28,345 research outputs found
Gettiering Goldman
This paper examines the causal theory of knowledge put forth by Alvin Goldman in his 1967 paper “A Causal Theory of Knowing.” Goldman contends that a justified, true belief is knowledge if and only if it is causally connected to the fact that makes it true. This paper provides examples, however, of justified, true beliefs with such causal connections that are clearly not knowledge. The paper further shows that at-tempts to salvage the causal theory are unsatisfactory
Success-First Decision Theories
The standard formulation of Newcomb's problem compares evidential and causal conceptions of
expected utility, with those maximizing evidential expected utility tending to end up far richer. Thus, in a
world in which agents face Newcomb problems, the evidential decision theorist might ask the causal
decision theorist: "if you're so smart, why ain’cha rich?” Ultimately, however, the expected riches of
evidential decision theorists in Newcomb problems do not vindicate their theory, because their success
does not generalize. Consider a theory that allows the agents who employ it to end up rich in worlds
containing Newcomb problems and continues to outperform in other cases. This type of theory, which I
call a “success-first” decision theory, is motivated by the desire to draw a tighter connection between
rationality and success, rather than to support any particular account of expected utility. The primary aim
of this paper is to provide a comprehensive justification of success-first decision theories as accounts of
rational decision. I locate this justification in an experimental approach to decision theory supported by the aims of methodological naturalism
Who is a theorist?
This article carefully analyzes a recent paper by Weisberg in which it is claimed that when Mendeleev discovered
the periodic table he was not working as a modeler but instead as a theorist. I argue that Weisberg is mistaken in
several respects and that the periodic table should be regarded as a classification, not as a theory. In the second
part of the article an attempt is made to elevate the status of classifications by suggesting that they provide a form
of ‘side-ways explanation
How Far Can We Go Through Social System?
The paper elaborates an endeavor on applying the algorithmic information-theoretic computational complexity to meta-social-sciences. It is motivated by the effort on seeking the impact of the well-known incompleteness theorem to the scientific methodology approaching social phenomena. The paper uses the binary string as the model of social phenomena to gain understanding on some problems faced in the philosophy of social sciences or some traps in sociological theories. The paper ends on showing the great opportunity in recent social researches and some boundaries that limit them
A simple theory of promising
[FIRST PARAGRAPHS] Why do human beings make and accept promises? What human interest is served by
this procedure? Many hold that promising serves what I shall call an information
interest, an interest in information about what will happen. And they hold that human
beings ought to keep their promises because breaches of promise threaten this interest.
On this view human beings take promises seriously because we want correct
information about how other human beings are going to act. Some such view is taken
for granted by most philosophical accounts of promissory obligation. I agree that
human beings do want such information and that they often get it by accepting
promises. But I doubt that promising exists because it serves this information interest.
I shall argue that promising exists because, at least when it comes to each
other’s actions, human beings often have what might be called an authority interest: I
often want it to be the case that I, rather than you, have the authority to determine
what you do. If you promise me a lift home, this promise gives me the right to
require you to drive me home; in that sense, it puts me in authority over you. So much
is obvious. What I claim is that human beings often want such authority for its own
sake (not just to facilitate prediction or co-ordination). I often have an interest in
having the right to determine whether you’ll give me a lift, over and above any
interest I have in knowing what you (or we) will actually do. And I claim that
promising exists because it serves this authority interest
Lost in transmission: Testimonial justification and practical reason
Transmission views of testimony hold that a speaker's knowledge or justification can become the audience's knowledge or justification. We argue that transmission views are incompatible with the hypothesis that one's epistemic state, together with one's practical circumstances, determines what actions are rationally permissible for an agent. We argue that there are cases where, if the speaker's epistemic state were transmitted to the audience, then the audience would be warranted in acting in particular ways. Yet, the audience in these cases is not so warranted, as their strength of justification does not come close to the speaker's
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The physical mandate for belief-goal psychology
This article describes a heuristic argument for understanding certain physical systems in terms of properties that resemble the beliefs and goals of folk psychology. The argument rests on very simple assumptions. The core of the argument is that predictions about certain events can legitimately be based on assumptions about later events, resembling Aristotelian ‘final causation’; however, more nuanced causal entities (resembling fallible beliefs) must be introduced into these types of explanation in order for them to remain consistent with a causally local Universe
Moral Error Theory and the Belief Problem
Moral error theories claim that (i) moral utterances express moral beliefs, that (ii) moral beliefs ascribe moral properties, and that (iii) moral properties are not instantiated. Thus, according to these views, there seems to be conclusive evidence against the truth of our ordinary moral beliefs. Furthermore, many error theorists claim that, even if we accepted moral error theory, we could still in principle keep our first-order moral beliefs. This chapter argues that this last claim makes many popular versions of the moral error theory incompatible with the standard philosophical accounts of beliefs. Functionalism, normative theories of beliefs, representationalism, and interpretationalism all entail that being sensitive to thoughts about evidence is a constitutive feature of beliefs. Given that many moral error theorists deny that moral beliefs have this quality, their views are in a direct conflict with the most popular views about the nature of beliefs
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