Dr. Philose Koshy
Visiting Faculty, Humanities and Social Sciences

Research Area:  Philosophy of Science, Epistemology and Philosophy of Language

Research Focus

Broadly my research interest is in the methodological principles that underlie various knowledge systems, especially of scientific knowledge systems. My specific research interest is in confirmation of hypothesis in science, especially in Bayesian Confirmation Theory- a probabilistic attempt to capture inductive reasoning in general and scientific reasoning in particular. I am currently working to develop a new Bayesian theory of confirmation called worthy confirmation. The new question of confirmation is whether, given evidence, a hypothesis is worthy to be pursued further and I argue that this question cannot be reduced to other existing questions of confirmation and various paradoxes of confirmation arises from conflation of different categories of confirmation. The theory of worthy confirmation formally characterizes the role of competing hypotheses and incorporates the best competing hypothesis into qualitative definition of worthy confirmation.

In Epistemology, my current focus is in developing a formal definition of background information which has been left undefined in various analyses. I argue that a precise definition of background information dissolves the Gettier problem; one of the central challenges in Epistemology. Externalism and internalism debates and the analyses of explication as methodological principles are the other research topics in Epistemology, I work on. Recently I have been exploring and widening my epistemological- methodological inquiries into social-political and legal realms. The notion of evidence / confirmation is as important to Legal Epistemology as it is to Philosophy of Science. As in Philosophy of Science, my interest in Political Philosophy and Legal Epistemology pertains to exploring the nature of reasoning, arguments and the nature of validating forms.

In Philosophy of Language, my research interest is in Kripke’s theory of rigid designators and I am exploring the possibility of a more robust solution to the three semantic puzzles (problem of meaningful negative existential statement, problem of informativeness, problem of substitution in belief contexts) on the basis of the theory of rigid designators.

Selected Publications

• Defining Background Information: A Solution to the Problem of Old Evidence", Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Springer 35(2), 2018
• A Solution to the Raven Paradox: A Redefinition of the Notion of Instance”, Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Springer 34 (1), 2017