Abstract
The notion of typicality appears in scientific theories, philosophical arguments, mathematical inquiry, and everyday reasoning. Typicality is invoked in statistical mechanics to explain the behavior of gases. It is also invoked in quantum mechanics to explain the appearance of quantum probabilities. Typicality plays an implicit role in non-rigorous mathematical inquiry, as when a mathematician forms a conjecture based on personal experience of what seems typical in a given situation. Less formally, the language of typicality is a staple of the common parlance: we often claim that certain things are, or are not, typical. But despite the prominence of typicality in science, philosophy, mathematics, and everyday discourse, no formal logics for typicality have been proposed. In this paper, we propose two formal systems for reasoning about typicality. One system is based on propositional logic: it can be understood as formalizing objective facts about what is and is not typical. The other system is based on the logic of intuitionistic type theory: it can be understood as formalizing subjective judgments about typicality.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Statistical Mechanics And Scientific Explanation |
| Subtitle of host publication | Determinism, Indeterminism And Laws Of Nature |
| Publisher | World Scientific Publishing Co. |
| Pages | 173-229 |
| Number of pages | 57 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9789811211720 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2020 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Engineering
- General Arts and Humanities
- General Physics and Astronomy
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