncertainty occur in many real-life problems. The theory of possibility is one non-probabilistic way of dealing with uncertainty, which allows for easy integration with fuzzy preferences. In this paper we consider an existing technique to perform such an integration and, while following the same basic idea, we propose various alternative semantics which allow us to observe both ...

A fuzzy morphological approach is here presented to retrieve structural properties of images considered as fuzzy sets. The basic concepts of the possibility theory and of the mathematical morphology are brieey illustrated, together with their suggested integration. Some applications to astronomical images are also shown.

This note provides a brief overview of the main ideas and notions underlying fifty years of research in fuzzy set and possibility theory, two important settings introduced by L. A. Zadeh for representing sets with unsharp boundaries and uncertainty induced by granules of information expressed with words. The discussion is organized on the basis of three potential understanding of the grades of ...

Survey of the mathematical models proposed to represent quantified beliefs, and their comparison. The models considered are separated into non standard probability and non probability models, according to the fact they are based on probability theory or not. The first group concerns the upper and lower probability models, the second the possibility theory and the transferable belief model.

When there is uncertainty about the values of a variable, it is possible to have different pieces of information about it. This can be due to the fact that they represent the points of view of different agents and these agents have followed different criteria when codify the pieces of information by means of numbers. The aim of this paper is to provide tools for the comparison of these represen...