Not enough there there: evidence, reasons, and language independence
Philosophical Perspectives 24 (1):477-528 (2010)
| Abstract | Begins by explaining then proving a generalized language dependence result similar to Goodman's "grue" problem. I then use this result to cast doubt on the existence of an objective evidential favoring relation (such as "the evidence confirms one hypothesis over another," "the evidence provides more reason to believe one hypothesis over the other," "the evidence justifies one hypothesis over the other," etc.). Once we understand what language dependence tells us about evidential favoring, our options are an implausibly strong conception of the a priori, a hard externalism on which agents are unable to determine what their evidence favors, or a subjectivist view that makes evidential favoring relative to features of the agent. | |||||||||
| Keywords | evidence language dependence grue evidential support confirmation | |||||||||
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