A Sequent Formulation of Conditional Logic Based on Belief Change Operations

Peter Gärdenfors has developed a semantics for conditional logic, based on the operations of expansion and revision applied to states of information. The account amounts to a formalisation of the Ramsey test for conditionals. A conditional A > B is declared accepted in a state of information K if B is accepted in the state of information which is the result of revising K with respect to A. While Gärdenfors's account takes the truth-functional part of the logic as given, the present paper proposes a semantics entirely based on epistemic states and operations on these states. The semantics is accompanied by a syntactic treatment of conditional logic which is formally similar to Gentzen's sequent formulation of natural deduction rules. Three of David Lewis's systems of conditional logic are represented. The formulations are attractive by virtue of their transparency and simplicity.     

Social Dominance Theory: Its Agenda and Method

The theory has been misconstrued in four primary ways, which are often expressed as the claims of psychological reductionism, conceptual redundancy, biological reductionism, and hierarchy justification. This paper addresses these claims and suggests how social dominance theory builds on and moves beyond social identity theory and system justification theory.     

Shedding Dialectical Tiers: A Social-Epistemic View

Is there a duty to respond to objections in order to present a good argument? Ralph Johnson argues that there is such a duty, which he refers to as the “dialectical tier“ of an argument. I deny the (alleged) duty primarily on grounds that it would exert too great a demand on arguers, harming argumentation practices. The valuable aim of responding to objections, which Johnson 's dialectical tier is meant to satisfy, can be achieved in better ways, as argumentation is a social-epistemic activity.     

On the Theoretical Unification and Nature of Fallacies

I argue in a non-reductive sense for a plausible epistemic principle, which can (1) theoretically and instrumentally unify or systematize all fallacies, and (2) provide a justification for using such a principle for characterizing an erroneous argument as a fallacy. This plausible epistemic principle involves the idea of an error in the method of justification, which results in a failure to provide relevant evidence to satisfy certain standards of adequate proof. Thus, all fallacies are systematically disguised failures to provide substantive proof: a failure in the attempt to persuade rationally, as opposed to emotionally or rhetorically. I argue that the epistemic idea of begging the question is essential to this idea of a fallacy as an inadequate proof.     

制度正当化理论述评

制度正当化是指个体将现存社会安排合法化的心理过程。制度正当化的理论基础包括谬误意识、公正世界信念理论和认知失调理论。制度正当化理论能够解释人们为什么以及怎样在认知和意识形态上维护和支持现状, 以及由此产生的一些积极和消极后果。制度正当化受到个体因素和情境因素的影响。未来研究应进一步明确制度正当化中“制度”的涵义, 加强制度正当化理论的应用性研究, 以便更好地解释社会转变如何产生。     

Comments on Plantinga’s Argument of Transworld Identity

Plantinga’s conception of possible worlds is problematic in one sense: it relies on the prior idea of modality. His strategy for resolving the puzzle of transworld identity is significant in the metaphysical sense but fruitless in the epistemological sense because world-indexed properties cannot be used as effectively in epistemic practice as their counterparts, i.e., space- and time-indexed properties. His isolation of transworld identification from transworld identity is unconvincing. This paper argues that the intelligibility of modal discourse and reference is the essence of transworld identity. It is also proved that transworld identification is the epistemic ground of such intelligibility. Hence, the transworld identification problem is the epistemological foundation of the transworld identity problem, and there must be a comprehensive answer to the former.     

系统合理化何以形成——三种不同的解释视角

系统合理化理论认为, 人们会自然地将其所在的社会系统感知为公平合理的, 这一倾向即系统合理化。而系统合理化形成之原因, 一直是该领域理论和研究关注的重点。为此, 研究者先后提出了三种解释思路。认知失调视角认为, 系统合理化之所以产生是因为个体想要缓解因系统无法满足他们的需求而产生的焦虑。补偿性控制视角认为, 系统合理化源于个体自身控制感的缺乏。社会认知视角则认为人们固有的认知倾向特别是对于社会经济差异的内归因倾向是造成系统合理化的根源。未来可以考虑在同一个研究中包含来自于不同理论视角的解释变量, 借鉴相近领域的发现探索其他可能存在的系统合理化的形成机制, 探究中国文化特有的系统合理化的来源, 同时对积极的合理化与消极的合理化作出区分, 并在此基础上针对社会现实问题加强应用研究的开展。     

Probabilistic Justification and the Regress Problem

We discuss two objections that foundationalists have raised against infinite chains of probabilistic justification. We demonstrate that neither of the objections can be maintained. Presented by Hannes Leitgeb     

Epistemic means and ends: a reply to Hofmann

How is epistemic justification related to knowledge? Is it, as widely thought, constitutive of knowledge? Is it merely a means to knowledge, or merely a means to something else, such as truth? In a recent article in this journal, Hofmann (2005, Synthese, 146(3), 357–369) addresses these questions in attempting to defend an important argument articulated by Sartwell (1992, The Journal of Philosophy, 89(4), 167–180) and reconstructed and criticized by Le Morvan (2002, Erkenntnis: An International Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 56(2), 151–168). This Sartwellian argument purported to show that, since epistemic justification is of merely instrumental value, it is not constitutive of knowledge. In this paper, I argue that Hofmann’s defense of Sartwell fails, but that its failure brings to light some important lessons concerning the nature of justification and its relationship to truth and knowledge.     

Evaluating dialectical structures with Bayesian methods

This paper shows how complex argumentation, analyzed as dialectical structures, can be evaluated within a Bayesian framework by interpreting them as coherence constraints on subjective degrees of belief. A dialectical structure is a set of arguments (premiss-conclusion structure) among which support- and attack-relations hold. This approach addresses the observation that some theses in a debate can be better justified than others and thus fixes a shortcoming of a theory of defeasible reasoning which applies the bivalence principle to argument evaluations by assigning them the status of being either defeated or undefeated. Evaluation procedures which are based on the principle of bivalence can, however, be embedded as a special case within the Bayesian framework. The approach developed in this paper rests on the assumptions that arguments can be reconstructed as deductively valid and that complex argumentation can be reconstructed such that premisses of arguments with equivalent conclusions are pairwise independent.