Colin Elliot (Tilburg): “Pragmatism and objectivity in subjective Bayesianism” + Jurgis Karpus (KCL): “Team Reasoning in Intertemporal Choice: A Game-Theoretic Account of Self-Control”

Colin Elliot (Tilburg): “Pragmatism and objectivity in subjective Bayesianism”

Abstract: I discuss two of the more controversial aspects of Bruno de Finetti’s subjective Bayesianism: the role of operationalism and the status of de Finetti’s theory as a theory of rationality. I address these questions by exploring de Finetti’s Pragmatist inspiration: grounding his theory in its own philosophical context helps in correctly placing it also within contemporary debates. An upshot of these discussions is to draw attention to the pivotal role played by the concept of objectivity. I compare how the concept is used in subjective and objective Bayesianism, with the aim of complementing, and in some aspects contrasting, the views that depict de Finetti’s as an “anything goes” theory of rationality.

Jurgis Karpus (KCL): “Team Reasoning in Intertemporal Choice: A Game-Theoretic Account of Self-Control”

Abstract: Decision-theoretic analysis of intertemporal choice often associates a decision-maker’s lack of self-control with a preference reversal over the attainment of a larger-later and a smaller-sooner reward as the realization of those rewards draws nearer through time. In light of such preference reversals, game-theoretic models of intrapersonal decision making, coupled with the notion of best-response reasoning, are used to explain self-constraint, whereby, anticipating a preference reversal, decision-makers deliberately constrain their future choice sets in order to precommit themselves to the attainment of their preferred outcomes. While such strategies may seem familiar and quite widespread, this leaves the need to account for one’s ability to overcome temptations through the exercise of self-control. Maintaining the view of self-control as a distinct phenomenon from subtle versions of self-constraint I analyze the possibility of using the theory of team reasoning – a relatively new branch of game theory – to do this.