Probability and Consequence

Low-probability High Consequence Considerations in a Multiobjective Approach to Risk Management

Consequence Mining - Constants Versus Consequence Relations

The standard semantic definition of consequence with respect to a selected set X of symbols, in terms of truth preservation under replacement (Bolzano) or reinterpretation (Tarski) of symbols outside X, yields a function mapping X to a consequence relation ⇒X . We investigate a function going in the other direction, thus extracting the constants of a given consequence relation, and we show that...

Physicians, subsequence and consequence.

The title of my lecture derives from a statement by the great lexicographer Dr Samuel Johnson in the course of a review of the Essay on Waters, by Dr Charles Lucas. Lucas extolled the healing powers of the waters at Bath (where he was physician) and elsewhere during an enforced hiatus in his political life in Dublin. Dr Johnson was evidently not persuaded: “It is incident to physicians, I am af...

Judgment and consequence relations

In this paper I argue that a variety of consequence relations can be subsumed under a common core. The reduction proceeds by taking the unconditional consequence, or judgment, as basic and deriving the conditional consequence via a uniform abstraction scheme. A specific outcome is that it is better not to base such a scheme on the semantic notion of a matrix and valuation but rather on theories...

(and some consequence)

In this short paper, I compare and contrast the kind of symmetric treatment of negation favoured in different ways by Huw Price (in “Why ‘Not’?”) and by me (in “Multiple Conclusions”) with Robert Brandom’s analysis of scorekeeping in terms of commitment, entitlement and incompatibility. Both kinds of account are what Brandom calls a normative pragmatics. They are both semantic anti-realist acco...