Theo Kuipers, born in Horst, the Netherlands, in 1947. Ph.D. from the University of Groningen. Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Groningen.
Guest of the Rector (1 September 2009 – 31 December 2009)
NOMIC TRUTH APPROXIMATION BY EVIDENCE-GUIDED BELIEF REVISION
The main challenge for my stay at NIAS was the attempt to substantially improve the bridge I had construed in 2007 between belief revision (AGM-style) and nomic truth approximation. My work in developing a better way in September led to a first manuscript, which was discussed at two conferences in September and October. During the discussions, it was suggested by Roberto Festa that a still better bridge could also be built between belief base revision and the ‘conjunctive approach’ to nomic truth approximation. This was later discussed with him, Gustavo Cevolani and Gerhard Schurz, and it eventually led to a joint manuscript. However, this bridge has two serious limitations. In December I discovered a very general and elegant way to overcome these and other shortcomings, leading to the research note entitled: “Dovetailing belief base revision with truth approximation”, which will certainly lead to a third paper.