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- Title
An Accuracy Based Approach to Higher Order Evidence.
- Authors
Schoenfield, Miriam
- Abstract
The aim of this paper is to apply the accuracy based approach to epistemology to the case of higher order evidence: evidence that bears on the rationality of one's beliefs. I proceed in two stages. First, I show that the accuracy based framework that is standardly used to motivate rational requirements supports <italic>steadfastness</italic>—a position according to which higher order evidence should have <italic>no</italic> impact on one's doxastic attitudes towards first order propositions. The argument for this will require a generalization of an important result by Greaves and Wallace for the claim that conditionalization maximizes expected accuracy. The generalization I provide will, among other things, allow us to apply the result to cases of self‐locating evidence. In the second stage, I develop an alternative framework. Very roughly, what distinguishes the traditional approach from the alternative one is that, on the traditional picture, we're interested in evaluating the expected accuracy of <italic>conforming </italic>to an update procedure. On the alternative picture that I develop, instead of considering how good an update procedure is <italic>as a plan to conform to</italic>, we consider how good it is <italic>as a plan to make</italic>. I show how, given the use of strictly proper scoring rules, the alternative picture vindicates <italic>calibrationism</italic>: a view according to which higher order evidence should have a significant impact on our beliefs. I conclude with some thoughts about why higher order evidence poses a serious challenge for standard ways of thinking about rationality.
- Subjects
THEORY of knowledge; BELIEF &; doubt; PROPOSITION (Logic); CALIBRATION; PHILOSOPHY
- Publication
Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, 2018, Vol 96, Issue 3, p690
- ISSN
0031-8205
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/phpr.12329