In defence of single-premise closure

Philosophical Studies 175 (8):1887-1900 (2018)
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Abstract

It’s often thought that the phenomenon of risk aggregation poses a problem for multi-premise closure but not for single-premise closure. But recently, Lasonen-Aarnio and Schechter have challenged this thought. Lasonen-Aarnio argues that, insofar as risk aggregation poses a problem for multi-premise closure, it poses a similar problem for single-premise closure. For she thinks that, there being such a thing as deductive risk, risk may aggregate over a single premise and the deduction itself. Schechter argues that single-premise closure succumbs to risk aggregation outright. For he thinks that there could be a long sequence of competent single-premise deductions such that, even though we are justified in believing the initial premise of the sequence, intutively, we are not justified in believing the final conclusion. This intuition, Schechter thinks, vitiates single-premise closure. In this paper, I defend single-premise closure against the arguments offered by Lasonen-Aarnio and Schechter.

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Weng Hong Tang
National University of Singapore

Citations of this work

Epistemic Closure, Necessary Truths, and Safety.Bin Zhao - 2022 - American Philosophical Quarterly 59 (4):391-401.
Risky belief.Martin Smith - 2023 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (3):597-611.

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References found in this work

Philosophical explanations.Robert Nozick - 1981 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Knowledge and lotteries.John Hawthorne - 2004 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Epistemic Luck.Duncan Pritchard - 2005 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
Discrimination and perceptual knowledge.Alvin I. Goldman - 1976 - Journal of Philosophy 73 (November):771-791.
Epistemic operators.Fred I. Dretske - 1970 - Journal of Philosophy 67 (24):1007-1023.

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