Epistemic Properties Research Articles

Verifying Epistemic Properties of Multi-agent Systems via Bounded Model Checking

We present a framework for verifying temporal and epistemic properties of multi-agent systems by means of bounded model checking. We use interpreted systems as underlying semantics. We give details...

‘Red in Tooth and Claw’: The Idea of Progress in Medicine and the Common Law

The interaction of medicine and the common law is best understood through an examination of the epistemic properties shared (or taken to be shared) by both disciplines. One such property is represented in the ideal of evolutionary progress through a conflict of ideas, as developed in the work of Karl Popper on science and politics. This ideal also provides an orientation for judicial and theoretical reflections on the role of the dissenting judge in the development of the common law. It can be linked furthermore with broader ideologies of progress that valorize liberal political and economic arrangements. The medical negligence jurisprudence of the English courts has until recently been structured by an understanding that medicine, as a science, participates in this dynamic of progress. Consequently, the protection of medical pluralism from close judicial scrutiny has been taken to be a matter of public interest. However, this weak liability regime is now threatened by increased judicial activism, regulatory intervention and patient consumerism. The latter are in turn underpinned by a series of fundamental critiques directed at the idea of progress in medicine and science.

Warrant and Analysis

1. Epistemologists have expended a great deal of energy over the last three decades attempting to produce correct analyses of two central epistemological concepts: knowledge and justified belief. At the beginning of his recent impressive two-volume work on epistemology (Plantinga 1993a; 1993b), Alvin Plantinga informs his readers that his target analysandum is neither of these standard concepts, but rather, a related epistemic property he calls 'warrant'. Plantinga uses the term 'warrant' to refer to that property, 'whatever precisely it is, which makes the difference between knowledge and mere true belief' (1993a: 3). 'Warrant' is thus first functionally defined as a property (simple or complex) which fills a certain logical role, that property which, when substituted for 'X', correctly completes the following analysis schema:

What anti-individualists cannot know a priori

Anti-individualism and privileged self-knowledge may be incompatible if the attempt to hold both has the absurd consequence that one could know a priori propositions that are knowable only empirically. This would be so if such an attempt entailed that one could know a priori both the contents of one's own thoughts and the anti-individualistic entailments from those thought-contents to the world. For then one could also come to know a priori (by simple deduction) the empirical conditions entailed by one's thoughts. But I shall argue that there is no construal of 'a priori knowledge' that could be used to raise an incompatibilist objection of this sort. Note first that knowledge of one's own thought-contents would not count as a priori according to the usual criteria for knowledge of this kind.1 Surely, then, incompatibilists are using this term to refer to some other, stipulatively defined, epistemic property. But could this be, as suggested by McKinsey (1991: 9), the property of being knowable 'just by thinking' or 'from the armchair'? Certainly not if these were metaphors for knowledge attainable on the basis of reason alone, since self-knowledge would fail to come out a priori in this sense. And exactly the same would happen if the property were that of being knowable by inference, since, according to a common intuition, self-knowledge is noninferential. But suppose 'a priori' were defined as the property of being knowable without experience2 where 'experience' is construed narrowly in order to get knowledge of the contents of one's thoughts to come out as nonempirical.3 Since incompatibilists would now be departing from standard construals, we might ask: How, given anti-individualism and privileged self-knowledge, could a person (say, Oscar) know nonempirically both the

Many-Valued Modal Non-Monotonic Reasoning: Sequential Stable Sets and Logics with Linear Truth Spaces

A family of many-valued modal logics which correspond to possible-worlds models with many-valued accessibility relations, has been recently proposed by M. Fitting [7, 8]. Non-monotonic extensions of these logics are introduced with a fixpoint construction a la McDermott & Doyle and employ sequential belief sets as epistemic states [9]. In this paper we take a logical investigation of many-valued modal non-monotonic reasoning in Fitting's formal framework. We examine the notion of MV-stable sets which emerges as a sequential many-valued analog of Stalnaker-Moore stable sets and prove that several attractive epistemic properties are essentially retained in the many-valued setting, esp. when focusing on a syntactically simple epistemic fragment of MV-stable sets. We show that MV-stable sets are always closed under S4 consequence and identify three sufficient conditions for capturing axioms of negative introspection. Also, the relation of MV-stable sets to many-valued analogs of classical S5 models and to many-valued extensions of universal models is discussed. Finally, we pay special attention to the subclass of logics built on linear Heyting algebras and show that inside this subclass, the situation is very similar - in many respects - to the machinery devised by W. Marek, G. Schwarz and M. Truszczynski. In particular, the normal fragments of the two important classical ranges of modal non-monotonic logics remain intact: many-valued autoepistemic logic is captured by any non-monotonic logic in K5 - KD45 and many-valued reflexive autoepistemic logic corresponds to KTw5 - Sw5.

What is a delusion? Epistemological dimensions.

Although the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) clearly indicates delusions have an epistemic dimension, it fails to accurately identify the epistemic properties of delusions. The authors explicate the regulative causes of belief revision for rational agents and argue that delusions are unresponsive to these. They argue that delusions are (a) protected beliefs made unfalsifiable either in principle or because the agent refuses to admit anything as a potential falsifier; (b) the protected belief is not typically considered a "properly basic" belief; (c) the belief is not of the variety of protected scientific beliefs; (d) in response to an apparent falsification, the subject posits not a simple, testable explanation for the inconsistency but one that is more complicated, less testable, and provides no new corroborations; (e) the subject has a strong emotional attachment to the belief; and (f) the belief is typically supported by (or originates from) trivial occurrences that are interpreted by the subject as highly unusual, significant, having personal reference, or some combination of these.

What is ”true” in internal realism?

Aquest article es un examen critic de la teoria de la veritat de Putnam en la seva evolucio des d'un realisme metafisic a un realisme intern. En primer lloc, presento una analisi de l'argument de la teoria de models que va dur a Putnam a abandonar el concepte metafisic de veritat corn a correspondencia i a adoptar un concepte epistemic de veritat. Aquest argument, encara que constitueix una potent critica de la concepcio de la veritat del realisme metafisic, no estableix conclusivament que la veritar tingui algun contingut epistemic. En segon lloc, discuteixo la teoria idealitzada de la veritat de Putnam, tot argumentant que la identificacio de la veritat amb “acceptabilitat en condicions ideals” no s'adiu amb la tesi que la veritat no es contextual sino transcendent, per tal com la nocio de justificacio es intrinsecament contextual i no hi ha idealitzacio que la pugui redimir d'aquest caracter. Finalment, suggereixo que les intuicions realistes que el realisme intern de Putnam intenta captar no requereixen mes que una perspectiva deflacionista sobre la veritat. Adoptar aquesta perspectiva implica abandonar no sols la idea que la veritat es una propietat epistemica, sino tambe la idea que la veritat es una propietat substantiva que totes les afirmacions verdaderes comparteixen i que, per tant, es objecte d'una teoria filosofica.

Sizing Up Science: A Reply to Fuller

Fuller claims that epistemic properties of scientific activity are size-sensitive. Size is measured in terms of numbers of scientists and wealth of their material resources (e.g. funding, instrumentation, access to information). He states that when science gets much bigger, as it has this century, the epistemology of science changes: the classical search for knowledge ends (p. 8) and we move into a post-epistemic society (p. 10). Fuller claims that such (p. 4) is epistemologically at risk, and may fail to be science altogether. This provocative suggestion is worth considering, for the reasons he gives and for other reasons also. Naturalistic considerations support the claim that human strategies for investigating the world may change as social and material conditions change. Scientific methods are not a priori. Different methods and policies will prove successful in different social and psychological situations, and for different problem domains. Availability of instruments and other experimental resources should also influence choices of method and direction of research. I shall agree with Fuller that size belongs as a variable in epistemological accounts of science. I offer reasons to doubt that it is as pivotal a variable as he claims. I also respond to Fuller's suggestions for preventing Big Science from becoming the end of all science with some suggestions of my own. 2. Epistemic Maladies and Epistemic Myths

The Paradox of Ideology

Marx’s social theory seems to involve a sharp case of a well-known paradox in sociology of knowledge. The puzzle arises when we discover on the basis of scientific inquiry that belief in scientific claims is produced and maintained by noncognitive social interest or positions. The worry is that belief so produced is for that reason suspect. A cognitive interest is an intrinsic interest in the truth or warrant, or more broadly in the epistemic properties, of some claim or belief. But according to Marx’s theory of ideology, The mode of production of material life conditions the … intellectual life-processes in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their social being, but on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.2

The Oldest Social Science? The Epistemic Properties of the Common Law Tradition

Is not a worthie Professor of Law a starr in the firmament of the Common-wealth? Is he not lux a tenebris wheresoever he dwelleth? Is not his house . . . an Oracle not only to a Towne or Citty, but to a whole country round about him?' ORentimes too, to aggravate the rest, concur many other inconveniences, unthankful friends, decayed friends, bad neighbours, negligent servants [ . . . ] thievish slaves, sly cunning varlets, they break through a thousand bolts, they steal, they eat up, they take the tit-bits; casualties, taxes, mulcts, chargeable offices, vain expenses, entertainments, loss of stock, enmities, emulations, frequent invitations, losses, suretyship, sickness, death of friends, and that which is the gulf of all, improvidence, ill husbandry, disorder and confusion, by which means they are drenched on a sudden in their estates, and at unawares precipitated insensibly into an inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief, discontent, and melancholy itself.2

Epistemic properties of temporal auxiliaries: a case study from Okinawan, Japanese, and Old Japanese

Epistemic properties of temporal auxiliaries: a case study from Okinawan, Japanese, and Old Japanese

Naturalism and the normativity of epistemology

Epistemology plays a central and indisputably normative role in our lives. Like ethics, it is concerned with evaluating the rightness or wrongness of human activity. We turn to it for advice concerning how we ought to regulate belief. We appeal to it when appraising the worth of belief, evidential norms, or cognitive practices. We enlist its help when criticising our own or other's cognitive performances. It would seem then that a plausible account of epistemology should both preserve and explain the normative character of our epistemic practices. It is precisely the normative character of epistemology that is commonly said to prevent its naturalization. After all, if epistemic concepts are essentially descriptive, if epistemic judgments are primarily factual, or if epistemic properties are reducible to or identical with descriptive ones, then how can they play a normative role in our cognitive affairs? If epistemic value is a species of descriptive fact, how can it motivate or direct cognitive conduct? Naturalism needs to explain how normativity can be preserved within an epistemology that is continuous with natural science if it is to provide us with a plausible alternative to nonnaturalism and non-cognitivism. 1 In this essay I put forward a definitional form of naturalized epistemology (which I call naturalist epistemological realism) and show how the normative office of epistemology is preserved and made intelligible on this view. Section I reviews two central claims of non-naturalist views of epistemology. Section II sketches the broad outlines of naturalist epistemological realism. Section III argues that epistemology is normative only within the framework of instrumental reason and that its normativity is parasitic upon that of the latter. Epistemology is intimately connected with human conduct and motivation -- and hence normative -- by virtue of its central and enduring importance to the satisfaction of our various contingent ends. Yet this intimacy and hence

On Inspecting Images

(1) Wright distinguishes between merely being aware of an afterimage and noting some of its properties such as its shape and colour (sensing), and using it to obtain information (epistemic) about the object that the sensation of which this is an after-sensation (a better term than after-image) represented. However, there are really two different kinds of epistemology involved here. In the one he correctly recognizes that information can be obtained about external objects from the after-sensation (in his example that a particular tray was near a the window). But what he calls 'sensing' also yields information, in this case, about the after-sensation itself (its shape, e.g. parallelogram, its colour, the fact that it follows our eyes around as we move them, the fact that it changes colour and shape, and so on). Of course, we merely ignore most of our after-images and thus have no epistemic relationship with these. But those we do attend to we can treat epistemically in the two different ways described. This becomes important when we consider claims that after-images do not really exist-do not in fact have any intrinsic epistemic properties, but are 'really' only reverberations in nerve nets or some such. (2) He accepts as valid Ryle's argument2 concerning the fact that'There cannot be a representation, goes the argument, because the Representationalist has to assume an observer of the inner screen-a homunculus gazing at his mental linen; this leads to a regress, for one can ask whether there is in turn another homunculus inside the head of

Stanley J. Rosenschein and Leslie Pack Kaelbling. The synthesis of digital machines with provable epistemic properties. Theoretical aspects of reasoning about knowledge, Proceedings of the 1986 conference, edited by Joseph Y. Halpern, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Los Altos1986, pp. 83–98.

Stanley J. Rosenschein and Leslie Pack Kaelbling. The synthesis of digital machines with provable epistemic properties. Theoretical aspects of reasoning about knowledge, Proceedings of the 1986 conference, edited by Joseph Y. Halpern, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Los Altos1986, pp. 83–98. - Volume 53 Issue 2

Stanley J. Rosenschein and Leslie Pack Kaelbling. The synthesis of digital machines with provable epistemic properties. Theoretical aspects of reasoning about knowledge, Proceedings of the 1986 conference, edited by Joseph Y. Halpern, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Los Altos 1986, pp. 83–98.

Stanley J. Rosenschein and Leslie Pack Kaelbling. The synthesis of digital machines with provable epistemic properties. Theoretical aspects of reasoning about knowledge, Proceedings of the 1986 conference, edited by Joseph Y. Halpern, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Los Altos 1986, pp. 83–98.

Modality, invariance, and logical truth

Let us sum up. We began with the question, “What is the interest of a model-theoretic definition of validity?” Model theoretic validity consists in truth under all reinterpretations of non-logical constants. In this paper, we have described for each necessity concept a corresponding modal invariance property. Exemplification of that property by the logical constants of a language leads to an explanation of the necessity, in the corresponding sense, of its valid sentences. I have fixed upon the epistemic modalities in characterizing the logical constants: to be a logical constant in the language of a population is to be invariant over a modality describing complete possible epistemic states of that population (or an idealized analogue thereof). The grounds for this characterization are these: (1) It leads, I believe, to an extensionally reasonable demarcation of the logical constants, including clear cases and excluding clear non-cases. It gives a principled criterion for deciding unclear cases. (2) It provides an analysis of the topic-neutrality of logic. (3) It leads to an explanation of the epistemic necessity of the logical truths in terms of the topic-neutrality of the logical constants. All the same, it is reasonable to ask, even if the suggested demarcation of logic is extensionally correct, whether it can reasonably be expected to be fundamental. The epistemic invariance of an expression is a rather striking property, one which we should want to explain. What is missing, then, is an explanation of the distinguishing epistemic properties of the constants in terms of more fundamental properties involving their understanding and use. It would be these that properly define the nature, not just the extent, of logic.

Kausalität ohne Vorhersagbarkeit — Eine These des Empirismus im Konflikt mit der Allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie

Empiricists mostly prefer an epistemic notion of causality intending thereby to avoid metaphysical entanglements. General relativity however provides examples for causality without predictability, i. e. world models in which for geometrical reasons there exist no spacelike hypersurfaces containing traces of all future events. Yet local determinism for every single event remains valid in these cases. Therefore the problem arises how to account for a causal structure that implies local but not global predictability. This problem, it is argued, cannot be solved by characterizing the causal connection of events itself by means of its epistemic aspects. Instead the ontological ground must be emphazised which allows for varying epistemic properties of causal connections according to the space-time structure. This can be done by use of the energy transfer concept of causality which involves no reminiscence of dubious natural necessity.