Language, Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Mind Research Interest Group Talk (Melissa Fusco, Columbia)

The Language, Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Mind Research Group welcomes as guest speaker Melissa Fusco, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University and the director of graduate admissions there. Dr. Fusco works in philosophy of language—especially formal semantics—decision theory, and philosophical logic. She also has interests in metaethics and metaphysics. Current projects include natural language theories of modality and the semantics of disjunctive questions.

Talk Title

Imaging and the Diachronic Dutch Book

Talk Abstract

Causal decision theorists update by conditionalization on their own acts, just like evidential decision theorists and rational pure observers do. But should they? Imaging (Lewis, 1976; Gardenfors, 1982) can be treated as a counterfactual-inspired recipe for belief revision. In a decision-theoretic context, a longstanding, though not popular, gloss on imaging involves norms of update: conditioning is the correct response to learning that A is the case, while imaging is the correct response to making A the case.  Here, I aim to counter a major obstacle to the viability of that position: the diachronic Dutch Book (Teller, 1973).

About the Language, Epistemology, Metaphysics and Mind Research Group

One of six departmental research interest groups, the Language, Epistemology, Metaphysics and Mind Group undertakes research in philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science, traditional and formal epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language.