In this volume of essays Sobel explores the Bayesian idea that rational actions maximize expected values.

Essays on the state of research investigating the relationship between conditionals and conditional probabilities.

Foundational issues in statistical mechanics and the more general question of how probability is to be understood in the context of physical theories are both areas that have been neglected by philosophers of physics. This book fills an important gap in the literature by providing the most systematic study to date of how to interpret probabilistic assertions in the context of statistical mechanics. The book will be of particular interest to philosophers of science, physicists and mathematicians interested in foundational issues, and also to historians of science.

Causation is asymmetrical in many different ways. Causes precede effects; explanations cite causes not effects. Agents use causes to manipulate their effects; they don't use effects to manipulate their causes. Effects of a common cause are correlated; causes of a common effect are not. This book by one of the preeminent philosophers of science writing today offers the most comprehensive account available of causal asymmetries. It is a major book for philosophers of science that will also prove insightful to economists and statisticians.

This book is a major new contribution to decision theory, focusing on the question of when it is rational to accept scientific theories. The author examines both Bayesian decision theory and confirmation theory, refining and elaborating the views of Ramsey and Savage. He argues that the most solid foundation for confirmation theory is to be found in decision theory, and he provides a decision-theoretic derivation of principles for how many probabilities should be revised over time. Professor Maher defines a notion of accepting a hypothesis, and then shows that it is not reducible to...

This book defends the view that any adequate account of rational decision making must take a decision maker's beliefs about causal relations into account. The early chapters of the book introduce the nonspecialist to the rudiments of expected utility theory. The major technical advance offered by the book is a "representation theorem" that shows that both causal decision theory and its main rival, Richard Jeffrey's logic of decision, are both instances of a more general conditional decision theory. In providing the most complete and robust defense of causal decision theory the book will be of...

The purpose of this book is to develop a framework for analyzing strategic rationality, a notion central to contemporary game theory, which is the formal study of the interaction of rational agents, and which has proved extremely fruitful in economics, political theory, and business management. The author argues that a logical paradox (known since antiquity as "the Liar paradox") lies at the root of a number of persistent puzzles in game theory, in particular those concerning rational agents who seek to establish some kind of reputation. Building on the work of Parsons, Burge, Gaifman, and...

In the social sciences norms are sometimes taken to play a key explanatory role. Yet norms differ from group to group, from society to society, and from species to species. How are norms formed and how do they change? This 'state-of-the-art' collection of essays presents some of the best contemporary research into the dynamic processes underlying the formation, maintenance, metamorphosis and dissolution of norms. The volume combines formal modelling with more traditional analysis, and considers biological and cultural evolution, individual learning, and rational deliberation. In filling a...