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Wright, Okasha and Chandler on transmission failure

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Abstract

Crispin Wright has given an explanation of how a first time warrant can fall short of transmitting across a known entailment. Formal epistemologists have struggled to turn Wright’s informal explanation into cogent Bayesian reasoning. In this paper, I analyse two Bayesian models of Wright’s account respectively proposed by Samir Okasha and Jake Chandler. I argue that both formalizations are unsatisfactory for different reasons, and I lay down a third Bayesian model that appears to me to capture the valid kernel of Wright’s explanation. After this, I consider a recent development in Wright’s account of transmission failure. Wright suggests that his condition sufficient for transmission failure of first time warrant also suffices for transmission failure of supplementary warrant. I propose an interpretation of Wright’s suggestion that shields it from objections. I then lay down a fourth Bayesian framework that provides a simplified model of the unified explanation of transmission failure envisaged by Wright.

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Correspondence to Luca Moretti.

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Moretti, L. Wright, Okasha and Chandler on transmission failure. Synthese 184, 217–234 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9771-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9771-x

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