The Possibility of Coherentism and the Stringency of Ceteris Paribus Conditions

Schupbach (2008) puts forward a "possibility result" for Bayesian Coherentism, showing that there exist plausible sets of ceteris paribus conditions that imply that coherence is truth-conducive. Against this result, Schubert (2012) has argued that Schupbach's considered ceteris paribus conditions are "jointly inconsistent". In this article, I first show that Schubert's attempted proof of this claim is fallacious, and hence that the possibility result still stands. Next, I consider a related criticism of Schupbach's result, inspired by Olsson's (2005) constraints on ceteris paribus conditions. This leads to a general discussion of the principle(s) that should guide one in choosing such conditions.

Flexibility in Ceteris Paribus Reasoning

Ceteris Paribus clauses in reasoning are used to allow for defeaters of norms, rules or laws, such as in von Wright’s example “I prefer my raincoat over my umbrella, everything else being equal”. In earlier work, a logical analysis is offered in which sets of formulas Γ, embedded in modal operators, provide necessary and sufficient conditions for things to be equal in ceteris paribus clauses. For most laws, the set of things allowed to vary is small, often finite, and so Γ is typically infinite. Yet the axiomatisation they provide is restricted to the special and atypical case in which Γ is finite. We address this problem by being more flexible about ceteris paribus conditions, in two ways. The first is to offer an alternative, slightly more general semantics, in which the set of formulas only give necessary but not (necessarily) sufficient conditions. This permits a simple axiomatisation.

What Is The Most Popular Movie Of All Time?: Teaching The Importance Of Ceteris Paribus

Students often have difficulty understanding the importance of distinguishing between real and nominal prices, or more generally, why ceteris paribus conditions are important. We exploit students interests in popularity to teach the nominal/real distinction, and the importance of adjusting for inflation, population, and income levels. We illustrate the importance of these topics by asking, What is the most popular movie of all time?