Ordinal Conditional Functions: A Dynamic Theory of Epistemic States

Abstract

Many of the philosophically most interesting notions are overtly or covertly epistemological. Overtly epistemological notions are, of course, the concept of belief itself, the concept of subjective probability, and, presumably the most important, the concept of a reason in the sense of a theoretical reason for believing something. Covertly epistemological notions are much more difficult to understand; maybe, they are not epistemological at all. However, a very promising strategy for understanding them is to try to conceive of them as covertly epistemological. One such notion is the concept of objective probability;1 the concept of explanation is another. A third, very important one is the notion of causation, which has been epistemologically problematic ever since Hume. Finally, there is the notion of truth. Many philosophers believe that there is much to be said for a coherence theory of truth or internal realism; they hold some version of the claim that something for which it is impossible to get a true reason cannot be true, and that truth is therefore covertly epistemological.