Belief Revision Meets Philosophy of Science Logic Epistemology and the Unity of Science

Belief revision theory and philosophy of science both aspire to shed light on the dynamics of knowledge – on how our view of the world changes (typically) in the light of new evidence. Yet these two areas of research have long seemed strangely detached from each other, as witnessed by the small number of cross-references and researchers working in both domains. One may speculate as to what has brought about this surprising, and perhaps unfortunate, state of affairs. One factor may be that while belief revision theory has traditionally been pursued in a bottom- up manner, focusing on the endeavors of single inquirers, philosophers of science, inspired by logical empiricism, have tended to be more interested in science as a multi-agent or agent-independent phenomenon. Front Matter....Pages i-xx AGM Theory and Artificial Intelligence....Pages 1-42 Changing the Scientific Corpus....Pages 43-58 Idealizations, Intertheory Explanations and Conditionals....Pages 59-75 Abductive Belief Revision in Science....Pages 77-104 A Structuralist Framework for the Logic of Theory Change....Pages 105-135 Using Conceptual Spaces to Model the Dynamics of Empirical Theories....Pages 137-153 A Note on Theory Change and Belief Revision....Pages 155-162 Social Norms, Rational Choice and Belief Change....Pages 163-212 Rational Belief Changes for Collective Agents....Pages 213-224 The Best of All PossibleWorlds: Where Interrogative Games Meet Research Agendas....Pages 225-252 Functional vs. Relational Approaches to Belief Revision....Pages 253-268 Knowledge as True Belief....Pages 269-302 Reasoning About Belief Revision....Pages 303-328 Changing Minds About Climate Change: Belief Revision, Coherence, and Emotion....Pages 329-345 Rationality in Flux – Formal Representations of Methodological Change....Pages 347-356 Back Matter....Pages 357-359 Erik J. Olsson, Sebastian Enqvist, Editors. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.