PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE SEMINAR, B. L o e w e r

Department of History and Philosophy of Science Eotvos University Budapest, Pazmany P. setany 1/A PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE SEMINAR (http://hps.elte.hu/seminar) ________________________________________________ 18 June 4:00 PM 6th floor 6.54 (Language: English) B a r r y L o e w e r Philosophy, Rutgers University, New York David Lewis formulated a principle (he calls it "the Principal Principle") that he claims tells how chances (and beliefs concerning chances) should guide belief. The principle is that if the chance at t of A's occurring is x then your credence at that A will occur should be x as long as you don't possess any inadmissible information. The principle is intuitive and explains a lot of statistical practice. However Lewis thinks it is incompatible with his favorite theory of the nature of chance and more generally with a metaphysical doctrine called "Humean Supervenience." I argue that Lewis is mistaken about this. Further more I show that while there can be no "justification" of the principle that shows that following it will lead to successful results one can provide a kind of "rationale" for the principle based on Lewis' account of the nature of chance. ________________________________________________________ End of the 2000/2001 program ________________________________________________________ I would like to thank you all, the lecturers and the audience, your participation and the stimulating atmosphere of the seminars! See you in September! László E. Szabó The organizer of the seminar -- Laszlo E. Szabo Department of Theoretical Physics Department of History and Philosophy of Science Eotvos University, Budapest H-1518 Budapest, Pf. 32, Hungary Phone/Fax: (36-1)372-2924 Home: (36-1) 200-7318 Mobil/SMS: (36) 20-366-1172 http://hps.elte.hu/~leszabo