Professor Alan Hajek
Areas of expertise
- Probability Theory 010404
- Decision Theory 220302
- Epistemology 220304
- Philosophy Of Language 220313
- Philosophy Of Religion 220315
- Logic 220308
Research interests
Hájek's research interests include the philosophical foundations of probability and decision theory, epistemology, the philosophy of science, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion. His paper "What Conditional Probability Could Not Be" won the 2004 American Philosophical Association Article Prize for "the best article published in the previous two years" by a "younger scholar". The Philosopher's Annual selected his "Waging War on Pascal's Wager" as one of the ten best articles in philosophy in 2003.
Biography
Alan Hájek studied statistics and mathematics at the University of Melbourne (B.Sc. (Hons). 1982), where he won the Dwight Prize in Statistics. He took an M.A. in philosophy at the University of Western Ontario (1986) and a Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton University (1993), winning the Porter Ogden Jacobus fellowship. He has taught at the University of Melbourne (1990) and at Caltech (1992-2004), where he received the Associated Students of California Institute of Technology Teaching Award (2004). He has also spent time as a visiting professor at MIT (1995), Auckland University (2000), and Singapore Management University (2005). Hájek joined the Philosophy Program at RSSS, ANU, as Professor of Philosophy in February 2005.
He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He was the keynote speaker at the 2007 Chinese Analytic Philosophy Association conference, Wuhan. He was the President of the Australasian Association of Philosophy, 2009-10.
Publications
- Hajek, A 2021, 'Contra Counterfactism', Synthese, vol. 199, no. 1, pp. 181-210.
- Hajek, A 2021, 'Counterfactual scepticism and antecedent-contextualism', Synthese, vol. 199, no. 1-2, pp. 637-659.
- Oppy, G, Hajek, A, Easwaran, K et al. 2021, 'Infinity', in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, Stanford, pp. 1-157.
- Hajek, A 2021, 'Risky Business', Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 189-205.
- Hajek, A 2020, 'Hysteresis Hypotheses', in Lee Walters & John Hawthorne (ed.), Conditionals, Paradox, and Probability Themes from the Philosophy of Dorothy Edgington, Oxford University Press, United Kingdom, pp. 227-239.
- Hajek, A 2019, 'Interpretations of Probability', in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, Stanford, pp. 1pp-85pp.
- Hajek, A 2019, 'Pascal's Wager [Zaklad Pascala]', Annals of Philosophy, vol. 67, no. 1, pp. 199-229.
- Hajek, A 2018, 'Creating heuristics for Philosophy Creativity', in Berys Gaut and Matthew Kieran (ed.), Creativity and Philosophy, Routledge, New York, pp. 293-312pp.
- Hajek, A 2018, 'The (In)validity of Pascal's Wager', in Paul Bartha and Lawrence Pasternack (ed.), Pascal's Wager, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom, pp. 123-148.
- Fitelson, B & Hajek, A 2017, 'Declarations of independence', Synthese, vol. 194, no. 10, pp. 3979-3995pp.
- Hajek, A & Lin, H 2017, 'A Tale of Two Epistemologies?', Res Philosophica, vol. 94, no. 2, pp. 207-232pp.
- Hajek, A 2017, 'ESSAY - The Philosopher's Toolkit'.
- Hajek, A 2017, 'Pascal's Wager substantive revision 2017', in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, Stanford.
- Hajek, A 2016, 'In Praise of Philosophy', in John Makeham (ed.), Learning from the Other - Australian and Chinese Perspectives on Philosophy, Australian Academy of the Humanities, Canberra, pp. 9-15.
- Hajek, A & Hitchcock, C 2016, 'Probability for Everyone - Even Philosophers', in Alan Hajek and Christopher Hitchcock (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Probability and Philosophy, Oxford University Press, United Kingdom, pp. 5-32pp.
- Hajek, A 2016, 'Minkish Dispositions', Synthese, vol. Online, pp. 17pp.
- Hajek, A & Hitchcock, C, eds, 2016, The Oxford Handbook of Probability and Philosophy, Oxford University Press, United Kingdom.
- Colyvan, M & Hajek, A 2016, 'Making Ado Without Expectations', Mind, vol. 125, no. 499, pp. 829-857.
- Hajek, A 2016, 'Philosophical Heuristics and Philosophical methodology', in H. Cappelen; TS Gendler and J. Hawthorne (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 348-373pp.
- Hajek, A 2016, 'Deliberation Welcomes Prediction', Episteme, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 507-528.
- Hajek, A 2015, 'Pascal's Ultimate Gamble', in G Rosen, A Byrne, J Choen & S Shiffrin (ed.), The Norton Introduction to Philosophy, W. W. Norton & Company, USA, pp. 65-76.
- Hajek, A 2015, 'On the Plurality of Lewis's Triviality Results', in Barry Loewer and Jonathan Schaffer (ed.), A Companion to David Lewis, Wiley Blackwell, UK, pp. 425-445.
- Hajek, A 2015, 'Counterfactual Reasoning, Quantitative: Philosophical Aspects', in James D Wright (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), Elsevier, Oxford, pp. 95-98pp.
- Hajek, A 2014, 'Unexpected Expectations', Mind: a quarterly review of philosophy, vol. 123, no. 490, pp. 533-567.
- Hajek, A 2014, 'A Chancy 'Magic Trick'', in Alastair Wilson (ed.), Chance and Temporal Asymmetry, Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom, pp. 100-111.
- Hajek, A 2014, 'Probabilities of Counterfactuals and Counterfactual Probabilities', Journal of Applied Logic, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 235-251.
- Hajek, A 2014, 'Philosophical Heuristics and Philosophical Creativity', in Paul, E. S. and Kaufman, S. B. (ed.), The Philosophy of Creativity, Oxford University Press, USA, pp. 288-317.
- Bartha, P, Barker, J & Hajek, A 2014, 'Satan, Saint Peter and Saint Petersburg', Synthese, vol. 191, no. 4, pp. 629-660.
- Hajek, A & Cusbert, J 2013, 'Bayesianism, Recent Uses of', in Byron Kaldis (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences, Sage Publications Inc, Los Angeles, USA, pp. 48-51.
- Hajek, A, Richard, P & Briggs, R, eds, 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Formal Epistemology.
- Hajek, A 2012, 'The Fall of "Adams' Thesis"?', Journal of Logic, Language and Information, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 145-161.
- Hajek, A 2012, 'Blaise and Bayes', in Jake Chandler and Victoria Harrison (ed.), Probability in the Philosophy of Religion, Oxford University Press, Oxford UK, pp. 167-186.
- Hajek, A 2012, 'Is strict coherence coherent?', Dialectica, vol. 66, no. 3, pp. 411-424.
- Hajek, A 2012, 'Pascal's Wager', Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. Online, pp. 1-18.
- Hajek, A & Smithson, M 2012, 'Rationality and Indeterminate Probabilities', Synthese, vol.187, 33-48.
- Hajek, A 2011, 'Interpretations of Probability', Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. Winter 2011, pp. 1-47.
- Hajek, A 2011, 'Conditional Probability', in Prasanta S. Bandyopadhyay and Malcolm R. Forster (ed.), Philosophy of Statistics, Volume 7 (Handbook of the Philosophy of Science), Elsevier, US, pp. 99-135.
- Hajek, A 2011, 'Fifteen arguments against hypothetical frequentism', in Antony Eagle (ed.), Philosophy of probability: contemporary readings, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London UK, pp. 410-433.
- Hajek, A 2011, '"Mises redux" - redux: Fifteen arguments against finite frequentism', in Antony Eagle (ed.), Philosophy of probability: contemporary readings, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London UK, pp. 395-410.
- Hajek, A 2011, 'Triviality Pursuit', Topoi: an international review of philosophy, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 3-15.
- Hajek, A 2010, 'Australasian Philosophy of Probability, and Probability in Australasian Philosophy', in Graham Oppy and N. N. Trakakis (ed.), Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand, Monash University ePress, Melbourne.
- Hajek, A & Hartmann, S 2010, 'Bayesian Epistemology', in Jonathan Dancy, Ernest Sosa, Matthias Steup (ed.), A Companion to Epistemology (2nd ed), Blackwell Publishing Ltd, USA, pp. 93-105.
- Hajek, A 2009, 'Two Interpretations of Two Stoic Conditionals', Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy, vol. 12, pp. 206 - 221.
- Hajek, A 2009, 'Fifteen Arguments against Hypothetical Frequentism', Erkenntnis, vol. 70, no. 2, pp. 211-235.
- Hajek, A & Hendricks, V, eds, 2009, Probability and Statistics: 5 Questions, Automatic Press/VIP, Unknown.
- Hajek, A 2009, 'Dutch Book Arguments', in Paul Anand, Prasanta K. Pattanaik, Clemens Puppe (ed.), The Handbook of Rational and Social Choice: an overview of new foundations and applications, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 173-195.
- Hajek, A 2009, 'Arguments for - or against - Probabilism?', in Franz Huber and Christoph Schmidt-Petri (ed.), Degrees of Belief, Springer, USA, pp. 229-252.
- Hajek, A 2008, 'Alan Hajek', in Vincent F. Hendricks & Duncan Pritchard (ed.), Epistemology: 5 Questions, Automatic Press, USA and UK, pp. 139-153.
- Hajek, A 2008, 'David Lewis', in Noretta Koertge (ed.), The New Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2nd ed), Gacl, USA.
- Hajek, A 2008, 'Are Miracles Chimerical?', in Jonathan Kvanvig (ed.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, Oxford University Press, United States of America, pp. 82-104.
- Hajek, A 2008, 'Arguments For - Or Against - Probabilism?', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 793-819.
- Hajek, A & Nover, H 2008, 'Complex Expectations', Mind: a quarterly review of philosophy, vol. 117, no. 467, pp. 643-664.
- Hajek, A 2008, 'Probability - A Philosophical Overview', in Bonnie Gold and Roger Simons (ed.), Proof and Other Dilemmas; mathematics and philosophy, Mathematical Association of America, United States of America, pp. 323-339.
- Hajek, A & James, J 2008, 'Confirmation', in Stathis Psillos and Martin Curd (ed.), The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Science, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, New York, USA, pp. 115-128pp.
- Hajek, A 2008, 'A Philosopher's Guide to Probability', in Gabriele Bammer and Michael Smithson (ed.), Uncertainty and Risk: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, Earthscan Publications Ltd, London, pp. 91-104.
- Chalmers, D & Hajek, A 2007, 'Ramsey + Moore = God', Analysis, vol. 67, no. 72, pp. 170-172.
- Hajek, A 2007, 'The reference class problem is your problem too', Synthese, vol. 156, no. 3, pp. 563-85.
- Eriksson, L & Hajek, A 2007, 'What are degrees of belief?', Studia Logica, vol. 86, no. 2, pp. 183-213.
- Hajek, A & Nover, H 2006, 'Perplexing expectations', Mind: a quarterly review of philosophy, vol. 115, no. 459, pp. 703-720.
- Hajek, A & Hoefer, C 2006, 'Chance', in D M Borchert (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2nd ed), MacMillan Reference USA, USA, pp. 125-130pp.
- Hajek, A 2006, 'Some Reminiscences on Richard Jeffrey, and Some Reflections on The Logic of Decision', Philosophy of Science, vol. 73, no. 5, pp. 947-958.
- Fitelson, B, Hajek, A & Hall, N 2005, 'Probability', in Sahotra Sarkar (ed.), The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, unknown, p. 000.
- Hajek, A 2005, 'Scotching Dutch Books?', Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 19, no. 1 - Epistemology, pp. 139-151.
- Hajek, A 2005, 'The Cable Guy Paradox', Analysis, vol. 65, no. 2, pp. 112-19.
- Hajek, A & Pettit, P 2004, 'Desire Beyond Belief (Lewisian Themes, reprint)', in Frank Jackson, Graham Priest (ed.), Lewisian Themes: The Philosophy of David K Lewis, Oxford University Press, unknown, pp. 78-93.
- Hajek, A & Pettit, P 2004, 'Desire Beyond Belief', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 82, no. 1, pp. 77-92.
- Hajek, A 2004, 'Waging War on Pascal's Wager', in Patrick Grim, Gary Mar, Ken Baynes, Peter Ludlow (ed.), The Philosopher's Annual, 2004, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., United States, pp. unknown.
- Nover, H & Hajek, A 2004, 'Vexing Expectations', Mind: a quarterly review of philosophy, vol. 113, no. 450, pp. 237-249.
- Hajek, A 2004, 'Probability', in M Cline Horowitz (ed.), New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York USA.
- Hajek, A 2003, 'Conditional Probability is the Very Guide of Life', in Henry Ely Kyburg, Mariam Thalos (ed.), Probability Is the Very Guide of Life: The Philosophical Uses of Chance, Open Court, United States, pp. 183--203.
- Hajek, A 2003, 'Waging War On Pascal's Wager', Philosophical Review, vol. 112, no. 1, pp. 27-56.
- Hajek, A 2003, 'What Conditional Probability Could Not Be', Synthese, vol. 137, pp. 273-323.
- Hajek, A & Hall, N 2002, 'Induction and Probability', in Peter Machamer, Michael Silberstein (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Science, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, United Kingdom, pp. 149-172.
- Hajek, A 2001, 'Counterfactual Reasoning - Quantitative (Philosophical Aspects)', in Neil J Smelser, Paul B Baltes (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2001), Elsevier, Oxford, UK.
- Hajek, A 1997, '"Mises Redux" -- Redux: Fifteen Arguments against Finite Frequentism (1996)', Erkenntnis, vol. 45, no. 2/3, pp. 209-227.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- Ethics and Risk (Secondary Investigator)
- Decision Theory in Crisis (Primary Investigator)