Safety, the Preface Paradox and Possible Worlds Semantics

This paper contains an argument to the effect that possible worlds semantics renders semantic knowledge impossible, no matter what ontological interpretation is given to possible worlds. The essential contention made is that possible worlds semantic knowledge is unsafe and this is shown by a parallel with the preface paradox

Deductive Cogency, understanding, and acceptance

Deductive Cogency holds that the set of propositions towards which one has, or is prepared to have, a given type of propositional attitude should be consistent and closed under logical consequence. While there are many propositional attitudes that are not subject to this requirement, e.g. hoping and imagining, it is at least prima facie plausible that Deductive Cogency applies to the doxastic attitude involved in propositional knowledge, viz. belief. However, this thought is undermined by the well-known preface paradox, leading a number of philosophers to conclude that Deductive Cogency has at best a very limited role to play in our epistemic lives. I argue here that Deductive Cogency is still an important epistemic requirement, albeit not as a requirement on belief. Instead, building on a distinction between belief and acceptance introduced by Jonathan Cohen and recent developments in the epistemology of understanding, I propose that Deductive Cogency applies to the attitude of treating propositions as given in the context of attempting to understand a given phenomenon. I then argue that this simultaneously accounts for the plausibility of the considerations in favor of Deductive Cogency and avoids the problematic consequences of the preface paradox

Preface Writers are Consistent

The preface paradox does not show that it can be rational to have inconsistent beliefs, because preface writers do not have inconsistent beliefs. I argue, first, that a fully satisfactory solution to the preface paradox would have it that the preface writer's beliefs are consistent. The case here is on basic intuitive grounds, not the consequence of a theory of rationality or of belief. Second, I point out that there is an independently motivated theory of belief – sensitivism – which allows such a solution. I sketch a sensitivist account of the preface writer's doxastic stat

Knowledge is Closed Under Analytic Content

I am concerned with epistemic closure—the phenomenon in which some knowledge requires other knowledge. In particular, I defend a version of the closure principle in terms of analyticity; if an agent S knows that p is true, then S knows that all analytic parts of p are true as well. After targeting the relevant notion of analyticity, I argue that this principle accommodates intuitive cases and possesses the theoretical resources to avoid the preface paradox. I close by arguing that contextualists who maintain that knowledge attributions are closed within—but not between—linguistic contexts are tacitly committed to this principle’s trut

The lottery paradox, the preface paradox and rational belief

Traditionally rationality has been analysed in rather puristic terms; thus rational acceptance has been presented as unsullied by the demands of competing claims -- the only demand admitted generally being truth ('Do not have false beliefs'). Such a view leads us to the straightforward rejection of the thesis that a. rule of detachment forprobability statements is sufficient to explicate rational acceptance; since such a rule leads, apparently unavoidably, to the lottery paradox. (Lottery Paradox: Accept only those propositions whose probability is shown to be greater than N people enter a lottery, therefore the probability of an individual losing is this goes for each separately and so we may accept that each will lose, and so that all will lose. But we know that this is false.). The appeal of this rather contemptuous treatment diminishes in the face of the Preface Paradox. (Preface Paradox: A man writes the following, eminently reasonable, lines: Each of the propositions I assert in this book I believe to be true; but I am also sure that some will be proved false.). If we reason as before we have to accept the impossibility of rational belief. The two paradoxes are examined in detail and their consequences spelt out in Chapter One; giving us two alternatives:(1) To show, despite appearances, that neither set of beliefs is inconsistent, or (2) To show some difference between the two paradoxes that enables the traditional view of rationality to separate them. (1) is rejected, and (2) in the course of the same argument, in Chapters Two and Three, where we formulate a criterion for the consistency of sets of beliefs, defend it against apparent counter-examples, (versions of Moore's Paradox) and demonstrate that both sets of beliefs are inconsistent. This despite attempts by some, notably Kyburg, to show the opposite. If we are to avoid concluding rationality bankrupt, and yet maintain our original reaction to the rule of detachment must do two things: (a) reject the rule of detachment on grounds other than the Lottery paradox. (b) give an account of rationality that will accommodate the Preface paradox. In Chapter Four we justify (a) by considering the asymmetries that can be shown to exist between the syntax of the classical probability calculus and the syntax of confirmation in ordinary language, and by pointing to the difficulties encountered in giving an adequate semantics to such a calculus when cast in the role of s calculus of confirmation. Finally, in Chapter Five, we present a more complex account of rationality, capable of accommodating the Preface Paradox, one which takes seriously the diverse needs of human beings.<p

Sceptical Theism and the Paradox of Evil

Given plausible assumptions about the nature of evidence and undercutting defeat, many believe that the force of the evidential problem of evil depends on sceptical theism’s being false: if evil is..

Safety and the Preface Paradox

In the preface paradox the posited author is supposed to know both that every sentence in a book is true and that not every sentence in that book is true. But, this result is paradoxically contradictory. The paradoxicality exhibited in such cases arises chiefly out of the recognition that large-scale and difficult tasks like verifying the truth of large sets of sentences typically involve errors even given our best efforts to be epistemically diligent. This paper introduces an argument designed to resolve the preface paradox so understood by appeal to the safety condition on knowledg

The Relationship Between Belief and Credence

Sometimes epistemologists theorize about belief, a tripartite attitude on which one can believe, withhold belief, or disbelieve a proposition. In other cases, epistemologists theorize about credence, a fine-grained attitude that represents one’s subjective probability or confidence level toward a proposition. How do these two attitudes relate to each other? This article explores the relationship between belief and credence in two categories: descriptive and normative. It then explains the broader significance of the belief-credence connection and concludes with general lessons from the debate thus far

Do We Need Partial Intentions?

Richard Holton has argued that the traditional account of intentions—which only posits the existence of all-out intentions—is inadequate because it fails to accommodate dual-plan cases; ones in which it is rationally permissible for an agent to adopt two competing plans to bring about the same end. Since the consistency norms governing all-out intentions prohibit the adoption of competing intentions, we can only preserve the idea that the agent in a dual-plan case is not being irrational if we attribute to them a pair of partial intentions. I argue that, contrary to initial appearances, (i) Holton has yet to offer us an actual account of partial intentions, and (ii) that the traditional account of intentions already has the resources necessary to accommodate dual-plan cases