Lotteries, knowledge, and rational belief : essays on the lottery paradox /
We talk and think about our beliefs both in qualitative terms, as when we say that we believe A, or disbelieve A, or are agnostic about A, and in quantitative terms, as when we say that we believe A to a certain degree, or are more strongly convinced of A than of B. Traditionally, analytic philosoph...
| Other Authors: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cambridge ; New York :
Cambridge University Press,
2021.
|
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | We talk and think about our beliefs both in qualitative terms, as when we say that we believe A, or disbelieve A, or are agnostic about A, and in quantitative terms, as when we say that we believe A to a certain degree, or are more strongly convinced of A than of B. Traditionally, analytic philosophers, especially epistemologists, have focused on categorical (all-or-nothing) beliefs, to the almost complete neglect of graded beliefs. On the other hand, the Bayesian boom that started in the late 1980s has led many philosophers to concentrate fully on graded beliefs. These philosophers have sometimes rejected talk about categorical beliefs as being unscientific and as therefore having no place in a serious epistemology. By now, many regard both approaches as misguided for being entirely one-sided. Both outright beliefs and graded beliefs occupy important places in the phenomenology of belief and they also both occur in much theoretically significant work. Once this is acknowledged, however, the question arises of how the two sorts of beliefs are connected. If anyone were to claim to believe A categorically while at the same time claiming that she deems not-A more likely than A, we would reject this as utterly unreasonable. This is enough to suggest that there must be a close connection between categorical and graded belief. |
|---|---|
| Physical Description: | viii, 270 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-268) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781108421911 1108421911 9781108433051 1108433057 |