We present an interdisciplinary approach to argumentation combining logical, probabilistic, and psychological perspectives. We investigate logical attack principles which relate attacks among claims with logical form. For example, we consider the principle that an argument that attacks another argument claiming A triggers the existence of an attack on an argument featuring the stronger claim A ∧ B. We formulate a number of such principles pertaining to conjunctive, disjunctive, negated, and implicational claims. Some of these attack principles seem to be prima (...) facie more plausible than others. To support this intuition, we suggest an interpretation of these principles in terms of coherent conditional probabilities. This interpretation is naturally generalized from qualitative to quantitative principles. Specifically, we use our probabilistic semantics to evaluate the rationality of principles which govern the strength of argumentative attacks. In order to complement our theoretical analysis with an empirical perspective, we present an experiment with students of the TU Vienna ( n = 139) which explores the psychological plausibility of selected attack principles. We also discuss how our qualitative attack principles relate to well-known types of logical argumentation frameworks. Finally, we briefly discuss how our approach relates to the computational argumentation literature. (shrink)

This study analyses to what extend and under what circumstances layoffs are accepted in Germany. Principles of distributive justice and rules of procedural justice form the theoretical framework of the analysis. Based on this, hypotheses are generated, which are tested empirically in a telephone survey conducted between East and West Germans in 2004 (n = 3036). The empirical analysis accounts for the different points of views of implicated stakeholders and impartial spectators. Key findings are: (1) The management of a company (...) can increase the acceptance of layoffs if the employees get some participation rights. (2) For impartial spectators generous compensation for those made redundant leads to a higher degree of perceived fairness. But job alliances are not even preferred to layoffs without measures to soften the blow of job loss. (3) Implicated stakeholders accept job alliances and perceive wage cuts as more fair than layoffs. However, compensation does not have the expected impact. (shrink)

Physical activity counteracts some of the negative consequences associated with chronic neurological diseases. Here, we describe the levels of physical activity and sports activity in patients with multiple sclerosis and chronic stroke and test compliance with the recommendation for health-promoting physical activity of the World-Health Organization. Secondly, we tested for differences between the groups of patients, and thirdly, we examined relationships between PA and Sport with psychological indicators of perceived energy and self-beliefs. Psychological constructs were assessed with validated measures from (...) different disciplines in Psychology. A statistical aim was to describe interpretations gained by parametric Bayesian and Null-Hypothesis-Significance Testing statistics on the example of the conducted tests for differences and relationships. Descriptive analyses revealed that pMS and pStroke complied with recommendations of the WHO, but with large variance indicating that patient groups are not homogenous. Tests for differences showed that the PA difference between pMS and pStroke can be attributed to the higher proportion of women in the pMS sample as they engage more in household chores. Tests for relationships showed that for pStroke, vitality, self-control, and self-efficacy were positively related to the level of sports activity. Furthermore, pStroke who were sport active had lower fatigue and higher self-control and self-efficacy scores than sport inactive people. Although they address slightly different questions, the Bayesian and the NHST approach led to similar general conclusions. (shrink)

We present two approaches to investigate the validity of connexive principles and related formulas and properties within coherence-based probability logic. Connexive logic emerged from the intuition that conditionals of the form if not-A, thenA, should not hold, since the conditional’s antecedent not-A contradicts its consequent A. Our approaches cover this intuition by observing that the only coherent probability assessment on the conditional event $${A| \overline{A}}$$ A | A ¯ is $${p(A| \overline{A})=0}$$ p ( A | A ¯ ) = 0. (...) In the first approach we investigate connexive principles within coherence-based probabilistic default reasoning, by interpreting defaults and negated defaults in terms of suitable probabilistic constraints on conditional events. In the second approach we study connexivity within the coherence framework of compound conditionals, by interpreting connexive principles in terms of suitable conditional random quantities. After developing notions of validity in each approach, we analyze the following connexive principles: Aristotle’s theses, Aristotle’s Second Thesis, Abelard’s First Principle, and Boethius’ theses. We also deepen and generalize some principles and investigate further properties related to connexive logic (like non-symmetry). Both approaches satisfy minimal requirements for a connexive logic. Finally, we compare both approaches conceptually. (shrink)

This chapter suggests how certain problematic claims of pantheism might be made more intelligible. It shows, first, that some pantheistic God-talk is comparable to talk involving mass terms; treating “God” as a mass term affords us a way of understanding, for example, how parts can seemingly be identified with the wholes of which they are the parts, as per the claim that “God is everything and everything is God”. This chapter then goes on to describe a contemporary variant of panpsychism, (...) a variant speculatively predicated on the affinity between intentional states and causal dispositions. This allows for a conception of the world as God’s brain, cashed out in terms of a “panintentionalism” that admits of various organizational possibilities for causal dispositional states, comparable to the organization of intentional states in human brains. (shrink)

Karl Pfeifer attempts to present a coherent view of panentheism that eschews Pickwickian senses of “in” and aligns itself with, and builds upon, familiar diagrammed portrayals of panentheism. The account is accordingly spatial-locative and moreover accepts the proposal of R.T. Mullins that absolute space and time be regarded as attributes of God. In addition, however, it argues that a substantive parthood relation between the world and God is required. Pfeifer’s preferred version of panpsychism, viz. panintentionalism, is thrown into (...) the mix as an optional add-on. On this account, God is conceived of as a “spiritual field” whose nature can be made more intelligible by regarding “God” as having a mass-noun sense in some contexts. Pfeifer closes with the suggestion that we look to topology and mereology for further development of the position outlined in his paper. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss how information theory has been used in the study of animal communication, as well as how these uses are justified. Biologists justify their use of Shannon’s information measures by the work they do in allowing for comparisons between different organisms and because they measure a quantity that is purported to be important for natural selection. I argue that there are problems with both sorts of justification. To make these difficulties clear, I focus on the use (...) of Shannon’s information measures to quantify the amount of information transmitted by the fire ant’s odor trail and the honeybee’s waggle dance. Both of these systems are relatively simple and well understood, and the application of Shannon’s information measure to these systems initially seemed very promising and relatively straightforward. They are therefore particularly suitable for revealing the benefits and difficulties of applying Shannon’s information measures to biological systems in general, and animal communication systems in particular. (shrink)

Society is facing uncertainty on a multitude of domains and levels: usually, reasoning and decisions about political, economic, or health issues must be made under uncertainty. Among various approaches to probability, this chapter presents the coherence approach to probability as a method for uncertainty management. The authors explain the role of uncertainty in the context of important societal issues like legal reasoning and vaccination hesitancy. Finally, the chapter presents selected psychological factors which impact probabilistic representation and reasoning and discusses what (...) society can and cannot learn from the coherence approach from theoretical and practical perspectives. (shrink)

Legal decision-support systems have the potential to improve access to justice, administrative efficiency, and judicial consistency, but broad adoption of such systems is contingent on development of technologies with low knowledge-engineering, validation, and maintenance costs. This paper describes two approaches to an important form of legal decision support—explainable outcome prediction—that obviate both annotation of an entire decision corpus and manual processing of new cases. The first approach, which uses an attention network for prediction and attention weights to highlight salient case (...) text, was shown to be capable of predicting decisions, but attention-weight-based text highlighting did not demonstrably improve human decision speed or accuracy in an evaluation with 61 human subjects. The second approach, termed semi-supervised case annotation for legal explanations, exploits structural and semantic regularities in case corpora to identify textual patterns that have both predictable relationships to case decisions and explanatory value. (shrink)

IN "THE FUNCTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS ON MATTER", "CHINESE STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY" 12 (1981) PAGES 38-54, YU CLAIMS THAT IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND HOW CONSCIOUSNESS CAN AFFECT THE PHYSICAL WORLD, TWO CATEGORIES OF MATTER MUST BE DISTINGUISHED. I ARGUE THAT YU'S DISTINCTION HAS NO EXPLANATORY FORCE AND, MOREOVER, IS AT ODDS WITH HIS MATERIALIST ASSUMPTIONS. I THEN SUGGEST OTHER STRATEGIES.

IT IS SHOWN IN DETAIL THAT RECENT ACCOUNTS FAIL TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN INTENTIONALITY AND MERELY CAUSALLY DISPOSITIONAL STATES OF INORGANIC PHYSICAL OBJECTS—A QUICK ROAD TO PANPSYCHISM. THE CLEAR NEED TO MAKE SUCH A DISTINCTION GIVES DIRECTION FOR FUTURE WORK. A BEGINNING IS MADE TOWARD PROVIDING SUCH AN ACCOUNT.

5‐methylcytosine (5mC) was long thought to be the only enzymatically created modified DNA base in mammalian cells. The discovery of 5‐hydroxymethylcytosine, 5‐formylcytosine, and 5‐carboxylcytosine as reaction products of the TET family 5mC oxidases has prompted extensive searches for proteins that specifically bind to these oxidized bases. However, only a few of such “reader” proteins have been identified and verified so far. In this review, we discuss potential biological functions of oxidized 5mC as well as the role the presumed reader proteins (...) may play in interpreting the genomic signals of 5mC oxidation products. (shrink)

According to probabilistic theories of reasoning in psychology, people's degree of belief in an indicative conditional `if A, then B' is given by the conditional probability, P(B|A). The role of language pragmatics is relatively unexplored in the new probabilistic paradigm. We investigated how consequent relevance a ects participants' degrees of belief in conditionals about a randomly chosen card. The set of events referred to by the consequent was either a strict superset or a strict subset of the set of events (...) referred to by the antecedent. We manipulated whether the superset was expressed using a disjunction or a hypernym. We also manipulated the source of the dependency, whether in long-term memory or in the stimulus. For subset-consequent conditionals, patterns of responses were mostly conditional probability followed by conjunction. For superset-consequent conditionals, conditional probability responses were most common for hypernym dependencies and least common for disjunction dependencies, which were replaced with responses indicating inferred consequent irrelevance. Conditional probability responses were also more common for knowledge-based than stimulus-based dependencies. We suggest. (shrink)

The physical activity-related health competence model assumes that individuals require movement competence, control competence, and self-regulation competence to lead a healthy, physically active lifestyle. Although previous research has already established some measurement factors of the three dimensions, no attempts have so far been made to statistically aggregate them on the sub-competence level. Therefore, the goal of the present study was to test two additional factors for PAHCO and subsequently model the second-order structure with two samples from the fields of rehabilitation (...) and prevention. We conducted two questionnaire surveys with persons with multiple sclerosis and teaching students undergoing a basic qualification course in physical education. After performing exploratory items analysis, we used second-order confirmatory factor analysis and multidimensional scaling to investigate whether the scales could be bundled in accordance with the PAHCO model. The CFAs with 10 factors demonstrated a good model fit. In contrast, the second-order analysis with a simple loading structure on the three sub-competencies revealed an unacceptable model fit. Instead, a second-order model variant was preferred [comparative fit index = 0.926, root mean square error of approximation = 0.048, standardized root mean square residual = 0.065] in which body awareness and self-efficacy had theory-conform cross-loadings. The results of multidimensional scaling were in line with the extracted second-order structure. The present results suggested that the extension of the measurement instrument to 10 first-order factors was psychometrically justified for the two populations. The results from the second-order analyses provided the basis for the creation of sum scores, representing manifest indicators of movement competence, control competence, and self-regulation competence. Future studies are needed that cross-validate the extended measurement model with other populations and that relate the sub-competencies of PAHCO to indicators of health-enhancing physical activity. (shrink)

We study probabilistically informative (weak) versions of transitivity by using suitable definitions of defaults and negated defaults in the setting of coherence and imprecise probabilities. We represent p-consistent sequences of defaults and/or negated defaults by g-coherent imprecise probability assessments on the respective sequences of conditional events. Moreover, we prove the coherent probability propagation rules for Weak Transitivity and the validity of selected inference patterns by proving p-entailment of the associated knowledge bases. Finally, we apply our results to study selected probabilistic (...) versions of classical categorical syllogisms and construct a new version of the square of opposition in terms of defaults and negated defaults. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher contains eleven chapters on the work of noted philosopher Philip Kitcher, whose work is known for its broad range and insightfulness. Topics covered include philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of mathematics, ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of religion. Each of the chapters is followed by a reply from Kitcher himself. This first significant edited volume devoted to examining Kitcher's work is an essential reference for anyone interested in understanding this important philosopher.

There is wide support in logic, philosophy, and psychology for the hypothesis that the probability of the indicative conditional of natural language, P(if A then B), is the conditional probability of B given A, P(B|A). We identify a conditional which is such that P(if A then B)=P(B|A) with de Finetti’s conditional event, B | A. An objection to making this identification in the past was that it appeared unclear how to form compounds and iterations of conditional events. In this paper, (...) we illustrate how to overcome this objection with a probabilistic analysis, based on coherence, of these compounds and iterations. We interpret the compounds and iterations as conditional random quantities, which sometimes reduce to conditional events, given logical dependencies. We also show, for the first time, how to extend the inference of centering for conditional events, inferring B|A from the conjunction A ^ B, to compounds and iterations of both conditional events and biconditional events, B || A, and generalize it to n-conditional events. (shrink)

This collection of essays looks at the relation between phenomenology and the political from a variety of possible positions both critical and complimentary.

Gesellschaften sind heute von funktionaler Ausdifferenzierung, Individualisierung und Pluralisierung gekennzeichnet. Dies lasst die Frage nach dem gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt virulent werden. Die Politik sucht nach Wegen, mit dieser Vielfalt umzugehen und den gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt zu starken. Davon zeugen Debatten uber Bildungspolitik, Sprachkurse und Leitkultur, Runde Tische oder Islamkonferenzen. Die Politische Philosophie hat in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten darauf aufmerksam gemacht, dass der Umgang mit Pluralitat einer differenzierten und multiperspektivischen Diskussion im Lichte der vielfaltigen Parameter von gesellschaftlicher Vielfalt bedarf. Was also halt Gesellschaften (...) uberhaupt zusammen? Und wie gelingt der Umgang mit legitimer Pluralitat? Der Band versammelt Beitrage aus der Philosophie und aus den Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften, die aus ihren jeweiligen Perspektiven Antwortvorschlage formulieren. (shrink)

This book will gather contributions from international scholars with the aim of exploring the political reflection of Deleuze-Guattari’s and Foucault’s critical encounter with psychoanalytic thought: their possible connections, their divergences and the fields of reflection that this encounter opens, the problems and debates that lead Foucault and Deleuze to engage with psychoanalysis.

The formation of DNA photoproducts by ultraviolet (UV) light is responsible for induction of mutations and development of skin cancer. To understand UV mutagenesis, it is important to know the mechanisms of formation and repair of these lesions. Cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers and (6–4)photoproducts are the two major classes of UV‐induced DNA lesions. Their distribution along DNA sequences in vivo is strongly influenced by nucleosomes and other DNA binding proteins. Repair of UV photoproducts is dependent on the transcriptional status of the (...) sequences to be repaired and on the chromatin environment. Sensitive techniques are now available to study repair of UV damage at the level of nucleotide resolution in mammalian cells. With the aid of in vitro systems, the entire nucleotide excision repair process has been reconstituted from purified protein components with naked DNA as a substrate. Future work will focus on the development of in vitro assays for transcription‐coupled repair and repair in chromatin. (shrink)

Geoffrey Marnell presents philosophical arguments favoring grammatical descriptivism over grammatical prescriptivism. I argue that his explanation and defence of descriptivism reveal that his descriptivism is itself prescriptivist.

The philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy that examines the profound philosophical questions that arise from scientific research and theories. A sub-discipline of philosophy that emerged in the twentieth century, the philosophy of science is largely a product of the British and Austrian schools of thought and traditions. The first in-depth reference in the field that combines scientific knowledge with philosophical inquiry, The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia is a two-volume set that brings together an international team of (...) leading scholars to provide over 130 entries on the essential concepts in the philosophy of science. The areas covered include biology, chemistry, epistemology and metaphysics, physics, psychology and mind, the social sciences, and key figures in the combined studies of science and philosophy. Essays range in length from 3,000 to 7,500 words and represent the most up-to-date philosophical thinking on timeless scientific topics such as determinism, explanation, laws of nature, perception, individuality, time, and economics as well as timely topics like adaptation, conservation biology, quantum logic, consciousness, evolutionary psychology, and game theory. Offering thorough explorations and destined to become the most authoritative presentation of the field available, this Encyclopedia is a unique and groundbreaking guide to this fascinating field. (shrink)

There is wide support in logic, philosophy, and psychology for the hypothesis that the probability of the indicative conditional of natural language, P(if A then B), is the conditional probability of B given A, P(B|A). We identify a conditional which is such that P(if A then B)=P(B|A) with de Finetti's conditional event, B|A. An objection to making this identification in the past was that it appeared unclear how to form compounds and iterations of conditional events. In this paper, we illustrate (...) how to overcome this objection with a probabilistic analysis, based on coherence, of these compounds and iterations. We interpret the compounds and iterations as conditional random quantities which, given some logical dependencies, may reduce to conditional events. We show how the inference to B|A from A and B can be extended to compounds and iterations of both conditional events and biconditional events. Moreover, we determine the respective uncertainty propagation rules. Finally, we make some comments on extending our analysis to counterfactuals. (shrink)

We study probabilistically informative (weak) versions of transitivity by using suitable definitions of defaults and negated defaults in the setting of coherence and imprecise probabilities. We represent p-consistent sequences of defaults and/or negated defaults by g-coherent imprecise probability assessments on the respective sequences of conditional events. Finally, we present the coherent probability propagation rules for Weak Transitivity and the validity of selected inference patterns by proving p-entailment of the associated knowledge bases.

In groupware tools, the activation of a function may affect other users who might have conflicting interests. We developed technical mechanisms to support users in resolving them. Contrary to current implementations of groupware tools, these mechanisms strengthen the position of the users who are affected by the activation of said functions. Supporting the visibility of a function's activation, and providing a channel for communication or means to intervene against the function's activation are approaches which constitute a framework to implement these (...) mechanisms. We conclude with showing implementation examples of the framework and their evaluation in the POLITeam project. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical analysis of the work of western humanitarian NGOs operating in the African continent. We argue that in most cases, NGOs and their supporters are deaf to the actual wants, needs, and desires ? or, in other words, the agency ? of those they are trying to aid. We do this by first offering a series of ways of understanding the ideological commitments that inform the work of many humanitarian NGOs and those who donate to them. (...) In this, we expose the reasons leading to the failure of such individuals and organizations to recognize and take account of the agency of those they seek to help. Second, we offer evidence of the problematic outcome of this failure when coupled with a lack of recognition of the wider context of many of the conflicts that lead to the suffering of those that such NGOs intend to aid. In doing this, we expose the ways in which an NGO's own position can reinforce and contribute to the continuance of this suffering. This, we argue results from the simplified, inaccurate, and de-politicized ways in which NGOs tend to portray the problem of suffering both to those they solicit for donations and in their own conception of the problems and the ?moral? role that the organization itself plays in its work. (shrink)

In this paper we exploit the notions of conjoined and iterated conditionals, which are defined in the setting of coherence by means of suitable conditional random quantities with values in the interval [0,1]. We examine the iterated conditional (B|K)|(A|H), by showing that A|H p-entails B|K if and only if (B|K)|(A|H) = 1. Then, we show that a p-consistent family F={E1|H1, E2|H2} p-entails a conditional event E3|H3 if and only if E3|H3= 1, or (E3|H3)|QC(S) = 1 for some nonempty subset S (...) of F, where QC(S) is the quasi conjunction of the conditional events in S. Then, we examine the inference rules And, Cut, Cautious Monotonicity, and Or of System P and other well known inference rules (Modus Ponens, Modus Tollens, Bayes). We also show that QC(F)|C(F) = 1, where C(F) is the conjunction of the conditional events in F. We characterize p-entailment by showing that F p-entails E3|H3 if and only if (E3|H3)|C(F) = 1. Finally, we examine Denial of the antecedent and Affirmation of the consequent, where the p-entailment of (E3|H3) from F does not hold, by showing that (E3|H3)|C(F) is not equal to 1. (shrink)

There is a long tradition in formal epistemology and in the psychology of reasoning to investigate indicative conditionals. In psychology, the propositional calculus was taken for granted to be the normative standard of reference. Experimental tasks, evaluation of the participants’ responses and psychological model building, were inspired by the semantics of the material conditional. Recent empirical work on indicative conditionals focuses on uncertainty. Consequently, the normative standard of reference has changed. I argue why neither logic nor standard probability theory provide (...) appropriate rationality norms for uncertain conditionals. I advocate coherence based probability logic as an appropriate framework for investigating uncertain conditionals. Detailed proofs of the probabilistic non-informativeness of a paradox of the material conditional illustrate the approach from a formal point of view. I survey selected data on human reasoning about uncertain conditionals which additionally support the plausibility of the approach from an empirical point of view. (shrink)

Conditionals are central to inference. Before people can draw inferences about a natural language conditional, they must interpret its meaning. We investigated interpretation of uncertain conditionals using a probabilistic truth table task, focussing on (i) conditional event, (ii) material conditional, and (iii) conjunction interpretations. The order of object (shape) and feature (color) in each conditional's antecedent and consequent was varied between participants. The conditional event was the dominant interpretation, followed by conjunction, and took longer to process than conjunction (mean di (...) erence 500 ms). Material conditional responses were rare. The proportion of conditional event responses increased from around 40% at the beginning of the task to nearly 80% at the end, with 55% of participants showing a qualitative shift of interpretation. Shifts to the conditional event occurred later in the feature-object order than in the object-feature order. We discuss the results in terms of insight and suggest implications for theories of interpretation. (shrink)

As cardiopatias congênitas são caracterizadas por anormalidade na estrutura cardiovascular, presente desde a vida fetal, sendo estimados 30 mil casos por ano, no Brasil. Apresentam alta taxa de mortalidade, requerendo, muitas vezes, hospitalizações, intervenções e cirurgias. É necessário atentar para necessidades das figuras maternas e paternas e suas formas de enfrentamento, pois fazem parte do suporte na recuperação da criança. Este estudo transversal objetivou identificar as estratégias de enfrentamento adotadas pelos pais, durante a hospitalização da criança, verificar se existe diferença (...) entre os gêneros. Foram avaliados 20 cuidadores, em acompanhamento ao filho hospitalizado para tratamento de cardiopatia congênita. Responderam questionário sociodemográfico e Escala de Enfrentamento de Problemas. Verificou-se que não há diferença na adoção de estratégias entre cuidadores materno e paterno, entretanto observou-se correlação entre fatores sociodemográficos e predominância do enfrentamento focado no problema e religiosidade. (shrink)

We take coherence based probability logic as the basic reference theory to model human deductive reasoning. The conditional and probabilistic argument forms are explored. We give a brief overview of recent developments of combining logic and probability in psychology. A study on conditional inferences illustrates our approach. First steps towards a process model of conditional inferences conclude the paper.

Modus ponens (from A and “if A then C” infer C) is one of the most basic inference rules. The probabilistic modus ponens allows for managing uncertainty by transmitting assigned uncertainties from the premises to the conclusion (i.e., from P(A) and P(C|A) infer P(C)). In this paper, we generalize the probabilistic modus ponens by replacing A by the conditional event A|H. The resulting inference rule involves iterated conditionals (formalized by conditional random quantities) and propagates previsions from the premises to the (...) conclusion. Interestingly, the propagation rules for the lower and the upper bounds on the conclusion of the generalized probabilistic modus ponens coincide with the respective bounds on the conclusion for the (non-nested) probabilistic modus ponens. (shrink)

Two experiments (N1 = 141, N2 = 40) investigate two versions of Aristotle’s Thesis for the first time. Aristotle’s Thesis is a negated conditional, which consists of one propositional variable with a negation either in the antecedent (version 1) or in the consequent (version 2). This task allows us to infer if people interpret indicative conditionals as material conditionals or as conditional events. In the first experiment I investigate between-participants the two versions of Aristotle’s Thesis crossed with abstract versus concrete (...) task material. The modal response for all four groups is consistent with the conditional event and inconsistentwith the material conditional interpretation. This observation is replicated in the second experiment. Moreover, the second experiment rules out scope ambiguities of the negation of conditionals. Both experiments provide new evidence against thematerial conditional interpretation of conditionals and support the conditional event interpretation. Finally, I discuss implications formodeling indicative conditionals and the relevance of this work for experimental philosophy. (shrink)

The present chapter describes a probabilistic framework of human reasoning. It is based on probability logic. While there are several approaches to probability logic, we adopt the coherence based approach.

I present a conceptual framework for classifying generalist and particularist approaches to conspiracy theories (CTs). Specifically, I exploit a probabilistic version of the hexagon of opposition which allows for systematically visualising the logical relations among basic philosophical positions concerning CTs. The probabilistic interpretation can also account for positions, which make weaker claims about CTs: e.g. instead of claiming ‘every CT is suspicious’ some theorists might prefer to claim ‘most CTs are suspicious’ and then ask about logical consequences of such claims. (...) Finally, I illustrate the proposed conceptual framework by selected claims about CTs drawn from the CT research literature. (shrink)

Nonmonotonic reasoning is often claimed to mimic human common sense reasoning. Only a few studies, though, have investigated this claim empirically. We report four experiments which investigate three rules of SYSTEMP, namely the AND, the LEFT LOGICAL EQUIVALENCE, and the OR rule. The actual inferences of the subjects are compared with the coherent normative upper and lower probability bounds derived from a non-infinitesimal probability semantics of SYSTEM P. We found a relatively good agreement of human reasoning and principles of nonmonotonic (...) reasoning. Contrary to the results reported in the ‘heuristics and biases’ tradition, the subjects committed relatively few upper bound violations (conjunction fallacies). (shrink)