Many philosophers have worried about what philosophy is. Often they have looked for answers by considering what it is that philosophers do. Given the diversity of topics and methods found in philosophy, however, we propose a different approach. In this article we consider the philosophical temperament, asking an alternative question: What are philosophers like? Our answer is that one important ...

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What exactly is a philosophical intuition? And what makes such an intuition reliable, when it is reliable? is paper provides a terminological framework that is able answer to the rst question, and then puts the framework to work developing an answer to the second question. More specically, the paper argues that we can distinguish between two dišerent “evidential roles” which intuitions can oc...

In law, and, consequently, in AI & Law, argumentation, scenario-modeling, and the combination of both, are the traditional ways of theorizing about judicial reasoning and legal truth, while probabilistic reasoning has traditionally been treated with suspicion2. Nevertheless, because of the growing relevance of forensic scientific evidence, a proper integration of probabilistic reasoning into th...

In the field of ontology, several property classifications have been defined as meta-ontologies wherein the properties of individuals are rigorously classified as sortal/non-sortal, rigid/anti-rigid/non-rigid, etc. through philosophical analysis. The notions ofsuch meta-ontologies enable the processing of properties that allow us to reason abouttaxonomic knowledge in information...

We construct a counterfactual statement when we reason conjecturally about an event which did or did not occur in the past: If an event had occurred, what would have happened? Would it be relevant? Real world examples, as studied by Byrne, Rescher and many others, show that these conditionals involve a complex reasoning process. An intuitive and elegant approach to evaluate counterfactuals, wit...

There is little doubt that causal reasoning plays a vital role in human cognition. Indeed, it is difficult to see how we could make sense of almost any aspect of the physical or social world without an appreciation of cause and effect. For example, a causal interpretation of the world affords the ability to both make sense of previous events and, in turn, make predictions about future ones – tw...

The notions of meta-ontology enhance the ability to process knowledge in informa-tion systems; in particular, ontological property classification deals with the kinds ofproperties in taxonomic knowledge based on a philosophical analysis. The goal of thispaper is to devise a reasoning mechanism to check the ontological and logical consistencyof knowledge bases, which is important...

Many broad questions of high philosophical interest about causal reasoning in economics remain poorly answered. First, what are the meanings of causal claims? This is a semantic question. Second, how can a causal claim be adequately supported by evidence? This is an epistemological question. Third, how are causal beliefs affected by new information? This is a question about belief dynamics. Thi...