Delusions and madmen: against rationality constraints on belief

Delusions and the Background of Rationality

I argue that some cases of delusions show the inadequacy of those theories of interpretation that rely on a necessary rationality constraint on belief ascription. In particular I challenge the view that irrational beliefs can be ascribed only against a general background of rationality. Subjects affected by delusions seem to be genuine believers and their behaviour can be successfully explained...

Rationality, Belief and Commitment

Justified Belief and Rationality

Brandenburger and Dekel have shown that common belief of rationality (CBR) characterizes rationalizable strategies, which are also characterized by a refinement of subjective correlated equilibrium called a posteriori equilibrium. It is possible that players’ beliefs might be incompatible, in the sense that player i can assign probability 1 to an event E to which player j assigns probability 0....

Belief and Bounded Rationality

Since Quine’s Word and Object [Qui60], there has been more-or-less general agreement on the correct treatment on the status of talk about intentional attitudes. In a strict ontological sense, “the canonical scheme for us is the austere scheme” according to which there are “no propositional attitudes but only the physical constitution and behaviour of organisms” [Qui60, p. 221]. However, intenti...

Conservative belief and rationality

Players’ beliefs may be incompatible, in the sense that player i can assign probability 1 to an event E to which player j assigns probability 0. One way to block incompatibility is to assume a common prior. We consider here a different approach: we require players’ beliefs to be conservative, in the sense that all players must ascribe the actual world positive probability. We show that common c...