Change in View Principles of Reasoning Gilbert Harman A Bradford Book The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England Bel?7 1--1371 (1' ~/iAI/V © 1986 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this bookmay be reproduced in any form by any For Olivia electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording. or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Palatine by The MIT Press Computergraphics Department and printed and bound by Halliday Lithograph in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Harman, Gilbert. Change in view. "A Bradford book," Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. 1. Reasoning, 2. Logic. 3, Belief and doubt. L Title. BC177.H37 1986 160 85-18766 ISBN 0-262-08155·5 Contents vii What about Our Intuitions' 40 Keeping Track of Justifications 41 Clutter Avoidance Again 41 Chapter 5 Implicit Commitments 43 Contents More 0/1 Positive Under/nining 43 Reliability Commitment 44 Likelihood 45 Conservatism: Tentative versus Full Acceptance 46 Full Acceptance Ends Inquiry 47 Why Full Acceptance? 49 Acknowledgments ix Acceptance for Oneself and for Others 50 Chapter 1 Conclusion 52 A Plea for the Study of Reasoning 1 Chapter 6 Reasoning as Reasoned Change in View 1 Some Principles of Belief Revision 55 Reasoning Distinguished from Argument or Proof 3 The Relevance of interests 55 Induction and Deduction 4 The Interest in Not Being Inconsistent 56 Descriptive versus Normative Theories 7 The Get Back Principle 57 Human versus Artificial Reasoning 9 Measuring Minimal Changes 59 Summary 10 Long-Term versus Momentary Acceptance 61 Chapter 2 Simplicity 61 Logic and Reasoning 11 Summary 63 Implication, Inconsistency, and Practical Limits 11 Chapter 7 Explicit and Implicit Belief 13 Explanatory Coherence 65 Clutter Avoidance 15 Explanatortj "Arguments" 65 Unavoidable Inconsistency and the Liar Paradox 15 Two Concepts of Explanation. 67 Immediate Implication and Immediate Inconsistency 17 Inference to an Explanation 67 Summary and Conclusion 19 Satisficing and Maximizing 68 Chapter 3 Inference from an Explanalion 68 Belief and Degree of Belief 21 Nondeductive Explanation 69 Probabilistic Implication 21 Statistical Inference. and Statistical Explanation 70 All-or-Nothing Belief 22 The Lottery Paradox Again 70 Conditionaiizaticn 25 Knowledge 71 Nonstatistical Nondeterminisstic Explanation 72 Chapter 4 Implication an.d Explanation 72 Positive versus Negative Undermining 29 Summary 75 The Foundations Theory of BeliefRevision 30 The Coherence Theory of Belief Revision 32 Chapter 8 Revising Intentions: Some Preliminary Considerations 77 An Objection to the Coherence Theory: Karen's Aptitude Test 33 Explicit Intentions 78 Belief Perseverance 35 Positive, Negative, and Conditional Intentio/ls 80 The Habit Theory of Betief 37 Coherence 82 Positive versus Negative Undermining 38 viii Contents Positive Intentions Involve a Plan 84 Intentions Are Always in Part about Themselves 85 Self-Referential Attitudes 87 Intention and Intentional Action 88 Intention and Belief 90 Intending, Acting with an Intention, and Aiming 93 Committing the Will 94 Acknowledgments Summary 95 Chapter 9 Intended and Merely Foreseen Consequences 97 A Holistic Challenge 98 ------- The Issue Joined 99 Some material in chapter 4 appeared as part of "Positive versus Negative Holism and Double Effect 99 Undermining in Belief Revision," Nous 18 (1984), 39-49, and is reprinted Holistic Decision Making with Perfect Information 101 by the permission of the editor. An earlier verson of chapter 9 appeared Less Than Perfect Knowledge 102 as "Rational Action and the Extent of Intention," Social Theory aild Probability 104 Practice 9 (1983), 123-141, copyright Social Theory·alld Practice. Strategies 105 . I am indebted to Stewart Cohen, Daniel Dennett, Jon Doyle, Robert lntended and Merely Foreseen Consequences Again 107 Stalnaker, and Stephen Stich for comments on an earlier version of Intermediate Means 110 the manuscript. Rational Action 111 The writing of this book was made possible in part by a fellowship Practical and Theoretical Reasoning 113 form the National Endowment for the Humanities and a leave of absence from my teaching duties at Princeton University. Chapter 10 Review and Recapitulation 115 Appendix A More on Logic and Reasoning 117 Appendix B "Ought" and Reasons 129 Bibliography 139 Name Index 143 Subject Index 145 Change in View Chapter 1 A Plea for the Study of Reasoning Reasoning as Reasoned Change in View Intending to have Cheerios for breakfast, Mary goes to the cupboard. But she can't find any Cheerios. She decides that Elizabeth must have finished off the Cheerios the day before. So, she settles for Rice Krispies. In the process, Mary has modified her original intentions and beliefs. This is a very simple case of reasoned change in view, an elementary example of reasoning. It has the following two features. First, not only does Mary's reasoning lead her to add new beliefs to her view, so that she comes to believe that there are no more Cheerios and that Elizabeth ate the last Cheerios yesterday, it also leads her to give up things she had been believing, so that she stops. believing that there are Cheerios in the cupboard and that she will have some Cheerios for breakfast. Second, Mary's reasoning changes not only her beliefs but also her plans and intentions. Her reasoning leads her to abandonher intention to have Cheerios and to adopt the new plan of having Rice Krispies. In other words, her reasoning is not only "theoretical," affecting her beliefs, but also "practical," affecting her intentions and plans. In saying this, I assume that Mary's reasoning can be separated into distinct segments of practical and theoretical reasoning. I make this assumption even though any given segment of reasoning is likely to affect both her beliefs and her intentions, since changes in her beliefs can affect her plans, and changes'in her plans can affect her beliefs. When Mary stops believing there are any Cheerios left she also stops intending to have Cheerios for breakfast. When she forms her intention to have Rice Krispies instead, she also comes to believe that she will be having Rice Krispies for breakfast. But I assume there isa difference between immediate changes that are "part of" a given segment of-her reasoning and less immediate changes that are merely furthereffects of that segment of reasoning. True, it is not easy to say when a change is "part of" a given segment of reasoning and when it is merely the result of reasoning. For example, it is not immediately obvious whether changes in desires are ever part The Study of Reasoning 3 2 Chapter 1 Reasoning Distinguished from Argument or Proof of reasoning. (I discuss this question briefly in chapter 8.) Nevertheless, in what follows I assume there is a definite difference between immediate Reasoned change in view like Mary's does not seem to have been changes that are part of a given segment of reasoning and other less studied much except for some recent research into planning and "belief immediate changes that are merely further effects of it. And I also revision" in the field of artificial intelligence (e.g., Doyle 1980). One assume there is a distinction between theoretical and practical reasoning. possible cause of this otherwise general neglect is that reasoning in These assumptions suggest a further distinction between two sorts this sense may often be conflated with reasoning in another sense, of rules of reasoning, corresponding to two possible phases in reasoning. namely argument for, or proof of, a conclusion from premises via a On the one hand there is often a process of reflection in which one series of intermediate steps. thinks about one's beliefs, plans, desires, etc. and envisions various possibilities in more or less detail. On the other hand there is the actual Old View !{easordng New View revising of one's view, which mayor may not follow such a reflection. Maxims of reflection, as we might call them, say what to consider before ----- revising one's view, for example, that one should consider carefully ----- all the alternatives, with vivid awareness of relevant evidence of possible A Premises consequences of contemplated courses of action. On the other hand r ----- what we might call principles of revision concern the actual changes to g be made, the changes that are actually "part of" the reasoned revision, u ----- saying such things as that one should make minimal changes in one's m ----- view that increase its coherence as much as possible while promising Intermediate Steps e ----- suitable satisfaction of one's ends. ---.-- Not all principles of psychological change are principles of revision n in this sense, since not all changes are instances of reasoning. For example, it may be that changes in desires are not instances of reasoning, ----- Final Conclusion although these changes can occur as a result of reasoning. Even so, there may be general principles governing changes in desires. These Clearly, argument or proof is not at all the same sort of thing as would be principles of change that were not principles of revision in reasoning in the sense of reasoned change in view. There is a clear the relevant sense. difference in category. Rules of argument are principles of implication, I don't want to suggest that one ever makes conscious use of principles saying that propositions (or statements) of such and such a sort imply of revision in changing one's view; One can reason without knowing propositions (or statements) of such and such other sort. Consider the what the relevant principles of revision are and it may well be that following principle: reasoning is a relatively automatic process whose outcome is not under P and if P Q taken together imply Q, one's controL Modus Ponens: then In the rest of this book I explore the hypothe~,j,s that there is a dif­ Such a rule by itself says nothing at all in particular about belief revision.