The Covenant of Reason: Rationality and the Commitments of Thought
Cambridge University Press, 2/22/2010
EAN 9780521576017, ISBN10: 0521576016
Paperback, 276 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm
Language: English
Isaac Levi is one of the preeminent philosophers in the areas of pragmatic rationality and epistemology. This collection of essays constitutes an important presentation of his original and influential ideas about rational choice and belief. A wide range of topics is covered, including consequentialism and sequential choice, consensus, voluntarism of belief, and the tolerance of the opinions of others. The essays elaborate on the idea that principles of rationality are norms that regulate the coherence of our beliefs and values with our rational choices. The norms impose minimal constraints on deliberation and inquiry, but they also impose demands well beyond the capacities of deliberating agents. This major collection will be eagerly sought out by a wide range of philosophers in epistemology, logic, and philosophy of science, as well as economists, decision theorists, and statisticians.
1. Rationality and commitment
2. Rationality, prediction and autonomous choice
3. The logic of full belief
4. Consequentialism and sequential choice
5. Prediction, deliberation and correlated equilibrium
6. On indeterminate probabilities
7. Consensus as shared agreement and outcome of inquiry
8. Compromising Bayesianism
a plea for indeterminacy
9. Pareto unanimity and consensus
10. The paradoxes of Allais and Ellsberg
11. Conflict and inquiry
12. The ethics of controversy.