Common Knowledge by Harvey Lederman
Some people commonly know a proposition just in case they all know it, they all know that they al... more Some people commonly know a proposition just in case they all know it, they all know that they all know it, they all know that they all know that they all know it, and so on. They commonly believe a proposition just in case they all believe it, they all believe that they all believe it, they all believe that they all believe that they all believe it, and so on. A long tradition in economic theory, theoretical computer science, linguistics and philosophy has held that people have some approximation of common knowledge or common belief in a range of circumstances, for example when they are looking at an object together, or when they have just discussed something explicitly in conversation. In this paper, I argue that people do not have any approximation of common knowledge or common belief in these circumstances. The argument suggests that people never have any approximation of these states at all.
The coordinated attack scenario and the electronic mail game are two paradoxes of common knowledg... more The coordinated attack scenario and the electronic mail game are two paradoxes of common knowledge. In simple mathematical models of these scenarios, the agents represented by the models can coordinate only if they have common knowledge that they will. As a result, the models predict that the agents will not coordinate in situations where it would be rational to coordinate. I argue that we should resolve this conflict between the models and facts about what it would be rational to do by rejecting common knowledge assumptions implicit in the models. I focus on the assumption that the agents have common knowledge that they are rational, and provide models to show that denying this assumption suffices for a resolution of the paradoxes. I describe how my resolution of the paradoxes fits into a general story about the relationship between rationality in situations involving a single agent and rationality in situations involving many agents. C 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Robert Aumann presents his Agreement Theorem as the key conditional: "if two people have the same... more Robert Aumann presents his Agreement Theorem as the key conditional: "if two people have the same priors and their posteriors for an event A are common knowledge, then these posteri-
Interpersonal Well-Being Comparisons by Harvey Lederman
An important objection to preference-satisfaction theories of well-being is that these theories c... more An important objection to preference-satisfaction theories of well-being is that these theories cannot make sense of interpersonal comparisons of well-being. A tradition dating back to Harsanyi (1953) attempts to respond to this objection by appeal to so-called extended preferences: very roughly, preferences over situations whose description includes agents' preferences. This paper examines the prospects for defending the preference-satisfaction theory via this extended preferences program. We argue that making conceptual sense of extended preferences is less problematic than others have supposed, but that even so extended preferences do not provide a promising way for the preference satisfaction theo-rist to make interpersonal well-being comparisons. Our main objection takes the form of a trilemma: depending on how the theory based on extended preferences is developed, either (a) the result will be inconsistent with ordinary preference-satisfaction theory, or (b) it will fail to recover sufficiently rich interpersonal well-being comparisons, or (c) it will take on a number of other arguably odd and undesirable commitments.
An important objection to preference-satisfaction theories of well-being is that they cannot make... more An important objection to preference-satisfaction theories of well-being is that they cannot make sense of interpersonal comparisons. A tradition dating back to Harsanyi (J Political Econ 61(5):434, 1953) attempts to solve this problem by appeal to people's so-called extended preferences. This paper presents a new problem for the extended preferences program, related to Arrow's celebrated impossibility theorem. We consider three ways in which the extended-preference theorist might avoid this problem, and recommend that she pursue one: developing aggregation rules (for extended preferences) that violate Arrow's Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives condition.
History of Philosophy by Harvey Lederman
Propositional Attitudes by Harvey Lederman
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Philosophical Studies, 2019
We show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, Frege's distinction between sense and reference do... more We show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, Frege's distinction between sense and reference does not reconcile a classical logic of identity with apparent counterexamples to it involving proper names embedded under proposi-tional attitude verbs.
The impossibility theorem of Dekel, Lipman and Rustichini [1998]
has been thought to demonstrate... more The impossibility theorem of Dekel, Lipman and Rustichini [1998]
has been thought to demonstrate that standard state-space models cannot
be used for modeling unawareness. We fi rst show that Dekel, Lipman and
Rustichini do not establish this claim. We then distinguish three notions of
awareness, and argue that although one of them cannot be adequately modeled
using standard state spaces, it remains open whether standard state spaces can
be used to provide models of the other two notions. In fact, standard space
models of these forms of awareness are attractively simple.We illustrate this by
describing a class of standard state space models which represent key features
of awareness. We prove completeness and decidability for the logic of these
models, show how propositional quanti ers can be added to our logic, and
sketch how standard techniques from decision theory can be implemented in
our models in a way which allows for speculative trade.
DNA Computing by Harvey Lederman
Nano letters, Jan 1, 2006
Biochemistry, Jan 1, 2006
Papers by Harvey Lederman
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2016
An important objection to preference-satisfaction theories of well-being is that these theories c... more An important objection to preference-satisfaction theories of well-being is that these theories cannot make sense of interpersonal comparisons of well-being. A tradition dating back to Harsanyi (1953) attempts to respond to this objection by appeal to so-called extended preferences: very roughly, preferences over situations whose description includes agents' preferences. This paper examines the prospects for defending the preference-satisfaction theory via this extended preferences program. We argue that making conceptual sense of extended preferences is less problematic than others have supposed, but that even so extended preferences do not provide a promising way for the preference satisfaction theorist to make interpersonal well-being comparisons. Our main objection takes the form of a trilemma: depending on how the theory based on extended preferences is developed, either (a) the result will be inconsistent with ordinary preference-satisfaction theory, or (b) it will fail to recover sufficiently rich interpersonal well-being comparisons, or (c) it will take on a number of other arguably odd and undesirable commitments.
Philosophical Studies, 2016
An important objection to preference-satisfaction theories of well-being claims that they cannot ... more An important objection to preference-satisfaction theories of well-being claims that they cannot make sense of interpersonal comparisons of well-being. A tradition dating back to Harsanyi (1953) attempts to solve this problem by appeal to so-called extended preferences, that is, roughly, preferences over situations whose description includes one's ordinary (non-extended) preferences. This paper presents a new problem for the extended preferences program, related to Arrow's celebrated impossibility theorem. We consider three ways in which the extended-preference theorist might avoid this problem, and recommend that she pursue one: developing aggregation rules (for extended preferences) that violate Arrow's Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives condition.
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Common Knowledge by Harvey Lederman
Interpersonal Well-Being Comparisons by Harvey Lederman
History of Philosophy by Harvey Lederman
Propositional Attitudes by Harvey Lederman
has been thought to demonstrate that standard state-space models cannot
be used for modeling unawareness. We fi rst show that Dekel, Lipman and
Rustichini do not establish this claim. We then distinguish three notions of
awareness, and argue that although one of them cannot be adequately modeled
using standard state spaces, it remains open whether standard state spaces can
be used to provide models of the other two notions. In fact, standard space
models of these forms of awareness are attractively simple.We illustrate this by
describing a class of standard state space models which represent key features
of awareness. We prove completeness and decidability for the logic of these
models, show how propositional quanti ers can be added to our logic, and
sketch how standard techniques from decision theory can be implemented in
our models in a way which allows for speculative trade.
DNA Computing by Harvey Lederman
Papers by Harvey Lederman