Economic theory reduces the concept of rationality to internal consistency. The practice of economics, however, distinguishes between rational and irrational beliefs. There is therefore an interest in a theory of rational beliefs, and of the process by which beliefs are generated and justified....

People reason about real-estate prices both in terms of general rules and in terms of analogies to similar cases. We propose to empirically test which mode of reasoning fits the data better. To this end, we develop the statistical techniques required for the estimation of the case-based model....

The art of rhetoric may be defined as changing other people’s minds (opinions, beliefs) without providing them new information. One technique heavily used by rhetoric employs analogies. Using analogies, one may draw the listener’s attention to similarities between cases and to re-organize...

We propose a formal model of scientific modeling, geared to applications of decision theory and game theory. The model highlights the freedom that modelers have in conceptualizing social phenomena using general paradigms in these fields. It may shed some light on the distinctions between (i)...

We propose a formal model of scientific modeling, geared to applications of decision theory and game theory. The model highlights the freedom that modelers have in conceptualizing social phenomena using general paradigms in these fields. It may shed some light on the distinctions between (i)...

This note documents Aumann's reason for omitting the "empty shells" argument for the common prior assumption from the final version of "Correlated Equilibrium as an Expression of Bayesian Rationality." It then continues to discuss the argument and concludes that rational entities cannot learn...

"Case-Based Decision Theory" is a theory of decision making under uncertainty, suggesting that people tend to choose acts that performed well in similar cases they recall. The theory has been developed from a decision-/game-/economic-theoretical point of view, as a potential alternative to...

This paper suggests definitions for two closely related terms which are (or could be) used in the social sciences. First, "rationality" is defined as a behavior which will not be altered as a result of awareness to its analysis. Next, an "ascriptive theory" is defined to be a descriptive theory...

The paper provides an axiomatization of linear inequality measures as a representation of a binary relation on the subspace of income profiles having the same total income. Interpreting the binary relation as a preferences (of, say, a policymaker), we extend the axioms to the whole space of...