Isaac Levi (June 30, 1930 – December 25, 2018) was an American philosopher who served as the

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and Education reform, educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. The overridi ...

Professor of Philosophy at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. He is noted for his work in

epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...

and

decision theory Decision theory or the theory of rational choice is a branch of probability theory, probability, economics, and analytic philosophy that uses expected utility and probabilities, probability to model how individuals would behave Rationality, ratio ...

Education and career

Levi was one of several doctoral students of

Ernest Nagel Ernest Nagel (; ; November 16, 1901 – September 20, 1985) was an American philosopher of science. Suppes, Patrick (1999)Biographical memoir of Ernest Nagel In '' American National Biograph''y (Vol. 16, pp. 216-218). New York: Oxford University ...

who were influential in American post-war philosophy; others were Morton White,

Patrick Suppes Patrick Colonel Suppes (; March 17, 1922 – November 17, 2014) was an American philosopher who made significant contributions to philosophy of science, the theory of measurement, the foundations of quantum mechanics, decision theory, psycholog ...

, and Henry E. Kyburg, Jr. Levi taught at

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1967 by a merger between Western Reserve University and the Case Institute of Technology. Case ...

before joining the Columbia faculty in 1970. He was elected in 1986 to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

. Levi also served as doctoral advisor to prominent formal philosophers, including Horacio Arló-Costa and Teddy Seidenfeld, and acted as a mentor to Cheryl Misak during her year at Columbia. There was a debate between Kyburg and Levi on topics in what has come to be known as

formal epistemology Formal epistemology uses formal methods from decision theory, logic, probability theory and computability theory to model and reason about issues of epistemological interest. Work in this area spans several academic fields, including philosophy, c ...

Philosophical work

Levi first made a name for himself with his first book, ''Gambling with Truth''. In the text Levi offered a decision theoretic reconstruction of

with a close-eye towards the classical pragmatist philosophers like

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, he is considered to be one of the leading thinkers of the late 19th c ...

and

Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American scientist, mathematician, logician, and philosopher who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". According to philosopher Paul Weiss (philosopher), Paul ...

. Levi was known for his work in

belief revision Belief revision (also called belief change) is the process of changing beliefs to take into account a new piece of information. The formal logic, logical formalization of belief revision is researched in philosophy, in databases, and in artifici ...

and

imprecise probability Imprecise probability generalizes probability theory to allow for partial probability specifications, and is applicable when information is scarce, vague, or conflicting, in which case a unique probability distribution may be hard to identify. Ther ...

Major publications

Books

* Originally issued by Knopf (1967). * * * * * *

Chapters in books

References