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Knightian Uncertainty Meets Ranking Theory

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Abstract

Knightian uncertainty is not a special kind of uncertainty; it’s just uncertainty. And it raises the issue how we may model uncertainty. The paper gives a brief overview over non-probabilistic measures of uncertainty, starting with Shackle’s functions of potential surprise and mentioning non-additive probabilities, Dempster–Shafer belief functions, etc. It arrives at an explanation of ranking theory as a further uncertainty model and emphasizes its additional epistemological virtues, which consist in a representation of belief, i.e., of taking something to be true (which is the basic notion of traditional epistemology and admits of degrees as well) and a full dynamic account of those degrees. The final section addresses the issue how these uncertainty measures and in particular ranking theory may be used within a decision theoretic context.

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  1. Fachbereich Philosophie, Universität Konstanz, 78457, Constance, Germany

    Wolfgang Spohn

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  1. Wolfgang Spohn
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Correspondence to Wolfgang Spohn.

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Spohn, W. Knightian Uncertainty Meets Ranking Theory. Homo Oecon 34, 293–311 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41412-017-0060-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41412-017-0060-5

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