Publications

• "A Decision Procedure for Probability Calculus with Applications", Review of Symbolic Logic (to appear). Click here to download the companion Mathematica notebook that goes along with this paper (and click here to download the Mathematica function PrSAT itself).
  
  
• "Goodman's `New Riddle'", Journal of Philosophical Logic (to appear)
  
  
• "Bayesians Sometimes Cannot Ignore Even Very Implausible Theories (even ones that have not yet been thought of)" (with Neil Thomason), Australasian Journal of Logic (to appear)
  
  
• "Probability, Confirmation, and the Conjunction Fallacy" (with Vincenzo Crupi and Katya Tentori), Thinking and Reasoning (to appear)
  
  
• "Steps Toward a Computational Metaphysics" (with Ed Zalta), Journal of Philosophical Logic.
  
  
• "The Paradox of Confirmation", Blackwell's Philosophy Compass, Brian Weatherson and Craig Callender, eds.
  
  
• Review of Subjective Probability: The Real Thing, by Richard Jeffrey, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, October 2005.
  
  
• "Likelihoodism, Bayesianism, and Relational Confirmation", Synthese.
  
  
• "Logical Foundations of Evidential Support", Philosophy of Science.
  
  
• "How Bayesian Confirmation Theory Handles the Paradox of the Ravens" (with James Hawthorne) forthcoming in Eells and Fetzer eds., Probability in Science, Open Court.
  
  
• "Bayesian Confirmation and Auxiliary Hypotheses Revisited: A Reply to Strevens" (with Andrew Waterman), British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. You can read Michael Strevens's (now published) reply here. And, you can read our rejoinder here (the published version is here).
  
  
• "Inductive Logic", in Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia, (J. Pfeifer and S. Sarkar, eds.), Routledge Press.
  
  
• "Confirmation", forthcoming in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Edward N. Zalta, ed.).
  
  
• "Probability", (co-authored with Alan Hájek and Ned Hall) in Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia, (J. Pfeifer and S. Sarkar, eds.), Routledge Press.
  
  
• Review of Bayesian Epistemology, by Luc Bovens and Stephan Hartmann, Mind.
  
  
• "Re-solving Irrelevant Conjunction with Probabilistic Independence" (with James Hawthorne), Philosophy of Science.
  
  
• Review of Bayes's Theorem, Richard Swinburne (ed.), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, November 2003.
  
  
• Review of An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic by Ian Hacking, Bulletin of Symbolic Logic.
  
  
• Review of Interpreting Probability: Controversies and Developments in the Early Twentieth Century by David Howie, Philosophy of Science.
  
  
• "A Probabilistic Theory of Coherence", ANALYSIS. [Here is a note explaining two technical corrections to my original coherence measure, and here is a Mathematica Notebook which works through the results in that note. The Mathematica notebook is also available in PDF format here.]
  
  
• Review of The Foundations of Causal Decision Theory by James Joyce, Mind.
  
  
• "Monty Hall, Doomsday, and Confirmation" (with Darren Bradley), ANALYSIS.
  
  
• "Putting the Irrelevance Back Into the Problem of Irrelevant Conjunction", Philosophy of Science.
  
  
• "Too Odd (Not) to be True? A Reply to Erik J. Olsson: 'Corroborating Testimony, Probability and Surprise'" (with Luc Bovens, Stephan Hartmann, and Josh Snyder), British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
  
  
• "Symmetries and Asymmetries in Evidential Support" (with Ellery Eells), Philosophical Studies.
  
  
• Studies in Bayesian Confirmation Theory (my Ph.D. dissertation: defended May 1, 2001 @ UW-Madison).
  
  
• "A Bayesian Account of Independent Evidence with Applications", Philosophy of Science. Philosophy of Science Association Graduate Student Prize Essay, 2000.
  
  
• "Measuring Confirmation and Evidence" (with Ellery Eells), Journal of Philosophy.
  
  
• "The Plurality of Bayesian Measures of Confirmation and the Problem of Measure Sensitivity", Philosophy of Science
  
  
• "How Not to Detect Design" --- A Review of William A. Dembski's "The Design Inference" (with Elliott Sober and Chris Stephens), Philosophy of Science. This paper has also been reprinted in Rob Pennock's collection Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics (MIT Press).
  
  
• "Models and Reality" --- A Review of Brian Skyrms' Evolution of the Social Contract (with Elliott Sober, Ellery Eells, and Marty Barrett), Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
  
  
• "Plantinga's Probability Arguments Against Evolutionary Naturalism" (with Elliott Sober), Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79(2): 115-29. This paper has also been reprinted in Rob Pennock's collection Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics (MIT Press).
  
  
• "Wayne, Horwich, and Evidential Diversity", Philosophy of Science.
  
  
• "Shortest Axiomatizations of Implicational S4 and S5" (with Zac Ernst, Ken Harris, and Larry Wos), Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic.
  
  
• "Vanquishing the XCB Question: The Methodological Discovery of the Last Shortest Single Axiom for the Equivalential Calculus" (with Larry Wos and Dolph Ulrich), Journal of Automated Reasoning.
  
  
• "Short Single Axioms for Boolean Algebra" (with Bill McCune, Bob Veroff, Ken Harris, Andrew Feist, and Larry Wos), Journal of Automated Reasoning.
  
  
• "The Automation of Sound Reasoning and Successful Proof Finding" (with Larry Wos), in A Companion to Philosophical Logic (Blackwell Publishers, Dale Jacquette, ed.).
  
  
• "A Concise Axiomatization of RM_→" (with Zac Ernst, Ken Harris, and Larry Wos), Bulletin of the Section of Logic (Department of Logic, University of Lodz).
  
  
• "Finding Missing Proofs with Automated Reasoning" (with Larry Wos), Studia Logica.
  
  
• "Distributivity in and Other Sentential Logics" (with Ken Harris), (2001) Journal of Automated Reasoning. Various OTTER, MACE, and MAGIC input files relevant to this paper are available here. John Slaney wrote a very constructive and informative reply to our paper, which can be downloaded here.
  
  
• "Comments on Some Completeness Theorems of Urquhart and Mendez & Salto" (with Ken Harris), Journal of Philosophical Logic.
  
  
• "Using Mathematica to Understand the Computer Proof of the Robbins Conjecture", Mathematica in Education and Research. See my Robbins Algebra Page for various Mathematica files relevant to this paper.
  
  
• "Visibility of Earth-Bound Satellites: A Deep Space Network Study", NASA Technical Memorandum 0011310M, prepared at Computer Sciences Corporation, August 1990.
  

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Presentations

• The Wason Task(s) and the Paradox of Confirmation, CMU, March 2008.
  
  
• "Epistemological Critiques of 'Classical' Logic: Two Case Studies," Philosophy Department, USC, October 2007. This talk is based (at this point, rather loosely) on my "grue" paper.
  
  
• "'Survey' of Formal Epistemology: Some Propaganda and an Example", Mathematical Methods in Philosophy, Banff International Research Station, February 2007.
  
  
• "Argument Diagrams, Bayes Nets, and Independent Evidence," Graphic and Visual Representations of Evidence and Inference in Legal Settings, Cardozo School of Law, January 2007.
  
  
• "Remarks on Probability and 'Intelligent Design'", ICBS retreat, Fall 2006. Part of a joint presentation with Tania Lombrozo.
  
  
• "Likelihoods, Counterfactuals, and Tracking", to be presented at a session on Sherri Roush's book Tracking Truth @ PSA 2006 in Vancouver, November 2006.
  
  
• "Comparative Probability, Comparative Confirmation, and the 'Conjunction Fallacy'," Bayesianism Fundamentally workshop, University of Pittsburgh, Center for Philosophy of Science, October 2006.
  
  
• Comments on Jill North's "Symmetry and Probability", BSPC 2006, July 2006.
  
  
• "Kim on the Unconfirmability of Disjunctive Laws", SEP 2006, May 2006.
  
  
• "A Historical Introduction to Bayesian Confirmation Theory", Department of Cognitive Sciences and Education (DiSCof), University of Trento, May 2006.
  
  
• "Old Evidence, Logical Omniscience & Bayesianism", Philosophy Department / Centre for Time, University of Sydney, March 2006.
  
  
• "Judgment Under Uncertainty Revisited: Probability vs Confirmation ", Philsoc, Philosophy Program, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, March 2006.
  
  
• A Historical Introduction to Confirmation Theory, Probability Conference, Philosophy Program, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, March 2006.
  
  
• "The Paradox of Confirmation", Stanford University, Logical Methods in Humanities Workshop, February 2006. This talk is based on my paper on the paradox of confirmation.
  
  
• "Some Remarks on the 'Intelligent Design' Controversy", University of Missouri Annual Philosophy of Religion Conference, Philosophy Department, University of Missouri–Columbia, January 2006. This talk is based on my recent paper on the "intelligent design" controversy.
  
  
• "Confirmation Theory as a Branch of Inductive Logic: Historical and Philosophical Reflections", presented at the APA Eastern Division Meetings (for an invited symposium on inductive logic with Jim Joyce and Patrick Maher), New York, December 2005. Here is the script that goes with the slides to this talk.
  
  
• "Automated Reasoning in Modal Logics: A Framework with Applications", to be presented at NA-CAP 2005, and AWARD 2005, both in August 2005. Click here to see the full video of my NA-CAP 2005 presentation (requires RealOne Player).
  
  
• "A User-Friendly Decision Procedure for the Probability Calculus, with Applications to Bayesian Confirmation Theory", presented at the Bristol Meeting of the Luxemburger Zirkel (a.k.a., the research group in Logical Methods in Epistemology, Semantics and Philosophy of Mathematics), January 2005. Click here for the Mathematica 5.0 notebook that goes with this talk (and here for a PDF version thereof). This notebook makes use of the PrSAT package.
  
  
• "Logical Foundations of Evidential Support", presented at the Nineteenth Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (PSA 2004) in Austin, Texas, November 18, 2004. This is part of a Symposium on Confirmation and Inductive Logic with Jim Joyce and Patrick Maher.
  
  
• "Relational and non-Relational Conceptions of Evidential Support", University of Konstanz (Philosophy, Probability and Modeling Seminar), July 2004. There is also a color plot and a Mathematica 5 notebook (also available in PDF format) that goes with the discussion of the Monty Hall Problem at the end of this talk.
  
  
• "Probabilistic Coherence from a Logical Point of View", London School of Economics (Bayesian Epistemology Workshop), June 2004. There are also three background files that accompany this talk. There is a note explaining two technical corrections to my original coherence measure, and there is a Mathematica 5 Notebook which works through the results in that note. The Mathematica notebook is also available in PDF format here.
  
  
• "Some Recent Fallacies of Approximation in Bayesian Confirmation Theory", London School of Economics (Bayesian Epistemology Workshop), June 2004.
  
  
• "Logical Foundations of Evidential Support", presented at the University of Michigan , Department of Philosophy, February, 2004. Click here to download the script that goes with the slides for this talk.
  
  
• "Comments on the Role of Base Rates in Probabilistic Reasoning", presented at the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of California–Berkeley, October, 2003.
  
  
• "Steps Toward a Computational Metaphysics," (with Ed Zalta) presented at the Computing and Philosophy Conference, Oregon State University, August 2003. Click here to see the full video of our presentation (requires RealOne Player).
  
  
• Comments on James Franklin's 'The Representation of Context: Ideas from Artificial Intelligence', presented at the Inference, Culture, and Ordinary Thinking in Dispute Resolution Conference, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, April, 2003. Papers presented at this conference have recently appeared in a special issue of the journal Law, Probability, and Risk.
  
  
• "Comments on Kenneth Presting’s 'Computability and Newcomb’s Problem'", presented at the APA Pacific Division meetings, March 2003.
  
  
• "Some Recent Results in Algebra & Logical Calculi Obtained Using Automated Reasoning", presented at the University of California–Berkeley, Logic Colloquium, March 2003.
  
  
• "Studies in Bayesian Confirmation Theory", presented at the History and Philosophy of Logic, Mathematics, and Science Working Group, University of California–Berkeley, October, 2002.
  
  
• "Lectures on Inductive Logic and Bayesian Confirmation", presented at the Summer School for Philosophy and Probability, University of Konstanz, September, 2002.
  
  
• "Some Remarks on the Philosophy of Statistics", presented at the Center for Advanced Scientific Computing, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, August, 2002.
  
  
• "Rethinking the Problem of Old Evidence," presented at the Central Valley Philosophical Association Conference, Fresno State University, April 2002. Also presented at Stanford University's Symbolic Systems Forum, April 2002.
  
  
• "Comments on Tomoji Shogenji’s 'The Problem of Independence in Justification by Coherence'," presented at the APA Pacific Division meetings, March 2002.
  
  
• "Putting the Irrelevance Back Into the Problem of Irrelevant Conjunction," presented at the History and Philosophy of Science Colloquium, University of Colorado–Boulder, November 2001.

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Project Web Pages

• Running MacLogic Under Emulation
  
  
• Computational Metaphysics (with Ed Zalta)
  
  
• PrSAT: A Decision Procedure for the Probability Calculus (with Jason Alexander and Ben Blum).
  • As of 03/14/08, PrSAT is now in version 2.0 (beta), which is compatible with v6 of Mathematica.
  • There is also a paper that describes PrSAT and its underlying logic, as well as a companion Mathematica 6 notebook that goes along with the paper.
    
    
• The Computer Proof of the Robbins Conjecture
  
  
• Automated Reasoning in Modal Logics
  
  
• New Elegant Axiomatizations of Some Sentential Logics
  
  
• Deliberational Dynamics
  
  
• Distributivity in and Other Sentential Logics
  
  
• Using Mathematica as a Graphical Front-End for Otter (with Zac Ernst)
  
  
• A Neat Visualization of "Divide the Cake" Under Replicator Dynamics

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Works in Progress

• Inductive Logic and the Paradoxes of Confirmation, book project (more on this soon!)
  
  
• "What is the `Equal Weight View'?" (with David Jehle). Draft of 11/13/07. Click here for the Mathematica notebook that goes along with this paper (and here for a pdf version of that notebook).
  
  
• "Dempster-Shafer Functions as Metalinguistic Probability Functions"
  
  
• "Earman on Old Evidence and Measures of Confirmation"
  
  
• "Some Remarks on the 'Intelligent Design' Controversy"
  
  
• "Kim's Argument for the Unconfirmability of Disjunctive Laws"
  
  
• "The Logical Generality of Williamson's 'Fitch-Like' Modal Triviality"
  
  
• "A Concise Analysis of Popper's Qualitative Theory of Verisimilitude"