Recent Publications
PDFThe Coefficient of Rationality
by Mark Stuckel
Abstract: Current advancements in game theory, namely Rabin’s incorporation of fairness, have substantially improved game theory’s applicability to real world interactions by recognizing that humans do not act perfectly rationally. However, it will be demonstrated that these improvements are incomplete. By understanding that all human emotions affect how rationally we act (positively or negatively), we can better grasp real-world strategic interactions and better formulate the effects various emotions have on them. Once this is recognized, it will become possible to measure to what degree emotions detract or enhance a person’s rationality. After every emotion and cultural norm is accounted for, we will be left with a final numerical value called the Coefficient of Rationality (CoR). The CoR is defined as the degree to which a person’s actions conform to those of a perfectly rational being. The CoR should not be seen as a gauge for normative analysis, instead it should be seen as a predictive tool which incorporates emotions and cultural norms into GT in order to determine Nash Equilibriums for non-perfectly rational players.
Evaluating an Objection to Anti-realist Historical Induction Arguments
by Victor Bilan
Abstract: In a recent essay defending a realist view of scientific theories, Jarrett Leplin addresses the class of antirealist arguments making use of inductions over the history of science. These arguments are typified by the “pessimistic meta-induction,” which impugns the truth of current, successful theories based on the falsity of past successful theories. Leplin lists a number of objections to this line of argument, including one objection otherwise absent from the literature: historical induction arguments produce an epistemological paradox. Leplin argues that to refute our current, first-order evidence for the truth of theories using second-order evidence about past theories results in a contradiction; this clash between first- and second-order evidence is illustrated by the preface paradox. Noting that the typical solution to this paradox would strongly undermine scientific practice and hence be unacceptable in the context of philosophy of science, Leplin deems the paradox indefeasible and historical inductive antirealisms refuted. As this conclusion is suggested by Leplin only in passing, in this paper I will review his statements and restate his claims. I will review the preface paradox and the solution which Leplin rejects; I will then examine other solutions to the preface paradox, arguing that the preface paradox is not fatal to scientific practice, as Leplin suggests. On these grounds I will conclude that Leplin’s overall argument dissolves, and results in nothing more fruitful than a struggle between preexisting intuitions.