Im Rahmen des Forschungsseminars laden wir recht herzlich ein zum Vortrag:

Prof. Gerhard Schurz (Univ. Düsseldorf)

Impossibility Results for Rational Belief 

Abstract

There are two ways of representing rational belief: qualitatively as yes-or-no belief, and quantitative-ly as degrees of belief. Standard rationality conditions are: (i) consistency and logical closure, for qualitative belief, (ii) satisfaction of the probability axioms, for quantitative belief, and (iii) a relationship between qualitative and quantitative beliefs in accordance with the Lockean thesis. 

In this talk it is shown that these conditions are inconsistent with each of three further rationality conditions: fallibilism, open-mindedness, and invariance under independent conceptual expan-sions. Restrictions of the Lockean thesis that have been suggested in the literature cannot remove the inconsistency. In the outlook I discuss alternative ways of dealing with this problem, such as restricting conjunctive closure.