Practical reasoning and degrees of outright belief
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
According to a suggestion by Williamson (Knowledge and its limits, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 99), outright belief comes in degrees: one has a high/low degree of belief iff one is willing to rely on the content of one’s belief in high/low-stakes practical reasoning. This paper develops an epistemic norm for degrees of outright belief so construed. Starting from the assumption that outright belief aims at knowledge, it is argued that degrees of belief aim at various levels of strong knowledge, that is, knowledge which satisfies particularly high epistemic standards. This account is contrasted with and shown to be superior to an alternative proposal according to which higher degrees of outright belief aim at higher-order knowledge. In an “Appendix”, it is indicated that the logic of degrees of outright belief is closely linked to ranking theory.
Details
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 8069-8090 |
Number of pages | 22 |
Journal | Synthese : an international journal for epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science |
Volume | 199 |
Issue number | 3-4 |
Publication status | Published - 29 Apr 2021 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
External IDs
Scopus | 85105509364 |
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ORCID | /0000-0002-9962-2074/work/142234588 |
Mendeley | 542d9100-6131-3ba3-b7f4-c0f9dfca4345 |