Dogmatism, Probability, and Logical Uncertainty

In Greg Restall & Gillian Kay Russell (eds.), New Waves in Philosophical Logic. Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 95--111 (2012)
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Abstract

Many epistemologists hold that an agent can come to justifiably believe that p is true by seeing that it appears that p is true, without having any antecedent reason to believe that visual impressions are generally reliable. Certain reliabilists think this, at least if the agent’s vision is generally reliable. And it is a central tenet of dogmatism (as described by Pryor (2000) and Pryor (2004)) that this is possible. Against these positions it has been argued (e.g. by Cohen (2005) and White (2006)) that this violates some principles from probabilistic learning theory. To see the problem, let’s note what the dogmatist thinks we can learn by paying attention to how things appear. (The reliabilist says the same things, but we’ll focus on the dogmatist.) Suppose an agent receives an appearance that p, and comes to believe that p. Letting Ap be the proposition that it appears to the agent that p, and → be the material implication, we can say that the agent learns that p, and hence is in a position to infer Ap → p, once they receive the evidence Ap.1 This is surprising, because we can prove the following.

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Brian Weatherson
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Citations of this work

Phenomenal Conservatism.Luca Moretti - 2015 - Analysis 75 (2):296-309.
Probability and scepticism.Brian Weatherson - 2014 - In Dylan Dodd Elia Zardini (ed.), Scepticism and Perceptual Justification. Oxford University Press. pp. 71-86.

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References found in this work

The skeptic and the dogmatist.James Pryor - 2000 - Noûs 34 (4):517–549.
Problems for Dogmatism.Roger White - 2006 - Philosophical Studies 131 (3):525-557.
What conditional probability could not be.Alan Hájek - 2003 - Synthese 137 (3):273--323.
The Bayesian and the Dogmatist.Brian Weatherson - 2007 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 107 (1pt2):169-185.
Why Basic Knowledge is Easy Knowledge.Stewart Cohen - 2007 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (2):417-430.

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