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On the Arbitrariness Objection to the Threshold View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2017

MATTHEW LEE
MATTHEW LEE*
Affiliation:
Berry College
*
*<mlee@berry.edu>
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Abstract

Proponents of the ‘Threshold View’ have held that to believe a proposition is to be sufficiently confident of the proposition’s truth, but that there is no sharp cutoff between degrees of confidence that constitute belief and degrees of confidence that do not. Brian Weatherson has objected that no plausible account of vagueness can support this view. In this paper, I reply to Weatherson’s objection. Along the way, I identify a way in which one might hope to maintain the Threshold View without a fuzzy threshold, and I reformulate the Threshold View to accommodate fuzzy thresholds without begging substantive questions about vagueness.

D’après la «théorie du seuil», croire une proposition, c’est être suffisamment sûr de la vérité de cette proposition, bien qu’il n’y ait pas de limite nette entre les degrés de certitude qui constituent une croyance et ceux qui n’en constituent pas une. Pour Brian Weatherson, cette thèse ne peut être appuyée sur aucune théorie plausible du vague. Dans cet article, je réponds à Weatherson et propose une reformulation de la théorie du seuil qui contient des seuils flous sans engager des présupposés controversables en théorie du vague. J’identifie également une façon de conserver la théorie sans avoir un seuil flou.

Keywords

beliefcredenceThreshold Viewcredal reductivismArbitrariness Objectionfuzzy thresholdvagueness
Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 143 - 158
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Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2017 

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