Bayesian humility

Philosophy of Science 83 (3):305-323 (2016)
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Abstract

Say that an agent is "epistemically humble" if she is less than certain that her opinions will converge to the truth, given an appropriate stream of evidence. Is such humility rationally permissible? According to the orgulity argument : the answer is "yes" but long-run convergence-to-the-truth theorems force Bayesians to answer "no." That argument has no force against Bayesians who reject countable additivity as a requirement of rationality. Such Bayesians are free to count even extreme humility as rationally permissible.

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Adam Elga
Princeton University

Citations of this work

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Obligation, Permission, and Bayesian Orgulity.Michael Nielsen & Rush T. Stewart - 2019 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 6.

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References found in this work

The Foundations of Statistics.Leonard J. Savage - 1954 - Synthese 11 (1):86-89.
The Logic of Reliable Inquiry.Kevin T. Kelly - 1996 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press USA. Edited by Kevin Kelly.
What Is This Thing Called Science?A. F. Chalmers - 1979 - Erkenntnis 14 (3):393-404.
The Logic of Reliable Inquiry.Kevin Kelly - 1998 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (2):351-354.

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