Abstract
Thagard (1992) presented a framework for conceptual change in science based on conceptual systems. Thagard challenged belief revision theorists, claiming that traditional belief-revision systems are able to model only the two most conservative types of changes in his framework, but not the more radical ones. The main aim of this work is to take up Thagard’s challenge, presenting a belief-revision-like system able to mirror radical types of conceptual change. We will do that with a conceptual revision system, i.e. a belief-revision-like system that takes conceptual structures as units of revisions. We will show how our conceptual revision and contraction operations satisfy analogous of the AGM postulates at the conceptual level and are able to mimic Thagard’s radical types of conceptual change.
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We are indebted to Hannes Leitgeb, Diego Tajer, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper.
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Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This research was funded by the LMU Munich Institutional Strategy LMU excellent within the framework of the German Excellence Initiative.
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Sena Bozdag and Matteo De Benedetto contributed equally to this work.
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Bozdag, S., De Benedetto, M. Taking Up Thagard’s Challenge: A Formal Model of Conceptual Revision. J Philos Logic 51, 791–824 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-021-09650-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-021-09650-4