Patrick Suppes: Scientific Philosopher: Volume 1. Probability and Probabilistic Causality (Synthese Library, 234)

Patrick Suppes is a philospher and scientist whose contributions range over probability and statistics, mathematical and experimental psychology, the foundations of physics, education theory, the philosophy of language, measurement theory, and the philosophy of science. He has also been a pioneer in the area of computer-assisted instruction. In each of these areas, Suppes has provided seminal ideas that in some cases led to shaping the direction of research in the field. The papers contained in this collection were commissioned with the mandate of advancing research in their respective fields rather than retrospectively surveying the contributions that Suppes himself has made. The authors form an interesting mixture of researchers in both formal philosophy of science and science itself and have all been inspired by his ideas. To maintain the spirit of constructive dialogue that characterizes Suppes's intellectual style, he has written individual responses to each article. In this volume - Volume 1, "Probability and Probabilistic Causality" - 19 philosophers and scientists focus their attention on probabilistic issues. In Part 1 the contributors explore axiomatic representations of probability theory, including qualitative and interval valued probabilities as well as traditional point valued probabilities. Belief structures and the dynamics of belief are also treated in detail. In Part 2, the rapidly growing field of probabilistic causation is assessed from both formal and empirical viewpoints. This volume should be of interest to probability theorists, statisticians, economists, philosophers of science, psychologists and those interested in the foundations of mathematical social science. In Volume 2, "Philosophy of Physics, Theory Structure, and Measurement Theory", 15 philosophers and scientists cover a wide variety of topics. Part 3 covers issues in quantum theory, geometry, classical mechanics, and computational physics. Part 4 explores Suppes's well-known set-theoretic account of scientific theories which has served him well throughout his career. Suppes's contributions to measurement theory have been widely used in mathematical psychology and elsewhere, and this material is the subject of Part 5. The book should be of interest to physicists, logicians, workers in mathematical social sicence, and philosophers of science. In Volume 3, "Philosophy of Language and Logic, Learning and Action Theory", 14 philosophers and scientists explore issues in the philosophy of language, logic and philosophical psychology. Suppes's suggestions that quantum theory requires a rethinking of classical logic form a particularly sharp account of that controversial thesis, and Part 6 deals with this issue together with topics in the philosophy of language and logic, including relational grammars and anaphora. Part 7 deals with issues in psychology, action theory, and robotics, while Part 8 concludes with a general survey of Suppes's views in the philosophy of science. A comprehensive chronological and topical bibliography of Suppes's writings is included in this volume. This volume should be of interest to philosophers of language, theoretical linguists, logicians, workers in mathematical social sciences and philosophers of science.

Volume 1: Introduction; P. Humphreys. Part I: Probability. Some Contributions to Formal Theory of Probability; K. Popper, D. Miller. Elementary Non-Archimedean Representations of Probability for Decision Theory and Games; P.J. Hammond. Random Sequences and Hypotheses Tests; R. Chuaqui. Changing Probability Judgements; I. Levi. Upper and Lower Probability; T.L. Fine. Some Connections between Epistemic Logic and the Theory of Nonadditive Probability; P. Mongin. On the Properties of Conditional Independence; W. Spohn. Qualitative Probabilities Revisited; Z. Domotor. The Monks' Vote: a Dialogue on Unidimensional Probabilistic Geometry; J.-C. Falmagne. Part II: Probabilistic Causality. Probabilistic Causation without Probability; P.W. Holland. Causal Tendency, Necessitivity and Sufficientivity: an Updated Review; I.J. Good. Practical Causal Generalizations; E.W. Adams. In Place of Regression; C. Glymour, P. Spirtes, R. Scheines. Testing Probabilistic Causality; D. Costantini. Psychologistic Aspects of Suppes' Definition of Causality; P. Legrenzi, M. Sonino. Name Index. Subject Index. Volume 2: Part III: Philosophy of Physics. Probability and Quantum Theory; B. Loewer. Schrödinger's Version of EPR, and its Problems; A. Fine. Classical Field Magnitudes; J. Vuillemin. Quantity, Representation and Geometry; B. Mundy. Numerical Experimentation; P. Humphreys. Part IV: Theory Structure. Theories and Theoretical Models; R. Wojcicki. Suppes Predicates and the Construction of Unsolvable Problems in the Axiomatized Sciences; N.C.A. da Costa, F.A. Doria. StructuralExplanation; J.D. Sneed. Part V: Measurement Theory. Fifteen Problems concerning the Representational Theory of Measurement; R.D. Luce, L. Narens. The Meaningfulness of Ordinal Comparisons for General Order Relational Systems; F.S. Roberts, Z.S. Rosenbaum. Theories as Nets: the Case of Combinatorial Measurement Theory; C.U. Moulines, J.A. Díez. Name Index. Subject Index. Volume 3: Part VI: Philosophy of Language and Logic. Patrick Suppes' Contribution to the Philosophy of Language; D. Føllesdal. Open Problems in Relational Grammar; M. Böttner. A Variable-Free Logic for Anaphora; W.C. Purdy. Is Snow White? J. Moravcsik. Can there be Reasons for Putting Limitations on Classical Logic? P. Weingartner. Quantum Logic as a Logic of Identification; J. Hintikka, I. Halonen. Logic and Probability in Quantum Mechanics; M.L. dalla Chiara, R. Giuntini. Part VII: Learning Theory, Action Theory, and Robotics. From Stimulus-Sampling to Array-Similarity Theory; W.K. Estes. Action as Seeing to it that Something is the Case; R. Tuomela, G. Sandu. Command Satisfaction and the Acquisition of Habits; C. Crangle. Part VIII: General Philosophy of Science. Some Observations on Patrick Suppes' Philosophy of Science; M.C. Galavotti. Epilogue. Postscript; P. Suppes. Chronological and Topical Bibliography of Patrick Suppes' Publications. Name Index. Subject Index.