西溪逻辑论坛第85期

Date: 25th May 2018 (10:00-11:30)
Venue: Room 259, Main Teaching Building, Xixi Campus, Zhejiang University
Speaker: Dr. Yang Liu (University of Cambridge)
Title: Epistemic Wild Card: what subjective probabilities could not be

Abstract: There is a long-standing disagreement in the philosophy of probability and decision theory about whether an agent can hold a meaningful credence, or “subjective probability,” about an upcoming action, while she deliberates about what to do. Can she believe that it is, say, 70% probable that she will do A, while she chooses whether to do A? Such probabilities are usually referred to as “action credences” in the literature. In this talk I will provide a defense of the thesis that, while deliberating about what to do, one cannot rationally have credences for what she is about to do. I will argue that action credences cannot hold in classical subjectivist decision theory we owe to writers like Frank Ramsey and L. J. Savage.