Doxastic States Research Articles

KNOWLEDGE AND EVIDENCE YOU SHOULD HAVE HAD

ABSTRACTEpistemologists focus primarily on cases of knowledge, belief, or credence where the evidence which one possesses, or on which one is relying, plays a fundamental role in the epistemic or normative status of one's doxastic state. Recent work in epistemology goes beyond the evidence one possesses to consider the relevance for such statuses of evidence which one does not possess, particularly when there is a sense in which one should have had some evidence. I focus here on Sanford Goldberg's approach (“Should Have Known,” Synthese, Forthcoming; and “On the Epistemic Significance of Evidence You Should Have Had,” Episteme, 2016, this issue); but the discussion will interest anyone working on epistemic defeat.

Informational dynamics of epistemic possibility modals

We investigate, in a logical setting, the expressivist proposal that assertion primarily functions to express and coordinate doxastic states and that ‘might’ fundamentally expresses lack of belief. We provide a formal model of an agent’s doxastic state and novel assertability conditions for an associated formal language. We thereby prove that an arbitrary assertion (including a complex of ‘might’ and ‘factual’ claims) always succeeds in expressing a well-defined (partial) doxastic state, and propose a fully general and intuitive update operation as a model of an agent coming to accept an arbitrary assertion. Leaving a comprehensive philosophical and linguistic defense for elsewhere, we explore technical aspects of our framework, providing, for instance, a complete logic of assertability and reduction axioms for the novel update operations related to our proposal. Finally, we contrast our work with related proposals in the logic literature.

Un evidencialismo antiindividualista

<p class='p1'>El objetivo de este artículo es proponer una alternativa antiindividualista para el evidencialismo. Dicha alternativa sostiene que los estados doxásticos se constituyen en evidencias a partir de la aceptación de la comunidad epistémica en la que se presentan. En primer lugar, se explica qué problemas surgen cuando se intenta vincular al fiabilismo con la convicción propia de la evidencia. En segundo lugar, se sugiere que tales problemas pueden solucionarse si el evidencialismo incluye la idea de que los estándares de evaluación de la comunidad epistémica determinan lo que puede ser una evidencia. Por último, se intenta tanto resaltar las virtudes como fijar el alcance del evidencialismo antiindividualista.</p>

The Population Ethics of Belief: In Search of an Epistemic Theory X

AbstractConsider Phoebe and Daphne. Phoebe has credences in 1 million propositions. Daphne, on the other hand, has credences in all of these propositions, but she's also got credences in 999 million other propositions. Phoebe's credences are all very accurate. Each of Daphne's credences, in contrast, are not very accurate at all; each is a little more accurate than it is inaccurate, but not by much. Whose doxastic state is better, Phoebe's or Daphne's? It is clear that this question is analogous to a question that has exercised ethicists over the past thirty years. How do we weigh a population consisting of some number of exceptionally happy and satisfied individuals against another population consisting of a much greater number of people whose lives are only just worth living? This is the question that occasions population ethics. In this paper, I go in search of the correct population ethics for credal states.

Thought as Internal Speech in Plato and Aristotle

Scholars often assert that Plato and Aristotle share the view that discursive thought (dianoia) is internal speech (TIS). However, there has been little work to clarify or substantiate this reading. In this paper I show Plato and Aristotle share some core commitments about the relationship of thought and speech, but cash out TIS in different ways. Plato and Aristotle both hold that discursive thinking is a process that moves from a set of doxastic states to a final doxastic state. The resulting judgments (doxai) can be true or false. Norms govern these final judgments and, in virtue of that, they govern the process that arrives at those judgments. The principal norm is consistency. However, the philosophers differ on the source of this norm. For Plato, persuasiveness and accuracy ground non-contradiction because internal speech is dialogical. For Aristotle, the Principle of Non-Contradiction grounds a Doxastic Thesis (DT) that no judgment can contradict itself. For Aristotle, metaphysics grounds non-contradiction because internal speech is monological.

Vrijheid door scepticisme

Abstract Freedom Through Skepticism In this paper, I consider a form of skepticism that has a permissive conclusion, according to which we are rationally permitted to suspend judgment in an area, or to have beliefs in that area. I argue that such a form of skepticism is resistant to some traditional strategies of refutation. It also carries a benefit, namely that it increases voluntary control over doxastic states by introducing options, and therefore greater freedom, into the realm of belief. I argue that intellectual preferences and dispositions provide decisive reasons that can settle our doxastic states in such cases.

Negative Doxastic Voluntarism and the concept of belief

Pragmatists have argued that doxastic or epistemic norms do not apply to beliefs, but to changes of beliefs; thus not to the holding or not-holding, but to the acquisition or removal of beliefs. Doxastic voluntarism generally claims that humans (sometimes or usually) acquire beliefs in a deliberate and controlled way. This paper introduces Negative Doxastic Voluntarism according to which there is a fundamental asymmetry in belief change: (i) humans tend to acquire beliefs more or less automatically and unreflectively, but (ii) they tend to withdraw beliefs in a controlled and deliberate way. I first present a variety of philosophical, empirical and logical arguments for Negative Doxastic Voluntarism. Then I raise two objections against it. First, the apparent asymmetry may result from a confusion of belief with other doxastic attitudes like assumption, supposition, hypothesis or opinion. Second, the apparent asymmetry seems to vanish if we focus on doxastic states rather than just beliefs. Some rejoinders and their consequences for the vague concept of belief are sketched.

Belief without credence

One of the deepest ideological divides in contemporary epistemology concerns the relative importance of belief versus credence. A prominent consideration in favor of credence-based epistemology is the ease with which it appears to account for rational action. In contrast, cases with risky payoff structures threaten to break the link between rational belief and rational action. This threat poses a challenge to traditional epistemology, which maintains the theoretical prominence of belief. The core problem, we suggest, is that belief may not be enough to register all aspects of a subject’s epistemic position with respect to any given proposition. We claim this problem can be solved by introducing other doxastic attitudes—genuine representations—that differ in strength from belief. The resulting alternative picture, a kind of doxastic states pluralism, retains the central features of traditional epistemology—most saliently, an emphasis on truth as a kind of objective accuracy—while adequately accounting for rational action.

Degrees of Certainty and Sensitive Knowledge


 
 
 In recent work, I have argued that what Locke calls ‘sensitive knowledge’ is not really knowledge, according to his own definition. Knowledge, as Locke defines it, is the perception of an agreement or disagreement between two ideas (E, IV.ii.15: 538). However, on Locke’s theory, sensitive knowledge, which is supposed to be knowledge via sensation of the existence of material objects outside the mind, is really better understood as a kind of assurance (i.e.,1 assent or belief based on the highest degree of probability). On this reconstruction, assurance, as Locke describes it, is a kind of doxastic state that is incompatible with reasonable doubt, but compatible with extreme hyperbolic skeptical doubt. But assurance, as Locke avers, falls short of knowledge, for it is a kind of non-factive presumption, rather than a kind of factive perception, of ideational agreement or disagreement. Locke, I claim, calls assurance of the existence of external material objects ‘sensitive knowledge’ because assurance and knowledge are indistinguishable in their practical effects: assurance, no less than knowledge, leads to action without hesitation, given the absence of reasonable doubt that there is an external world to act in. My conception of Lockean sensitive knowledge as a kind of assurance that falls short of genuine knowledge has recently been criticized in the pages of this journal by David Soles (2014). My aim here is to answer Soles’s criticisms.
 
 

Preface Writers are Consistent

AbstractThe 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 (consistent) doxastic state.

JAMESIAN EPISTEMOLOGY FORMALISED: AN EXPLICATION OF ‘THE WILL TO BELIEVE’

ABSTRACTFamously, William James held that there are two commandments that govern our epistemic life: Believe truth! Shun error! In this paper, I give a formal account of James' claim using the tools of epistemic utility theory. I begin by giving the account for categorical doxastic states – that is, full belief, full disbelief, and suspension of judgment. Then I will show how the account plays out for graded doxastic states – that is, credences. The latter part of the paper thus answers a question left open in Pettigrew (2014).

Measuring inaccuracy of uncertain doxastic states in many-valued logical systems

I will propose an alternative philosophical approach to the representation of uncertain doxastic states. I will argue that the current account of measuring inaccuracy of uncertain doxastic states is inadequate for Belnap's four-valued logic. Specifically, a situation can be found in which either an inaccuracy measure returns a completely wrong result or an agent's inaccuracy score is inadequate relative to the mistake in her doxastic attitude. This will motivate an alternative representation of uncertain doxastic states based on ordered pairs. I will describe a possible inaccuracy measure that is suitable for ordered pairs, and I will show that it has all the qualities that are required for an inaccuracy measure to be legitimate. Finally, I will introduce conditions of rationality for uncertain doxastic states represented by ordered pairs.

Delusions, Acceptances, and Cognitive Feelings

Psychopathological delusions have a number of features that are curiously difficult to explain. Delusions are resistant to counterevidence and impervious to counterargument. Delusions are theoretically, affectively, and behaviorally circumscribed: delusional individuals often do not act on their delusions and often do not update beliefs on the basis of their delusions. Delusional individuals are occasionally able to distinguish their delusions from other beliefs, sometimes speaking of their “delusional reality.” To explain these features, I offer a model according to which, contrary to appearances, delusions are not beliefs at all. Delusions are acceptances that are generated by pathologically powerful cognitive feelings. This model has implications for the way that we should think about non‐pathological doxastic states and emotions.

The Accuracy and Rationality of Imprecise Credences

AbstractIt has been claimed that, in response to certain kinds of evidence (“incomplete” or “non‐specific” evidence), agents ought to adopt imprecise credences: doxastic states that are represented by sets of credence functions rather than single ones. In this paper I argue that, given some plausible constraints on accuracy measures, accuracy‐centered epistemologists must reject the requirement to adopt imprecise credences. I then show that even the claim that imprecise credences are permitted is problematic for accuracy‐centered epistemology. It follows that if imprecise credal states are permitted or required in the cases that their defenders appeal to, then the requirements of rationality can outstrip what would be warranted by an interest in accuracy.

A dilemma for the imprecise bayesian

Many philosophers regard the imprecise credence framework as a more realistic model of probabilistic inferences with imperfect empirical information than the traditional precise credence framework. Hence, it is surprising that the literature lacks any discussion on how to update one’s imprecise credences when the given evidence itself is imprecise. To fill this gap, I consider two updating principles. Unfortunately, each of them faces a serious problem. The first updating principle, which I call “generalized conditionalization,” sometimes forces an agent to change her imprecise degrees of belief even though she does not have new evidence. The second updating principle, which I call “the generalized dynamic Keynesian model,” may result in a very precise credal state although the agent does not have sufficiently strong evidence to justify such an informative doxastic state. This means that it is much more difficult to come up with an acceptable updating principle for the imprecise credence framework than one might have thought it would be.

II-Pluralism About Belief States

With his Humean thesis on belief, Leitgeb (2015) seeks to say how beliefs and credences ought to interact with one another. To argue for this thesis, he enumerates the roles beliefs must play and the properties they must have if they are to play them, together with norms that beliefs and credences intuitively must satisfy. He then argues that beliefs can play these roles and satisfy these norms if, and only if, they are related to credences in the way set out in the Humean thesis. I begin by raising questions about the roles that Leitgeb takes beliefs to play and the properties he thinks they must have if they are to play them successfully. After that, I question the assumption that, if there are categorical doxastic states at all, then there is just one kind of them—to wit, beliefs—such that the states of that kind must play all of these roles and conform to all of these norms. Instead, I will suggest, if there are categorical doxastic states, there may be many different kinds of such state such that, for each kind, the states of that type play some of the roles Leitgeb takes belief to play and each of which satisfies some of the norms he lists. As I will argue, the usual reasons for positing categorical doxastic states alongside credences all tell equally in favour of accepting a plurality of kinds of them. This is the thesis I dub pluralism about belief states.

Against a descriptive vindication of doxastic voluntarism

In this paper, I examine whether doxastic voluntarism should be taken seriously within normative doxastic ethics. First, I show that currently the psychological evidence does not positively support doxastic voluntarism, even if I accept recent conclusions by Matthias Steup that the relevant evidence does not decisively undermine voluntarism either. Thus, it would seem that normative doxastic ethics could not justifiedly appeal directly to voluntarist assumptions. Second, I attempt to bring out how doxastic voluntarists may nevertheless hope to stir methodological worries within normative doxastic ethics, should they demonstrate that our typical practices of deontically evaluating doxastic states crucially rely on voluntarist assumptions. I also argue that some of the key arguments thought positively to support voluntarism as a psychological thesis may be put to better effect in the context of this kind of descriptive vindication. However, a closer examination reveals that nothing obviously suggests that voluntarism provides a better regimentation of our ascription practices as compared to rival theses concerning human powers of doxastic control.

The Legitimacy of Intellectual Praise and Blame

We frequently praise or blame people for what they believe or fail to believe as a result of their having investigated some matter thoroughly, or, in the case of blame, for having failed to investigate it, or for carelessly or insufficiently investigating. For instance, physicists who, after years of toil, uncover some unknown fact about our universe are praised for what they come to know. Sometimes, in contrast, we blame and may even despise our friends for being ignorant of certain ecological facts as a result of their refusing to countenance the evidence. The purpose of this paper is to explore what underlies the legitimacy of this practice—the praise or blame of people for what they know or fail to know as a result of investigation or otherwise—namely, the ability to exercise control over one’s doxastic states, and, in particular, as I will argue, one’s ability to exercise indirect generic control over one’s doxastic states

Pragmatic Interests and Imprecise Belief

Does the strength of a particular belief depend upon the significance we attach to it? Do we move from one context to another, remaining in the same doxastic state concerning p yet holding a stronger belief that p in one context than in the other? For that to be so, a doxastic state must have a certain sort of context-sensitive complexity. So the question is about the nature of belief states, as we understand them, or as we think a theory should model them. I explore the idea and how it relates to work on imprecise probabilities and second-order confidence.

Egocentric and Encyclopedic Doxastic States in Delusions of Misidentification

A recent debate in the literature on delusions centers on the question of whether delusions are beliefs or not. In this paper, an overlooked distinction between egocentric and encyclopedic doxastic states is introduced and brought to bear on this debate, in particular with regard to delusions of misidentification. The result is that a more accurate characterization of the delusional subject’s doxastic point of view is made available. The patient has a genuine egocentric belief (“This man is not my father”), but fails to have the commonly attributed encyclopedic belief (“My father has been replaced by an impostor”).