6,465 research outputs found
Reasons for (prior) belief in bayesian epistemology
Bayesian epistemology tells us with great precision how we should move from prior to posterior beliefs in light of new evidence or information, but says little about where our prior beliefs come from. It o¤ers few resources to describe some prior beliefs as rational or well-justi�ed, and others as irrational or unreasonable. A di¤erent strand of epistemology takes the central epistemological question to be not how to change one�s beliefs in light of new evidence, but what reasons justify a given set of beliefs in the �rst place. We o¤er an account of rational belief formation that closes some of the gap between Bayesianism and its reason-based alternative, formalizing the idea that an agent can have reasons for his or her (prior) beliefs, in addition to evidence or information in the ordinary Bayesian sense. Our analysis of reasons for belief is part of a larger programme of research on the role of reasons in rational agency (Dietrich and List 2012a,b).Bayesian epistemology, doxastic reasons, prior and posterior beliefs, principle of insu¢ cient reason, belief formation, belief change
When Rational Reasoners Reason Differently
Different people reason differently, which means that sometimes they reach different conclusions from the same evidence. We maintain that this is not only natural, but rational. In this essay we explore the epistemology of that state of affairs. First we will canvass arguments for and against the claim that rational methods of reasoning must always reach the same conclusions from the same evidence. Then we will consider whether the acknowledgment that people have divergent rational reasoning methods should undermine oneâs confidence in oneâs own reasoning. Finally we will explore how agents who employ distinct yet equally rational methods of reasoning should respond to interactions with the products of each othersâ reasoning. We find that the epistemology of multiple reasoning methods has been misunderstood by a number of authors writing on epistemic permissiveness and peer disagreement
The Epistemology of Disagreement: Why Not Bayesianism?
Disagreement is a ubiquitous feature of human life, and philosophers have dutifully attended to it. One important question related to disagreement is epistemological: How does a rational person change her beliefs (if at all) in light of disagreement from others? The typical methodology for answering this question is to endorse a steadfast or conciliatory disagreement norm (and not both) on a priori grounds and selected intuitive cases. In this paper, I argue that this methodology is misguided. Instead, a thoroughgoingly Bayesian strategy is what's needed. Such a strategy provides conciliatory norms in appropriate cases and steadfast norms in appropriate cases. I argue, further, that the few extant efforts to address disagreement in the Bayesian spirit are laudable but uncompelling. A modelling, rather than a functional, approach gets us the right norms and is highly general, allowing the epistemologist to deal with (1) multiple epistemic interlocutors, (2) epistemic superiors and inferiors (i.e. not just epistemic peers), and (3) dependence between interlocutors
A Metacognitive Approach to Trust and a Case Study: Artificial Agency
Trust is defined as a belief of a human H (âthe trustorâ) about the ability of an agent A (the âtrusteeâ) to perform future action(s). We adopt here dispositionalism and internalism about trust: H trusts A iff A has some internal dispositions as competences. The dispositional competences of A are high-level metacognitive requirements, in the line of a naturalized virtue epistemology. (Sosa, Carter) We advance a Bayesian model of two (i) confidence in the decision and (ii) model uncertainty. To trust A, H demands A to be self-assertive about confidence and able to self-correct its own models. In the Bayesian approach trust can be applied not only to humans, but to artificial agents (e.g. Machine Learning algorithms). We explain the advantage the metacognitive trust when compared to mainstream approaches and how it relates to virtue epistemology. The metacognitive ethics of trust is swiftly discussed
Why Bayesian Rationality Is Empty, Perfect Rationality Doesn't Exist, Ecological Rationality Is Too Simple, and Critical Rationality Does the Job
Economists claim that principles of rationality are normative principles. Nevertheless, they go on to explain why it is in a person's own interest to be rational. If this were true, being rational itself would be a means to an end, and rationality could be interpreted in a non-normative or naturalistic way. The alternative is not attractive: if the only argument in favor of principles of rationality were their intrinsic appeal, a commitment to rationality would be irrational, making the notion of rationality self-defeating. A comprehensive conception of rationality should recommend itself: it should be rational to be rational. Moreover, since rational action requires rational beliefs concerning means-ends relations, a naturalistic conception of rationality has to cover rational belief formation including the belief that it is rational to be rational. The paper considers four conceptions of rationality and asks whether they can deliver the goods: Bayesianism, perfect rationality (just in case that it differs from Bayesianism), ecological rationality (as a version of bounded rationality), and critical rationality, the conception of rationality characterizing critical rationalism. The answer is summarized in the paper's title.rationality, self-interest, normative
Scientific Polarization
Contemporary societies are often "polarized", in the sense that sub-groups
within these societies hold stably opposing beliefs, even when there is a fact
of the matter. Extant models of polarization do not capture the idea that some
beliefs are true and others false. Here we present a model, based on the
network epistemology framework of Bala and Goyal ["Learning from neighbors",
\textit{Rev. Econ. Stud.} \textbf{65}(3), 784-811 (1998)], in which
polarization emerges even though agents gather evidence about their beliefs,
and true belief yields a pay-off advantage. The key mechanism that generates
polarization involves treating evidence generated by other agents as uncertain
when their beliefs are relatively different from one's own.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, author final versio
Models, Brains, and Scientific Realism
Prediction Error Minimization theory (PEM) is one of the most promising attempts to model perception in current science of mind, and it has recently been advocated by some prominent philosophers as Andy Clark and Jakob Hohwy. Briefly, PEM maintains that âthe brain is an organ that on aver-age and over time continually minimizes the error between the sensory input it predicts on the basis of its model of the world and the actual sensory inputâ (Hohwy 2014, p. 2). An interesting debate has arisen with regard to which is the more adequate epistemological interpretation of PEM. Indeed, Hohwy maintains that given that PEM supports an inferential view of perception and cognition, PEM has to be considered as conveying an internalist epistemological perspective. Contrary to this view, Clark maintains that it would be incorrect to interpret in such a way the indirectness of the link between the world and our inner model of it, and that PEM may well be combined with an externalist epistemological perspective. The aim of this paper is to assess those two opposite interpretations of PEM. Moreover, it will be suggested that Hohwyâs position may be considerably strengthened by adopting Carlo Cellucciâs view on knowledge (2013)
Entitlement, epistemic risk and scepticism
Crispin Wright maintains that the architecture of perceptual justification is such that we can acquire justification for our perceptual beliefs only if we have antecedent justification for ruling out any sceptical alternative. Wright contends that this principle doesnât elicit scepticism, for we are non-evidentially entitled to accept the negation of any sceptical alternative. Sebastiano Moruzzi has challenged Wrightâs contention by arguing that since our non-evidential entitlements donât remove the epistemic risk of our perceptual beliefs, they donât actually enable us to acquire justification for these beliefs. In this paper I show that Wrightâs responses to Moruzzi are ineffective and that Moruzziâs argument is validated by probabilistic reasoning. I also suggest that Wright cannot answer Moruzziâs challenge without weakening the support available for his conception of the architecture of perceptual justification
Delusion, Proper Function, and Justification
Among psychiatric conditions, delusions have received significant attention in the philosophical literature. This is partly due to the fact that many delusions are bizarre, and their contents interesting in and of themselves. But the disproportionate attention is also due to the notion that by studying what happens when perception, cognition, and belief go wrong, we can better understand what happens when these go right. In this paper, I attend to delusions for the second reasonâby evaluating the epistemology of delusions, we can better understand the epistemology of ordinary belief. More specifically, given recent advancements in our understanding of how delusions are formed, the epistemology of delusions motivates a proper functionalist account of the justification of belief. Proper functionalist accounts of the justification of belief hold that whether a belief is justified is partly determined by whether the system that produces the belief is functioning properly. Whatever pathology is responsible for delusion formation, restoring it to its proper function resolves the epistemic condition, an effect which motivates proper functionalism
Time-Slice Rationality and Self-Locating Belief
The epistemology of self-locating belief concerns itself with how rational agents ought to respond to certain kinds of indexical information. I argue that those who endorse the thesis of Time-Slice Rationality ought to endorse a particular view about the epistemology of self-locating belief, according to which âessentially indexicalâ information is never evidentially relevant to non-indexical matters. I close by offering some independent motivations for endorsing Time-Slice Rationality in the context of the epistemology of self-locating belief
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