Epistemic risk and relativism

Acta Analytica 23 (1):1-8 (2008)
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Abstract

It is generally assumed that there are (at least) two fundamental epistemic goals: believing truths, and avoiding the acceptance of falsehoods. As has been often noted, these goals are in conflict with one another. Moreover, the norms governing rational belief that we should derive from these two goals depend on how we weight them relative to one another. However, it is not obvious that there is one objectively correct weighting for everyone in all circumstances. Indeed, as I shall argue, it looks as though there are circumstances in which a range of possible weightings of the two goals are all equally epistemically rational.

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Wayne Riggs
University of Oklahoma

Citations of this work

Epistemic Teleology and the Separateness of Propositions.Selim Berker - 2013 - Philosophical Review 122 (3):337-393.
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Problems of Religious Luck: Assessing the Limits of Reasonable Religious Disagreement.Guy Axtell - 2019 - Lanham, MD, USA & London, UK: Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield.

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References found in this work

Balancing our epistemic goals.Wayne D. Riggs - 2003 - Noûs 37 (2):342–352.
The moral philosophy of William James.William James - 1969 - New York,: Crowell. Edited by John K. Roth.

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