Kevin Kelly

About

Kevin T. Kelly is a Professor and Director of the Center for Formal Epistemology at Carnegie Mellon University, within the Department of Philosophy. His research focuses on the philosophical and mathematical foundations of scientific reasoning, particularly examining Ockham's razor and realism, the role of simplicity in theory choice, and the formal modeling of epistemic processes. Kelly's work explores how empirical simplicity reflects nature's capacity to guide scientists through successive theory revisions, employing point set topology as a mathematical framework. His ongoing projects include the Ockham project supported by the John Templeton Foundation. Kelly has contributed extensively to the philosophy of science, epistemology, and logic, addressing topics such as belief revision, the relationship between qualitative and quantitative beliefs, and the epistemological implications of uncomputability and the problem of induction. His research also investigates the learning power of belief revision, the formal semantics of epistemic logic, and the analogy between empirical and formal reasoning. Throughout his career, Kelly has developed theories on how scientific methods are truth-conducive, the nature of inquiry, and the logical structure of scientific justification, making significant contributions to the understanding of scientific rationality and the formal underpinnings of epistemology.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Telecommunications
• Geography
• Mathematics
• Statistics
• Philosophy
• Geodesy
• Physics
• Epistemology

Selected publications

• The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

  2016-01-01 · 187 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Becoming -- Cognifying -- Flowing -- Screening -- Accessing -- Sharing -- Filtering -- Remixing -- Interacting -- Tracking -- Questioning -- Beginning

• Why Probability Does Not Capture the Logic of Scientific Justification

  Figshare · 2018-06-29 · 34 citations

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  Department of Philosophy technical report

  OA PDFDOI

• The Learning Power of Belief Revision

  Research Showcase @ Carnegie Mellon University (Carnegie Mellon University) · 2018-01-01 · 22 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  <em>Belief revision theory</em> aims to describe how one should change one’s beliefs when they are contradicted by newly input information. The guiding principle of belief revision theory is to change one’s prior beliefs as little as possible in order to maintain consistency with the new information. Learning theory focuses, instead, on <em>learning power</em>: the ability to arrive at <em>true</em> beliefs in a wide range of possible environments. The goal of this paper is to bridge the two app…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Realism, rhetoric, and reliability

  Synthese · 2016-04-01 · 20 citations

  article1st author
  PublisherDOI

• Learning Theory and Epistemology

  2016-01-01 · 17 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Ockham's Razor: A New Justification

  NSF · $104k · 2008–2011

Frequent coauthors

• Clark Glymour

  26 shared

• Peter Spirtes

  Carnegie Mellon University

  18 shared

• Richard Scheines

  Carnegie Mellon University

  15 shared

• S. Sivaram Kaushik

  12 shared

• Bastiaan Driehuys

  Duke University

  12 shared

• H. Page McAdams

  10 shared

• Zackary I. Cleveland

  9 shared

• G. Metz

  University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center

  6 shared

Awards & honors

• John Templeton Foundation grant (supporting ongoing work)

Similar researchers at Carnegie Mellon University

• Alex John Londonh-39