Tag: formal epistemology

New Book: A Formal Epistemology Reader

A Formal Epistemology Reader
Edited by Horacio Arló-Costa, Johan van Benthem, Vincent F. Hendricks
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012
ISBN 9781107608726 (paperback)
ISBN 9781107001794 (hardback)
Assistant Editors: Henrik Boensvang & Rasmus K. Rendsvig
Release date / Fall 2012

‘Formal epistemology’ is a term coined in the late 1990s for a new constellation of interests in philosophy, the roots 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. This volume presents 42 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 basic subsections: Bayesian Epistemology, Belief Change, Decision Theory, Interactive Epistemology and Logics of Knowledge and Belief. 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.

More here.

Formal Epistemology Reading Group FA11 #9

The next meeting of the formal epistemology reading group will take place on Sunday (November 20) 6:00pm in Room 720, Philosophy Hall, Columbia University. We shall move to the backward induction paradox. I suggest we start with the study of the structure of type space. I shall present the version given in Brandenburger & Dekel (1993), where the authors use Kolmogorov’s extension theorem to provide a measure of beliefs with infinite depth. As usual, I will spend a few minutes setting up the framework, leaving most of the technical details in handout, we can then discuss it.

  • Brandenburger, A. and E. Dekel (1993) Hierarchies of Belief and Common Knowledge, Journal of Economic Theory, 59, 189-198

Hope to see you all there!

Formal Epistemology Reading Group FA11 #3

Due to various schedule conflicts, the formal epistemology reading group will be moved to Sunday afternoons. The next meeting is on October 9, 3pm in room 720 Philosophy Hall, Columbia University.

For the coming meeting, I will give a short tutorial on strategic games (normal form, Bayesian, Mixed, Correlated) and prove some classical results. If time permits, we will continue to discuss Aumann & Brandenburger’s 1995 paper (attached).

Hope to see you all there!

Formal Epistemology Reading Group FA11 #1

The Formal Epistemology Reading Group will resume this week. We will be meeting on Wednesdays 6pm in the graduate student lounge (720 Philosophy Hall, Columbia University). Here is a tentative list of topics that we prepare to cover this semester:

  • Aspects of Common Knowledge (models of common knowledge, agree to disagree theorem, backward induction, common knowledge vs. common belief, common prior assumption, etc.)
  • Causal Decision Theory (John might come to present his recent work)
  • Imprecise probability, Dilation, Exchangeability (To prepare this, I will be reading Halmos (1974) and Ash (2000) on Measure Theory this semester, let me know if you’d like to join me.)

Please be advised that the reading list is alway open for suggestions, you are welcome to propose or present any topic that interests you. To state the convention again, all the meetings are informal and the readings are light, if any. You are welcome to extend the invitation to anyone who might be interested in the reading group.  For the coming Wednesday, we will be discussing Brandenburger & Dekel’s 1987 paper titled “Common Knowledge with Probability 1” (attached).

As usual, I will spend a few minutes presenting the framework and then we can discuss it. 

Hope see you all there!

Formal Epistemology Reading Group FA11 #0

There are two announcements in this message:

  1. The formal epistemology reading group will resume next week. Please click this link for a poll at Doodle.com which, hopefully, enables us to isolate a time slot that best fits everyone’s schedule. We are still in the process of generating a reading list for this semester. Please let me know if you have any suggestion. I shall send an update with a tentative program in a later time.
  2. We do have an extra meeting this week (Wednesday 6pm at 722 or 715 Philosophy Hall) with a visitor from Netherlands.  We will be discussing Haim’s 1982 paper (attached). Please let me know if the time is inconvenient for you.

Please also be advised that all the meetings will be informal, the organizers will usually take the burden introducing the subject and relevant information of the day. So please feel free to join whenever you can.  

Hope to see you all there!