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The author argues that a logical paradox lies at the root of a number of persistent puzzles in game theory, in particular those concerning rational agents who seek to establish some kind of reputation. This analysis provides an understanding of how the rational agent model can account for the emergence of rules, practices and institutions.
At a fairly high level of abstraction, this work is about some ways in which questions about the correct treatment of the semantic paradoxes and questions about the principles of rationality governing doxastic states can be mutually illuminating. In the first part of the dissertation, I argue that certain treatments of the semantic paradoxes lead to surprising conclusions about the nature of the doxastic states of rational agents. The semantic paradoxes, such as the liar paradox, provide us with good reason to take seriously various non-classical logics. In addition to the semantic paradoxes, there are also paradoxes that show that some extremely plausible principles of rationality governing doxastic states are inconsistent given classical logic. I show how various non-classical responses to the semantic paradoxes provide us with resources sufficient to resolve these paradoxes. In particular, if we allow that certain statements about an agent's doxastic state, e.g., statements about whether an agent believes a proposition P, may give rise to certain failures of classical logic, then we can hold on to all of our plausible principles of doxastic rationality. I use this fact to argue for the conditional claim that if one is inclined to reject classical logic in response to the liar paradox, then one should allow that statements about an agent's doxastic state may also give rise to failures of classical logic. Since the antecedent of the conditional is reasonable, and the consequent surprising, the conditional is of interest. In the second part of the dissertation, I argue that attention to questions about the nature of doxastic rationality can provide us with important insights into the correct treatment of the semantic paradoxes. For any non-classical response to the semantic paradoxes, an important question that arises is: what exactly is the cognitive significance of the non-classical semantic statuses employed by the theory? I argue that our earlier reflections on the normative paradoxes show that the standard ways of answering this question are wrong. Given standard accounts of the cognitive significance of non-classical semantic statuses, we can resurrect our normative paradoxes. What this means is that the standard accounts of non-classical cognitive significance are in conflict with certain fundamental principles of doxastic rationality. I argue that in order to reconcile the account of non-classical cognitive significance with these principles we need to say that the correct rational response to paradoxical propositions, such as that expressed by the liar sentence, is for there to be a mirroring non-classicality in one's doxastic state. A rational agent, then, will be such that the claim that it believes the proposition expressed by the liar sentence will have the same non-classical status as the proposition expressed by the liar sentence. What emerges is a new picture of the significance of non-classical treatments of the semantic paradoxes.
A wealth of specific techniques, such as suspended judgment and concept displacement, will help enhance your creative thinking and leadership skills. Dozens of mind-training exercises will blast through your mental barriers and provoke you to approach problems in new ways. Along the way, you'll meet dozens of business-people who have used paradoxical thinking to achieve breakthroughs in industries ranging from investment management to biotechnology, entertainment, and manufacturing.
Is law paradoxical? This book seeks to unravel the riddle of legal paradoxes. It focuses on two main questions: the nature of legal paradoxes, and their social ramifications. In exploring the structure of legal paradoxes, the book focuses both on generic paradoxes, such as those associated with the self-referential character of legal validity and the endemic incoherence of legal discourse, and on paradoxes that permeate more restricted fields of law, such as contract law, euthanasia, and human rights (the prohibition of torture). The discussion of the social effects of legal paradoxes focuses on the role of paradoxes as drivers of legal change, and explores the institutional mechanisms that ensure the stability of the law, in spite of its paradoxical makeup. The essays in the book discuss these questions from various perspectives, invoking insights from philosophy, systems theory, deconstruction and economics.
This dissertation explores issues relating to enriching our theory of rational belief change to accommodate a broader set of doxastic attitudes than mere first-order beliefs. In Chapter 2, I introduce the orthodox AGM theory of belief revision by contrasting it with an alternative (broadly Bayesian) approach to qualitative belief revision. This alternative approach is defined by way of a diachronic version of the Lockean thesis, which requires coherence between the agents beliefs and credences. A number of surprising and novel results concerning the relationship between Lockean and AGM revision. The remaining chapters explore some peculiarities for the diachronic norms of epistemic rationality that result from future-directed higher-order beliefs -- i.e. agents' beliefs about their future beliefs. In Chapter 3, I consider their effects on the norms of introspective inference and argue that they introduce the possibility that the agent's procedure for belief change is relevant for determining which rules of inference the agent may employ with the guarantee of truth-preservation. This suggests the familiar account of validity, according to which only the meanings of the logical parts of the language can determine the validity of an inference rule, does not fully capture guaranteed truth-preservation. This chapter additionally includes an application to the surprise examination paradox and offers a novel solution. In Chapter 4, I show that the peculiarities generated by future-directed higher-order beliefs are not limited to introspective inference and establish a result involving agents with inconsistent beliefs. By constructing a revised version of the surprise examination paradox, in which the agent begins with straightforwardly inconsistent beliefs, I demonstrate that there are situations in which the agent has no choice but to give up some true belief if she is to resolve the inconsistency in her prior beliefs. This is surprising since one might think that when an agent has logically inconsistent beliefs, there should be some way to "surgically" remove the false beliefs she has without also cutting away some true beliefs. But, in the case discussed, all of the logically possible options for resolving the agent's inconsistency include the removal of some true beliefs. Additionally, Chapter 4 includes several alternative demonstrations of the main result of this chapter, which taken together provide a compelling argument that future-directed higher-order beliefs are responsible for this behaviour rather than other contingent features of the case.
Andinmy haste, I said: “Allmenare Liars” 1 —Psalms 116:11 The Original Lie Philosophical analysis often reveals and seldom solves paradoxes. To quote Stephen Read: A paradox arises when an unacceptable conclusion is supported by a plausible argument from apparently acceptable premises. [...] So three di?erent reactions to the paradoxes are possible: to show that the r- soning is fallacious; or that the premises are not true after all; or that 2 the conclusion can in fact be accepted. There are sometimes elaborate ways to endorse a paradoxical conc- sion. One might be prepared to concede that indeed there are a number of grains that make a heap, but no possibility to know this number. However, some paradoxes are more threatening than others; showing the conclusiontobeacceptableisnotaseriousoption,iftheacceptanceleads to triviality. Among semantic paradoxes, the Liar (in any of its versions) 3 o?ers as its conclusion a bullet no one would be willing to bite. One of the most famous versions of the Liar Paradox was proposed by Epimenides, though its attribution to the Cretan poet and philosopher has only a relatively recent history. It seems indeed that Epimenides was mentioned neither in ancient nor in medieval treatments of the Liar 1 Jewish Publication Society translation. 2 Read [1].