Event Detail

Wed Oct 11, 2006
234 Moses Hall
6–8 PM
Working Group in the History and Philosophy of Logic, Mathematics, and Science
Franz Huber (California Institute of Technology)
The Consistency Argument for Ranking Functions

The paper provides an argument for the thesis that an agent’s degrees of disbelief should obey the ranking calculus. This Consistency Argument is based on the Consistency Theorem, which says that an entrenchment function gives rise to consistent and deductively closed beliefs iff it satisfies the ranking axioms. The Consistency Argument is extended to various rank-theoretic update rules.