Olav Benjamin Vassend

Olav Benjamin Vassend is a Professor at the Inland School of Business and Social Sciences, University of Inland Norway, affiliated with the Department of Law, Philosophy and International studies. He joined INN in 2022 after serving as an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) for five years. He earned his PhD in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

His research focuses on:

• Formal Epistemology: Analyzing belief update strategies and rationality (e.g., Bayesian vs. abductivist approaches).
• Philosophy of Statistics: Addressing interpretive problems and norms for inductive inference.
• Decision Theory: Defending causal decision theory and exploring belief-desire interactions.

Publications (2015–2024) span formal epistemology, philosophy of science, and decision theory, with recurring themes in Bayesian reasoning, verisimilitude, and statistical paradoxes. Collaborations include work with Elliott Sober and Branden Fitelson.