CFP: Beyond Basic Bayesianism

Beyond Basic Bayesianism

University of Helsinki

25-26 May, 2026

Invited Speakers: Orri Stefánsson (Stockholm) and Jason Konek (Bristol)

Organizer: Pablo Zendejas Medina (Helsinki)

Description

Much of formal epistemology and decision theory is organized around standard Bayesian models of belief, learning, and choice. These models have proven enormously fruitful, but they also often rely on assumptions (such as sharp probabilistic credences, complete preferences, logical omniscience, full awareness of relevant possibilities, full introspection, and unbounded rational capacities) that are often questioned on both philosophical and empirical grounds. A growing body of work explores ways of relaxing or revising these assumptions, developing alternative formal frameworks intended to better capture uncertainty, limited cognition, and the structure of real-world inquiry and decision-making.

This workshop brings together work on non-standard approaches to Bayesianism and its extensions, broadly construed. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) imprecise and non-classical probabilities; models of unawareness, ambiguity, and ignorance; bounded or resource-sensitive rationality; logical and higher-order uncertainty; probability discounting; incomplete, indeterminate, or context-sensitive preferences; non-expected utility models; and alternative representations of belief, preference, and choice. The workshop is intended as a forum for exploring a wide range of departures from orthodox Bayesian models, their motivations, and their implications for epistemology and decision theory. Submissions engaging with related frameworks, hybrid approaches, critical perspectives, or foundational questions are also welcome.

The workshop will take place at the University of Helsinki, on May 25-26. In addition to the invited speakers, we will select 4-5 speakers based on the submitted abstracts. The workshop is organized by the projects "Metaphysics, Ethics, and Epistemology of Risk", funded by the Research Council of Finland, and "The Structure and Nature of Risk", funded by the Kone Foundation.

Submissions

We invite abstracts on non-standard approaches in formal epistemology and decision theory, very broadly construed.

Abstracts should be no longer than 1000 words, be prepared for blind review, and be suitable for a 40-minute presentation. Please send your abstract to [email protected] in pdf or doc(x) format, and please include the following in the body of the e-mail:

- Author(s)

- Title of your talk

- Affiliation

The deadline for submissions is March 13, 2026. We will make decisions within a week of the deadline.

For any questions, please contact Pablo Zendejas Medina ([email protected]).