Objective interpretations of probability imply that probability statements are made true or false by reality, by facts independent of our state of mind or information. What are those facts, what are the “chancemakers” – if we take “chance” to be synonymous with “objective probability”? I will start by briefly discussing the two most popular types of answer to this question, namely, frequency an...

This paper defends the view that Newtonian forces are real symmetrical and noncausal relations. In the first part, I argue that Newtonian forces are real; in the second part, that they are relations; in the third part, that they are symmetrical relations; in the fourth part, that they are not causal relations, (but causal relata) by which I mean that they are not species of causation. The overa...

This book marks the beginning of a new phase in the philosophical investigation of classical and contemporary accounts of the self: canonical boundaries have been crossed and doctrinal justification abandoned in favor of a cosmopolitan ideal of syncretic, theoretically perspicuous, and historically informed systematic reflection. That such reflection bears on so central a concept as the self is...

Random outcomes, in ordinary parlance, are those that occur haphazardly, unpredictably, or by chance. Even without further clarification, these glosses suggest an interesting connection between randomness and probability, in some of its guises. But we need to be more precise to articulate the relationship between the two subjects of our title. There is a large literature distinguishing kinds an...

Disjunctivism about perceptual appearances, as I conceive of it, is a theory which seeks to preserve a naïve realist conception of veridical perception in the light of the challenge from the argument from hallucination. The naïve realist claims that some sensory experiences are relations to mind-independent objects. That is to say, taking experiences to be episodes or events, the naïve realist ...

My dissertation investigates two questions from within a partial belief framework: First, when and how should deference to experts or other information sources be qualified? Second, how closely is epistemology related to other philosophical fields, such as metaphysics, ethics, and decision theory? Chapter 1 discusses David Lewis's "Big Bad Bug", an argument for the conclusion that the Principal...

Thin as a Needle, Quick Flash: Murdoch on Agency and Moral Progress Jack Samuel I Iris murdoch’s The sovereignty of Good1—especially the first essay, “The Idea Perfection”—is often associated with critique certain picture agency its proper place in ethical thought. There is implicit this critique, however, an alternative, much richer picture. Though her immediate target Kantianism Stuart Hampsh...

INTRODUCTION Can the issue of human (ir)rationality contribute to the scientific study of reasoning? A tempting line of argument seems to indicate that it can’t. Here it is. (i) To discuss diagnoses of (ir)rationality arising from research in the psychology of reasoning one has to deal with arbitration, i.e., the assessment of competing theories of what a reasoner ought to do, if rational. But ...

Psychopaths are renowned for their immoral behavior. They are ideal candidates for testing the empirical plausibility of moral theories. Many think the source of their immorality is their emotional deficits. Psychopaths experience no guilt or remorse, feel no empathy, and appear to be perfectly rational. If this is true, sentimentalism is supported over rationalism. Here, I examine the nature o...

This essay considers and evaluates recent results and arguments from classical chaotic systems theory and non-relativistic quantum mechanics that pertain to the question of whether our world is deterministic or indeterministic. While the classical results are inconclusive, quantum mechanics is often assumed to establish indeterminism insofar as the measurement process involves an ineliminable s...