This paper contributes to the growing literature in social epistemology of diagnosing the epistemically problematic features of fake news. I identify two novel problems: the problem of relevant alternatives; and the problem of the degradation of the epistemic environment. The former arises among individual epistemic transactions. By making salient, and thereby relevant, alternatives to knowledge claims, fake news stories threaten knowledge. The problem of the degradation of the epistemic environment arises at the level of entire epistemic communities. I (...) introduce the notion of an epistemic environment, roughly the totality of resources and circumstances relevant to assessing the epistemically interesting statuses, such as knowledge. Fake news degrades our epistemic environment by undermining confidence in epistemic institutions and altering epistemic habits, thereby making the environment less conducive to achieving positive epistemic statuses. This is problematic even if the decrease in confidence and the altering of habits are rational. I end by considering solutions to these problems, stressing the importance of reproaching each other for proliferating fake news. I argue that we should reproach even faultless purveyors of fake news. This is because fake news typically arises in abnormal epistemic contexts, where there is widespread ignorance of, and noncompliance with, correct epistemic norms. (shrink)

We present an argument for revising the theory of alternatives for Scalar Implicatures and for Association with Focus. We argue that in both cases the alternatives are determined in the same way, as a contextual restriction of the focus value of the sentence, which, in turn, is defined in structure-sensitive terms. We provide evidence that contextual restriction is subject to a constraint that prevents it from discriminating between alternatives when they stand in a particular logical relationship with (...) the assertion or the prejacent, a relationship that we refer to as symmetry. Due to this constraint on contextual restriction, discriminating between alternatives in cases of symmetry becomes the task of focus values. This conclusion is incompatible with standard type-theoretic definitions of focus values, motivating our structure-sensitive definition instead. (shrink)

Scalar implicatures depend on alternatives in order to avoid the symmetry problem. I argue for a structure-sensitive characterization of these alternatives: the alternatives for a structure are all those structures that are at most as complex as the original one. There have been claims in the literature that complexity is irrelevant for implicatures and that the relevant condition is the semantic notion of monotonicity. I provide new data that pose a challenge to the use of monotonicity and (...) that support the structure-sensitive definition. I show that what appeared to be a problem for the complexity approach is overcome once an appropriate notion of complexity is adopted, and that upon closer inspection, the argument in favor of monotonicity turns out to be an argument against it and in favor of the complexity approach. (shrink)

In a series of experiments, Bott and Noveck (2004) found that the computation of scalar inferences, a variety of conversational implicature, caused a delay in response times. In order to determine what aspect of the inferential process that underlies scalar inferences caused this delay, we extended their paradigm to three other kinds of inferences: free choice inferences, conditional perfection, and exhaustivity in “it”‐clefts. In contrast to scalar inferences, the computation of these three kinds of inferences facilitated response times. Following a (...) suggestion made by Chemla and Bott (2014), we propose that the time it takes to compute a conversational implicature depends on the structural characteristics of the required alternatives. (shrink)

Inferences that result from exhaustification of a sentence S depend on the set of alternatives to S. In this paper, we present some inference patterns that are problematic for previous theories of alternatives and propose some structural constraints on the derivation of formal alternatives which derive the observations.

Stanford, in Exceeding Our Grasp, presents a powerful version of the pessimistic meta-induction. He claims that theories typically have empirically inequivalent but nonetheless well-confirmed, serious alternatives which are unconceived. This claim should be uncontroversial. But it alone is no threat to scientific realism. The threat comes from Stanford’s further crucial claim, supported by historical examples, that a theory’s unconceived alternatives are “radically distinct” from it; there is no “continuity”. A standard realist reply to the meta-induction is that past (...) failures do not imply present ones because present theories are more successful than past ones. I have preferred to emphasize that present methodology is better than past ones. Stanford’s response to the standard reply is surprisingly brief and inadequate. He defends the inference from the uncontroversial claim but not that from the crucial one. He does not show that past discontinuity implies present discontinuity. Realism survives. (shrink)

The self-indication assumption (SIA) claims that given that one exists, one should think that the universe has many people, for a universe that has more people is more likely to contain any particular person. SIA is attractive to many because it diffuses the infamous doomsday argument, and avoids the problems of its main rival, the self-sampling assumption (SSA), which instructs one to reason as if they’re randomly selected from the people in their reference class. Here, I will go further than (...) the traditional argument for SIA from its ability to avoid the doomsday argument: I will show that any view other than SIA must accept the soundness of the doomsday argument and certain even stranger conclusions. Additionally, I’ll argue that the main objection to SIA, the presumptuous philosopher case, is unconvincing. Together then, these considerations give one a strong reason to adopt SIA. (shrink)

There is a general view that scientific inferences from data to theory are rarely, if ever, deductive inferences. Against this view is a rising tide of work showing the importance of deductive inference in science. Such inferences have been called demonstrative inductions (DI). However, critics have argued against the epistemic advantages of DI, claiming that it merely passes the buck of inductive risk to the premises. In this paper, I defend the advantages of demonstrative induction. I argue that the virtues (...) of structuring inferences deductively derive mainly from the ability to ``isolate'' inductive risk to specific areas of theory, as well as from the ability to ``export'' this risk to more certain domains than the one under investigation. I support this argument with examples from cognitive science, where I argue that the current context of inquiry makes non-deductive, hypothesis testing particularly ineffective. Properly characterized bounded rationality assumptions can, however, help facilitate DI, allowing cognitive scientists to derive process models from environmental structure, export inductive risk outside the head, and isolate the remaining inductive risk to claims about cognitive limitations. I show how this strategy ameliorates the underdetermination problems that plague hypothesis testing, especially in early investigations of complicated black-box systems. (shrink)

A very natural view about perceptual knowledge is articulated, one on which perceptual knowledge is closely related to perceptual discrimination, and which fits well with a relevant alternatives account of knowledge. It is shown that this kind of proposal faces a problem (the closure problem), and various options for resolving this difficulty are explored. In light of this discussion, a two-tiered relevant alternatives account of perceptual knowledge is offered which avoids the closure problem. It is further shown how (...) this proposal can: (1) accommodate our intuitions about perceptual knowledge and perceptual discrimination in terms of the notion of primary relevance, (2) give an account of how alternatives can be rationally excluded without appeal to perceptual discrimination in terms of the notion of secondary relevance, and (3) deal with the problem posed by inverted Gettier cases, and hence explain what it means to rationally exclude alternatives which are of secondary relevance. (shrink)

Two visual world experiments investigated the processing of the implicature associated with some using a “gumball paradigm.” On each trial, participants saw an image of a gumball machine with an upper chamber with orange and blue gumballs and an empty lower chamber. Gumballs dropped to the lower chamber, creating a contrast between a partitioned set of gumballs of one color and an unpartitioned set of the other. Participants then evaluated spoken statements, such as “You got some of the blue gumballs.” (...) Experiment 1 investigated the time course of the pragmatic enrichment from some to not all when the only utterance alternatives available to refer to the different sets were some and all. In Experiment 2, the number terms two, three, four, and five were also included in the set of alternatives. Scalar implicatures were delayed relative to the interpretation of literal statements with all only when number terms were available. The results are interpreted as evidence for a constraint-based account of scalar implicature processing. (shrink)

Natural language conditionals seem to be subject to three logical requirements: they invalidate Antecedent Strengthening, they validate so-called Simplification of Disjunctive Antecedents, and they allow for the replacement of logically equivalent clauses in antecedent position. Unfortunately, these requirements are jointly inconsistent. Conservative solutions to the puzzle drop Simplification, treating it as a pragmatic inference. I show that pragmatic accounts of Simplification fail, and develop a truthmaker semantics for conditionals that captures all the relevant data. Differently from existing truthmaker semantics, my (...) semantics extends, rather than replaces, standard possible worlds semantics. The main innovation is the notion of a truthmaker in play: this notion is cognitive, rather than metaphysical, and can be defined in a purely syntactic way. (shrink)

Mandarin focus particles systematically have heterogeneous uses. By examining details of two focus particles jiu ‘only’ and dou ‘even’, this paper explores the hypothesis that varieties of alternatives give rise to systematic ‘ambiguities’. Specifically, by positing sum-based alternative sets and atom-based ones, it maintains unambiguous semantics of jiu as onlyweak and dou as even, while deriving their variability through interaction with alternatives. Independently motivated analyses of distributive/collective readings and contrastive topics, combined with varieties of alternatives, deliver the (...) full range of facts concerning jiu and dou. Theoretically, the paper illustrates an integration of Link, Landman’s theory of pluralites into Rooth’s alternative semantics. (shrink)

Scientific theories are hard to find, and once scientists have found a theory, H, they often believe that there are not many distinct alternatives to H. But is this belief justified? What should scientists believe about the number of alternatives to H, and how should they change these beliefs in the light of new evidence? These are some of the questions that we will address in this article. We also ask under which conditions failure to find an alternative (...) to H confirms the theory in question. This kind of reasoning is frequently used in science and therefore deserves a careful philosophical analysis. 1 Introduction2 The Conceptual Framework3 The No Alternatives Argument4 Discussion I: A Quantitative Analysis of the No Alternatives Argument5 Discussion II: The Number of Alternatives and the Problem of Underdetermination6 ConclusionsAppendix AAppendix B. (shrink)

The epistemology of risk examines how risks bear on epistemic properties. A common framework for examining the epistemology of risk holds that strength of evidential support is best modelled as numerical probability given the available evidence. In this essay I develop and motivate a rival ‘relevant alternatives’ framework for theorising about the epistemology of risk. I describe three loci for thinking about the epistemology of risk. The first locus concerns consequences of relying on a belief for action, where those (...) consequences are significant if the belief is false. The second locus concerns whether beliefs themselves—regardless of action—can be risky, costly, or harmful. The third locus concerns epistemic risks we confront as social epistemic agents. I aim to motivate the relevant alternatives framework as a fruitful approach to the epistemology of risk. I first articulate a ‘relevant alternatives’ model of the relationship between stakes, evidence, and action. I then employ the relevant alternatives framework to undermine the motivation for moral encroachment. Finally, I argue the relevant alternatives framework illuminates epistemic phenomena such as gaslighting, conspiracy theories, and crying wolf, and I draw on the framework to diagnose the undue skepticism endemic to rape accusations. (shrink)

There has been a probabilistic turn in contemporary cognitive science. Far and away, most of the work in this vein is Bayesian, at least in name. Coinciding with this development, philosophers have increasingly promoted Bayesianism as the best normative account of how humans ought to reason. In this paper, we make a push for exploring the probabilistic terrain outside of Bayesianism. Non-Bayesian, but still probabilistic, theories provide plausible competitors both to descriptive and normative Bayesian accounts. We argue for this general (...) idea via recent work on explanationist models of updating, which are fundamentally probabilistic but assign a substantial, non-Bayesian role to explanatory considerations. (shrink)

Xenotransplantation is increasingly touted as the solution to the organ crisis. Some bioethicists, however, have raised concerns about xenotransplantation's implications for health justice and animal welfare. We develop and sharpen these worries, and we explore how they might be mitigated. We compare xenotransplantation with several alternatives for addressing the organ crisis, including directing more money toward public health interventions, and argue that these alternatives are ethically preferable. In light of this, we argue that xenotransplantation is not a justifiable (...) method of addressing the organ crisis. Societal funds and attention ought instead be directed toward more efficient and ethically superior solutions. (shrink)

Automated vehicles promise much in the way of both economic boons and increased personal safety. For better or worse, the effects of automating personal vehicles will not be felt for some time. In contrast, the effects of automated work vehicles, like semi-trucks, will be felt much sooner—within the next decade. The costs and benefits of automation will not be distributed evenly; while most of us will be positively affected by the lower prices overall, those losing their livelihoods to the automated (...) semi-trucks and other similar work vehicles will be much worse off. This sets up a classic distributive justice problem: how do we balance the harms and benefits of automation? In this paper, the authors recommend work alternatives: policies that the government would enact in order to ensure that each person could live a decent life even if one could not work, especially for reasons like having one’s job automated. After arguing for this position, we propose some policy guidelines. (shrink)

According to the Relevant Alternatives (RA) Theory of knowledge, knowing that something is the case involves ruling out (only) the relevant alternatives. The conception of knowledge in epistemic logic also involves the elimination of possibilities, but without an explicit distinction, among the possibilities consistent with an agent’s information, between those relevant possibilities that an agent must rule out in order to know and those remote, far-fetched or otherwise irrelevant possibilities. In this article, I propose formalizations of two versions (...) of the RA theory. Doing so clarifies a famous debate in epistemology, pitting Fred Dretske against David Lewis, about whether the RA theorist should accept the principle that knowledge is closed under known implication, familiar as the K axiom in epistemic logic. Dretske’s case against closure under known implication leads to a study of other closure principles, while Lewis’s defense of closure by appeal to the claimed context sensitivity of knowledge attributions leads to a study of the dynamics of context. Having followed the first lead at length in other work, here I focus more on the second, especially on logical issues associated with developing a dynamic epistemic logic of context change over models for the RA theory. (shrink)

Conversational negation often behaves differently from negation as a logical operator: when rejecting a state of affairs, it does not present all members of the complement set as equally plausible alternatives, but it rather suggests some of them as more plausible than others (e.g., “This is not a dog, it is a wolf/*screwdriver”). Entities that are semantically similar to a negated entity tend to be judged as better alternatives (Kruszewski et al., 2016). In fact, Kruszewski et al. (2016) (...) show that the cosine similarity scores between the distributional semantics representations of a negated noun and its potential alternatives are highly correlated with the negated noun-alternatives human plausibility ratings. In a series of cloze tasks, we show that negation likewise restricts the production of plausible alternatives to similar entities. Furthermore, completions to negative sentences appear to be even more restricted than completions to an affirmative conjunctive context, hinting at a peculiarity of negation. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the semantic typology of dependent indefinites, by accounting for the distribution and interpretation of the Romanian indefinite vreun. It is shown that its occurrences are restricted to negative polarity and a subset of modal contexts. More specifically, the study of its behavior in intensional environments reveals that vreun is systematically incompatible with non-epistemic operators, a restriction we capture by proposing a novel empirical generalization (‘the epistemic constraint’). To account for the observed pattern, we adopt the unitary (...) approach to polarity in Chierchia (Logic in Grammar: polarity, free choice and intervention, 2013a; in: Fălăuş (ed.) Alternatives in semantics, 2013b) and derive the properties of vreun from its obligatory association with alternatives. Its distributional restrictions are argued to follow from the interplay between the types of alternatives it activates (scalar and subdomain alternatives), the way these alternatives are factored into meaning (via an independently motivated mechanism of exhaustification) and the lexical semantics of the operators in the context of occurrence. We propose that the epistemic constraint arises from the lexicalization of an inference (anti-total variation) that non-epistemic operators can never satisfy. (shrink)

Since this paper is for a conference on “Contextualism in Epistemology and Beyond,” I have opted to sketch a retrospective of contextualism in epistemology, including highlights of the “relevant alternatives” approach, given how relevantism and contextualism have developed in tandem. We focus on externalist forms of contextualism, bypassing internalist forms such as Cohen 1988 and Lewis 1996, but much of our discussion will be applicable to contextualism generally. Internalist contextualism is helpfully discussed in papers by Stewart Cohen, Richard Feldman, (...) and Jonathan Vogel, in Tomberlin 1999. (shrink)

In a recent article, Menon has argued that the no alternatives argument can only be significant if the priors for numbers of alternatives are tuned in an implausible way (gerrymandered, as he calls it). In this article, I demonstrate that priors needed for making a no alternatives argument significant are in line with what can be plausibly assumed in a successful research field.

There are powerful skeptical challenges to the idea that we are free. And yet, it seems simply impossible for us to shake the sense that we really are free. Some are convinced that the skeptical challenges are insurmountable and resign themselves to living under an illusion, while others argue that the challenges can be met. Even among those who believe that our sense of ourselves as free is at least roughly accurate, there are deep differences of opinion concerning what freedom (...) requires. On the one hand, there are “libertarians” about freedom, those who believe both that we are free and that freedom requires the falsity of determinism. On the other hand, there are “compatibilists”, those who believe that freedom is compatible with determinism. While there is an impressive variety of arguments and motivations available on all sides of the debate over freedom, our inescapable sense of ourselves as free has played a recurrent and key role in the debate, sometimes explicit and sometimes not. In this paper, I explore one way that our self-conception has been used by libertarians against compatibilists, and I argue that the reasoning employed is not convincing. The libertarian appeal to our self-conception hinges on locating in each of us an essential commitment to indeterminism, or, more cautiously, a commitment to something that, with the addition of a few plausible (if not self-evident) premises, entails indeterminism. The idea, then, is that we are “natural” indeterminists, seeing our actions as undetermined (or, again, more cautiously, as having qualities that, upon reflection, we can recognize entail the falsity of determinism). By itself, this is not an argument to the effect that we are correct in 1 believing that our actions are undetermined, or to the effect that freedom requires indeterminism. But if we are in fact natural indeterminists when it comes to our own actions, then that fact serves as important motivation for libertarianism, especially if our supposed natural indeterminism captures our unshakeable sense of freedom. Kant famously located our sense of freedom in our nature as rational agents, claiming that we must act under the “idea of freedom.”2 This has suggested to many that: (R) Rational deliberators, in virtue of their very nature as rational deliberators, must represent themselves as free.. (shrink)

This essay examines several varieties of libertarian accounts of free will. Some require free actions to be uncaused, some require agent causation, and some require non-deterministic event causation. Difficulties are raised for all of these varieties.

In the work of interpreting Parmenides we have witnessed in the ’sixties and ’seventies, in English language scholarship, that rarest of phenomena in the study of ancient philosophy, the emergence of a consensus. Four interpretive theses now seem quite widely shared: Parmenides deliberately suppresses the subject of esti, “is,” or einai, “to be,” in his statement of the two “routes” in B2, his intention being to allow the subject to become gradually specified as the argument unfolds. The negative route, ouk (...) esti, “is not,” or mē einai, “not to be,” is banned because sentences that adhere to it fail to refer to actual entities—the latter to be understood broadly, as will shortly be stated in thesis. The argument does not depend on a confusion between the “is” of predication and the “is” of existence. In the relevant contexts, esti and einai involve a “fused” or “veridical” use of the verb “to be”; in other words, esti or einai have the force of “is actual” or “obtains,” or “is the case,” envisaging a variable subject x that ranges over states-of-affairs. (shrink)

We introduce a ranking of multidimensional alternatives, including uncertain prospects as a particular case, when these objects can be given a matrix form. This ranking is separable in terms of rows and columns, and continuous and monotonic in the basic quantities. Owing to the theory of additive separability developed here, we derive very precise numerical representations over a large class of domains (i.e., typically notof the Cartesian product form). We apply these representationsto (1)streams of commodity baskets through time, (2)uncertain (...) social prospects, (3)uncertain individual prospects. Concerning(1), we propose a finite horizon variant of Koopmans’s (1960) axiomatization of infinite discounted utility sums. The main results concern(2). We push the classic comparison between the exanteand expostsocial welfare criteria one step further by avoiding any expected utility assumptions, and as a consequence obtain what appears to be the strongest existing form of Harsanyi’s (1955) Aggregation Theorem. Concerning(3), we derive a subjective probability for Anscombe and Aumann’s (1963) finite case by merely assuming that there are two epistemically independent sources of uncertainty. (shrink)

Many political philosophers hold the Feasible Alternatives Principle (FAP): justice demands that we implement some reform of international institutions P only if P is feasible and P improves upon the status quo from the standpoint of justice. The FAP implies that any argument for a moral requirement to implement P must incorporate claims whose content pertains to the causal processes that explain the current state of affairs. Yet, philosophers routinely neglect the need to attend to actual causal processes. This (...) undermines their arguments concerning moral requirements to reform international institutions. The upshot is that philosophers’ arguments must engage in causal analysis to a greater extent than is typical. -/- [Supplement: Handout available at http://db.tt/fyuVW3Xv]. (shrink)

We conducted a meta-analysis of 17 studies that tested for an association between grandparental survival and grandchild survival in patrilineal populations. Using two different methodologies, we found that the survival of the maternal grandmother and grandfather, but not the paternal grandmother and grandfather, was associated with decreased grandoffspring mortality. These results are consistent with the findings of psychological studies in developed countries (Coall and Hertwig Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33:1-59, 2010). When tested against the predictions of five hypotheses (confidence of (...) paternity; grandmothering, kin proximity, grandparental senescence, and local resource competition), our meta-analysis results are most in line with the local resource competition hypothesis. In patrilineal and predominantly patrilocal societies, the grandparents who are most likely to live with the grandchildren have a less beneficial association than those who do not. We consider the extent to which these results may be influenced by the methodological limitations of the source studies, including the use of retrospective designs and inadequate controls for confounding variables such as wealth. (shrink)

I argue that alternative-denoting expressions interact with their semantic context by taking scope. With an empirical focus on indefinites in English, I show how this approach improves on standard alternative-semantic architectures that use point-wise composition to subvert islands, as well as on in situ approaches to indefinites more generally. Unlike grammars based on point-wise composition, scope-based alternative management is thoroughly categorematic, doesn’t under-generate readings when multiple sources of alternatives occur on an island, and is compatible with standard treatments of (...) binding. Unlike all in situ treatments of indefinites, relying on a true scope mechanism prevents over-generation when an operator binds into an indefinite. My account relies only on function application, some mechanism for scope-taking, and two freely-applying type-shifters: the first is Karttunen’s :3–44, 1977. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00351935) proto-question operator, aka Partee’s Studies in discourse representation theory and the theory of generalized quantifiers, Foris, Dordrecht, 1986) IDENT, and the second can be factored out of extant approaches to the semantics of questions in the tradition of Karttunen. These type-shifters form a decomposition of LIFT, the familiar function mapping values into scope-takers. Exceptional scope of alternative-generating expressions arises via scopal pied-piping: indefinites take scope over their island, which then itself takes scope. (shrink)

Aspectual particles (the term is due to (König 1991)) appear to come in groups, related by negation, and therefore have attracted the attention of formal semanticists. The following examples list the particles of English, German and Hebrew; they show that the system is semantically transparent in various degrees.

In this paper, we study the distribution and interpretation of a non-temporal use of the future tense in Italian, called ‘presumptive’ or ‘epistemic’, which we label here PF. We first distinguish PF from its closest modal relatives, namely epistemic necessity/possibility/likelihood modals, as well as weak necessity modals. We then propose an account of PF in declaratives and interrogatives that treats it as a special comparative subjective likelihood modal, and test its empirical predictions. A theoretical lesson drawn from this detailed study (...) of the semantics of PF is that semantics needs sharpened theoretical tools to be able to capture the fine-grained distinctions languages make when it comes to signaling modulated epistemic commitment to a proposition. (shrink)

The main aim of this article is to use the resources of relevant-alternatives contextualism to provide an account of an unrecognized form of epistemic injustice that I call irrelevance-injustice. Irrelevance-injustice occurs either when a speaker raises an alternative that is not taken seriously when it should be, or when a speaker raises an alternative that is taken seriously when it should not be. Irrelevance-injustice influences what alternatives are perceived to be relevant and patterns of knowledge ascriptions in ways (...) that are unfair. Asymmetries in whose alternatives are taken seriously affect how many alternatives members of different groups must rule out prior to being ascribed knowledge. Because knowledge ascriptions have socially valuable functions, asymmetries in whose alternatives are taken seriously mean asymmetries in who gets to do socially valuable things with knowledge ascriptions. (shrink)

This paper aims to reexamine the axiom of the independence of irrelevant alternatives in the theory of social choice. A generalized notion of independence is introduced to clarify an informational requirement of binary independence which is usually imposed in the Arrovian framework. We characterize the implication of binary independence.

Traditionally, skeptics as well as their opponents have agreed that in order to know that p one must be able, by some preferred means, to rule out all the alternatives to p. Recently, however, some philosophers have attempted to avert skepticism not (merely) by weakening the preferred means but rather by articulating a subset of the alternatives to p — the so-called relevant alternatives — and insisting that knowledge that p requires only that we be able (by (...) the preferred means) to rule out members of the set. In this paper I argue that a precise formulation of this new approach reveals it inadequate as a solution to skepticism. (shrink)

Many assert that affluent countries have contributed in the past to poverty in developing countries through wars of aggression and conquest, colonialism and its legacies, the imposition of puppet leaders, and support for brutal dictators and venal elites. Thomas Pogge has recently argued that there is an additional and, arguably, even more consequential way in which the affluent continue to contribute to poverty in the developing world. He argues that when people cooperate in instituting and upholding institutional arrangements that foreseeably (...) result in more severe or more widespread poverty or human rights deficits than would foreseeably result under feasible alternative arrangements, they are contributors to these harms. Because of this, he argues, they have stringent, contribution-based (or negative) duties to address this poverty. We will call this the ‘Feasible Alternatives Thesis' (FAT), and our aim in this article is to examine it critically. (shrink)

The lottery paradox plays an important role in arguments for various norms of assertion. Why is it that, prior to information on the results of a draw, assertions such as, “My ticket lost,” seem inappropriate? This paper is composed of two projects. First, I articulate a number of problems arising from Timothy Williamson’s analysis of the lottery paradox. Second, I propose a relevant alternatives theory, which I call the Non-Destabilizing Alternatives Theory , that better explains the pathology of (...) asserting lottery propositions, while permitting assertions of what I call fallible propositions such as, “My car is in the driveway.” Le paradoxe de la loterie joue un rôle important dans l’argumentation visant à défendre diverses normes de l’assertion. Comment se fait-il que, avant que les résultats d’un tirage soient connus, des assertions comme «Mon billet a perdu» semblent inappropriées? Cet article se compose de deux projets. Premièrement, je relève certains problèmes issus de l’analyse du paradoxe de la loterie par Timothy Williamson. Deuxièmement, je propose une théorie des alternatives pertinentes que j’appelle la «théorie des alternatives non-déstabilisantes» , et qui explique d’une meilleure façon la pathologie de l’assertion de propositions concernant la loterie, tout en permettant des assertions faillibles, telles que «Ma voiture est dans l’entrée». (shrink)

In this paper we present the development from paradoxism to neutrosophy, which gave birth to neutrosophic set and logic and especially to NeutroAlgebraic Structures (or NeutroAlgebras) and AntiAlgebraic Structures (or AntiAlgebras) that are generalizations and alternatives of the classical algebraic structures.