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  1. Deference Principles for Imprecise Credences.Giacomo Molinari - manuscript
    This essay gives an account of epistemic deference for agents with imprecise credences. I look at the two main imprecise deference principles in the literature, known as Identity Reflection and Pointwise Reflection (Moss, 2021). I show that Pointwise Reflection is strictly weaker than Identity Reflection, and argue that, if you are certain you will update by conditionalisation, you should defer to your future self according to Identity Reflection. Then I give a more general justification for Pointwise and Identity Reflection from (...)
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  • Superconditioning.Simon M. Huttegger - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (4):811-833.
    When can a shift from a prior to a posterior be represented by conditionalization? A well-known result, known as “superconditioning” and going back to work by Diaconis and Zabell, gives a sharp answer. This paper extends the result and connects it to the reflection principle and common priors. I show that a shift from a prior to a set of posteriors can be represented within a conditioning model if and only if the prior and the posteriors are connected via a (...)
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  • Non-Ideal Decision Theory.Sven Neth - 2023 - Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley
    My dissertation is about Bayesian rationality for non-ideal agents. I show how to derive subjective probabilities from preferences using much weaker rationality assumptions than other standard representation theorems. I argue that non-ideal agents might be uncertain about how they will update on new information and consider two consequences of this uncertainty: such agents should sometimes reject free information and make choices which, taken together, yield sure loss. The upshot is that Bayesian rationality for non-ideal agents makes very different normative demands (...)
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  • Unravelling the Tangled Web: Continuity, Internalism, Non-Uniqueness and Self-Locating Beliefs.Christopher J. G. Meacham - 2007 - In Tamar Szabó Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology: Volume 3. Oxford University Press UK. pp. 86.
    A number of cases involving self-locating beliefs have been discussed in the Bayesian literature. I suggest that many of these cases, such as the sleeping beauty case, are entangled with issues that are independent of self-locating beliefs per se. In light of this, I propose a division of labor: we should address each of these issues separately before we try to provide a comprehensive account of belief updating. By way of example, I sketch some ways of extending Bayesianism in order (...)
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  • Uniqueness and Metaepistemology.Daniel Greco & Brian Hedden - 2016 - Journal of Philosophy 113 (8):365-395.
    We defend Uniqueness, the claim that given a body of total evidence, there is a uniquely rational doxastic state that it is rational for one to be in. Epistemic rationality doesn't give you any leeway in forming your beliefs. To this end, we bring in two metaepistemological pictures about the roles played by rational evaluations. Rational evaluative terms serve to guide our practices of deference to the opinions of others, and also to help us formulate contingency plans about what to (...)
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  • Time-Slice Rationality.Brian Hedden - 2015 - Mind 124 (494):449-491.
    I advocate Time-Slice Rationality, the thesis that the relationship between two time-slices of the same person is not importantly different, for purposes of rational evaluation, from the relationship between time-slices of distinct persons. The locus of rationality, so to speak, is the time-slice rather than the temporally extended agent. This claim is motivated by consideration of puzzle cases for personal identity over time and by a very moderate form of internalism about rationality. Time-Slice Rationality conflicts with two proposed principles of (...)
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  • How Uncertain Do We Need to Be?Jon Williamson - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (6):1249-1271.
    Expert probability forecasts can be useful for decision making . But levels of uncertainty escalate: however the forecaster expresses the uncertainty that attaches to a forecast, there are good reasons for her to express a further level of uncertainty, in the shape of either imprecision or higher order uncertainty . Bayesian epistemology provides the means to halt this escalator, by tying expressions of uncertainty to the propositions expressible in an agent’s language . But Bayesian epistemology comes in three main varieties. (...)
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  • You've Come a Long Way, Bayesians.Jonathan Weisberg - 2015 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 44 (6):817-834.
    Forty years ago, Bayesian philosophers were just catching a new wave of technical innovation, ushering in an era of scoring rules, imprecise credences, and infinitesimal probabilities. Meanwhile, down the hall, Gettier’s 1963 paper [28] was shaping a literature with little obvious interest in the formal programs of Reichenbach, Hempel, and Carnap, or their successors like Jeffrey, Levi, Skyrms, van Fraassen, and Lewis. And how Bayesians might accommodate the discourses of full belief and knowledge was but a glimmer in the eye (...)
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  • Updating, Undermining, and Independence.Jonathan Weisberg - 2015 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (1):121-159.
    Sometimes appearances provide epistemic support that gets undercut later. In an earlier paper I argued that standard Bayesian update rules are at odds with this phenomenon because they are ‘rigid’. Here I generalize and bolster that argument. I first show that the update rules of Dempster–Shafer theory and ranking theory are rigid too, hence also at odds with the defeasibility of appearances. I then rebut three Bayesian attempts to solve the problem. I conclude that defeasible appearances pose a more difficult (...)
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  • Why You'll Regret Not Reading This Paper.Mark Schroeder - 2019 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 85:135-156.
    In this paper, I explore the role for anticipated regret in major life decision-making, focusing on how it is employed by realistic decision-makers in a variety of realistic cases. I argue that the most obvious answers to how regret might matter in decision do not make these cases intelligible, but that we can make them intelligible through consideration of the significance of narrative in our own self-understanding.
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  • The Externalist’s Guide to Fishing for Compliments.Bernhard Salow - 2018 - Mind 127 (507):691-728.
    Suppose you’d like to believe that p, whether or not it’s true. What can you do to help? A natural initial thought is that you could engage in Intentionally Biased Inquiry : you could look into whether p, but do so in a way that you expect to predominantly yield evidence in favour of p. This paper hopes to do two things. The first is to argue that this initial thought is mistaken: intentionally biased inquiry is impossible. The second is (...)
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  • Lewis on iterated knowledge.Bernhard Salow - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (6):1571-1590.
    The status of the knowledge iteration principles in the account provided by Lewis in “Elusive Knowledge” is disputed. By distinguishing carefully between what in the account describes the contribution of the attributor’s context and what describes the contribution of the subject’s situation, we can resolve this dispute in favour of Holliday’s claim that the iteration principles are rendered invalid. However, that is not the end of the story. For Lewis’s account still predicts that counterexamples to the negative iteration principle ) (...)
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  • Peer Disagreement: A Call for the Revision of Prior Probabilities.Sven Rosenkranz & Moritz Schulz - 2015 - Dialectica 69 (4):551-586.
    The current debate about peer disagreement has so far mainly focused on the question of whether peer disagreements provide genuine counterevidence to which we should respond by revising our credences. By contrast, comparatively little attention has been devoted to the question by which process, if any, such revision should be brought about. The standard assumption is that we update our credences by conditionalizing on the evidence that peer disagreements provide. In this paper, we argue that non-dogmatist views have good reasons (...)
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  • Reflecting on diachronic Dutch books.Michael Rescorla - 2023 - Noûs 57 (3):511-538.
    Conditionalization governs how to reallocate credence in light of new evidence. One prominent argument in favor of Conditionalization holds that an agent who violates it is vulnerable to a diachronic Dutch book: a series of acceptable bets offered at multiple times that inflict a sure loss. van Fraassen argues that an agent who violates the Principle of Reflection is likewise vulnerable to a diachronic Dutch book. He concludes that agents should conform to both Conditionalization and Reflection. Some authors reply that (...)
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  • What is conditionalization, and why should we do it?Richard Pettigrew - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (11):3427-3463.
    Conditionalization is one of the central norms of Bayesian epistemology. But there are a number of competing formulations, and a number of arguments that purport to establish it. In this paper, I explore which formulations of the norm are supported by which arguments. In their standard formulations, each of the arguments I consider here depends on the same assumption, which I call Deterministic Updating. I will investigate whether it is possible to amend these arguments so that they no longer depend (...)
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  • Bayesian updating when what you learn might be false.Richard Pettigrew - 2023 - Erkenntnis 88 (1):309-324.
    Rescorla (Erkenntnis, 2020) has recently pointed out that the standard arguments for Bayesian Conditionalization assume that whenever I become certain of something, it is true. Most people would reject this assumption. In response, Rescorla offers an improved Dutch Book argument for Bayesian Conditionalization that does not make this assumption. My purpose in this paper is two-fold. First, I want to illuminate Rescorla’s new argument by giving a very general Dutch Book argument that applies to many cases of updating beyond those (...)
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  • Rescuing Reflection.Ilho Park - 2012 - Philosophy of Science 79 (4):473-489.
    In this article, I suggest an argument that seems to show a conflict between the reflection principle and conditionalization. In particular, I show that when the reflection principle is formulated in a standard way, the principle conflicts with Jeffrey conditionalization. And it is argued that the source of the conflict resides in an ambiguity of the standard formulation. Furthermore, I attempt to rescue the principle using Bayes factors. That is, I suggest a new formulation of the principle so as to (...)
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  • Global Constraints on Imprecise Credences: Solving Reflection Violations, Belief Inertia, and Other Puzzles.Sarah Moss - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (3):620-638.
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 103, Issue 3, Page 620-638, November 2021.
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  • Sleeping beauty and the dynamics of de se beliefs.Christopher J. G. Meacham - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 138 (2):245-269.
    This paper examines three accounts of the sleeping beauty case: an account proposed by Adam Elga, an account proposed by David Lewis, and a third account defended in this paper. It provides two reasons for preferring the third account. First, this account does a good job of capturing the temporal continuity of our beliefs, while the accounts favored by Elga and Lewis do not. Second, Elga’s and Lewis’ treatments of the sleeping beauty case lead to highly counterintuitive consequences. The proposed (...)
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  • Deference, respect and intensionality.Anna Mahtani - 2016 - Philosophical Studies:1-21.
    This paper is about the standard Reflection Principle :235–256, 1984) and the Group Reflection Principle :478–502, 2007; Bovens and Rabinowicz in Episteme 8:281–300, 2011; Titelbaum in Quitting certainties: a Bayesian framework modeling degrees of belief, OUP, Oxford, 2012; Hedden in Mind 124:449–491, 2015). I argue that these principles are incomplete as they stand. The key point is that deference is an intensional relation, and so whether you are rationally required to defer to a person at a time can depend on (...)
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  • Basic‐Know And Super‐Know.Anna Mahtani - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 98 (2):375-391.
    Sometimes a proposition is ‘opaque’ to an agent: he doesn't know it, but he does know something about how coming to know it should affect his or her credence function. It is tempting to assume that a rational agent's credence function coheres in a certain way with his or her knowledge of these opaque propositions, and I call this the ‘Opaque Proposition Principle’. The principle is compelling but demonstrably false. I explain this incongruity by showing that the principle is ambiguous: (...)
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  • Steadfastness, deference, and permissive rationality.Jaemin Jung - 2017 - Synthese 194 (12):5093-5112.
    Recently, Levinstein has offered two interesting arguments concerning epistemic norms and epistemic peer disagreement. In his first argument, Levinstein claims that a tension between Permissivism and steadfast attitudes in the face of epistemic peer disagreement generally leads us to conciliatory attitudes; in his second argument, he argues that, given an ‘extremely weak version of a deference principle,’ Permissivism collapses into Uniqueness. However, in this paper, I show that when we clearly distinguish among several types of Permissivism, Permissivism\, and Permissivism\), we (...)
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  • Non-Measurability, Imprecise Credences, and Imprecise Chances.Yoaav Isaacs, Alan Hájek & John Hawthorne - 2021 - Mind 131 (523):892-916.
    – We offer a new motivation for imprecise probabilities. We argue that there are propositions to which precise probability cannot be assigned, but to which imprecise probability can be assigned. In such cases the alternative to imprecise probability is not precise probability, but no probability at all. And an imprecise probability is substantially better than no probability at all. Our argument is based on the mathematical phenomenon of non-measurable sets. Non-measurable propositions cannot receive precise probabilities, but there is a natural (...)
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  • In Defense of Reflection.Simon M. Huttegger - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (3):413-433.
    I discuss two ways of justifying reflection principles. First, I propose that an undogmatic reading of dynamic Dutch book arguments provides them with a sound foundation. Second, I show also that minimizing expected inaccuracy leads to a novel argument for reflection principles. The required inaccuracy measures comprise a natural class of functions that can be derived from a generalization of a condition known as propriety or immodesty. This shows that reflection principles are an essential feature not just of consistent degrees (...)
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  • Generalized Learning and Conditional Expectation.Simon M. Huttegger & Michael Nielsen - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (5):868-883.
    Reflection and martingale principles are central to models of rational learning. They can be justified in a variety of ways. In what follows we study martingale and reflection principles in the con...
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  • Reflecting on finite additivity.Leendert Huisman - 2015 - Synthese 192 (6):1785-1797.
    An infinite lottery experiment seems to indicate that Bayesian conditionalization may be inconsistent when the prior credence function is finitely additive because, in that experiment, it conflicts with the principle of reflection. I will show that any other form of updating credences would produce the same conflict, and, furthermore, that the conflict is not between conditionalization and reflection but, instead, between finite additivity and reflection. A correct treatment of the infinite lottery experiment requires a careful treatment of finite additivity. I (...)
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  • Inertia, Optimism and Beauty.Patrick Hawley - 2013 - Noûs 47 (1):85-103.
    The best arguments for the 1/3 answer to the Sleeping Beauty problem all require that when Beauty awakes on Monday she should be uncertain what day it is. I argue that this claim should be rejected, thereby clearing the way to accept the 1/2 solution.
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  • Updating for Externalists.J. Dmitri Gallow - 2021 - Noûs 55 (3):487-516.
    The externalist says that your evidence could fail to tell you what evidence you do or not do have. In that case, it could be rational for you to be uncertain about what your evidence is. This is a kind of uncertainty which orthodox Bayesian epistemology has difficulty modeling. For, if externalism is correct, then the orthodox Bayesian learning norms of conditionalization and reflection are inconsistent with each other. I recommend that an externalist Bayesian reject conditionalization. In its stead, I (...)
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  • Diachronic Dutch Books and Evidential Import.J. Dmitri Gallow - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 99 (1):49-80.
    A handful of well-known arguments (the 'diachronic Dutch book arguments') rely upon theorems establishing that, in certain circumstances, you are immune from sure monetary loss (you are not 'diachronically Dutch bookable') if and only if you adopt the strategy of conditionalizing (or Jeffrey conditionalizing) on whatever evidence you happen to receive. These theorems require non-trivial assumptions about which evidence you might acquire---in the case of conditionalization, the assumption is that, if you might learn that e, then it is not the (...)
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  • Rational Polarization.Kevin Dorst - 2023 - Philosophical Review 132 (3):355-458.
    Predictable polarization is everywhere: we can often predict how people’s opinions, including our own, will shift over time. Extant theories either neglect the fact that we can predict our own polarization, or explain it through irrational mechanisms. They needn’t. Empirical studies suggest that polarization is predictable when evidence is ambiguous, that is, when the rational response is not obvious. I show how Bayesians should model such ambiguity and then prove that—assuming rational updates are those which obey the value of evidence—ambiguity (...)
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  • Splitting the (In)Difference: Why Fine-Tuning Supports Design.Chris Dorst & Kevin Dorst - 2022 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 11 (1):14-23.
    Given the laws of our universe, the initial conditions and cosmological constants had to be "fine-tuned" to result in life. Is this evidence for design? We argue that we should be uncertain whether an ideal agent would take it to be so—but that given such uncertainty, we should react to fine-tuning by boosting our confidence in design. The degree to which we should do so depends on our credences in controversial metaphysical issues.
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  • Be modest: you're living on the edge.Kevin Dorst - 2022 - Analysis 81 (4):611-621.
    Many have claimed that whenever an investigation might provide evidence for a claim, it might also provide evidence against it. Similarly, many have claimed that your credence should never be on the edge of the range of credences that you think might be rational. Surprisingly, both of these principles imply that you cannot rationally be modest: you cannot be uncertain what the rational opinions are.
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  • Axioms for Type-Free Subjective Probability.Cezary Cieśliński, Leon Horsten & Hannes Leitgeb - forthcoming - Review of Symbolic Logic:1-16.
    We formulate and explore two basic axiomatic systems of type-free subjective probability. One of them explicates a notion of finitely additive probability. The other explicates a concept of infinitely additive probability. It is argued that the first of these systems is a suitable background theory for formally investigating controversial principles about type-free subjective probability.
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  • Reflection and Self‐Trust.Aaron Bronfman - 2015 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 4 (2):75-82.
    The Reflection principle expresses a kind of epistemic deference to one's future self. There is a plausible intuitive argument to the effect that, if one believes one will reason well and gain information over time, then one ought to satisfy Reflection. There are also associated formal arguments that show that, if one's beliefs about one's current and future selves meet certain criteria, then one is committed by the axioms of probability to satisfy Reflection. The formal arguments, however, rely on an (...)
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  • Deference and description.Aaron Bronfman - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (5):1333-1353.
    Consider someone whom you know to be an expert about some issue. She knows at least as much as you do and reasons impeccably. The issue is a straightforward case of statistical inference that raises no deep problems of epistemology. You happen to know the expert’s opinion on this issue. Should you defer to her by adopting her opinion as your own? An affirmative answer may appear mandatory. But this paper argues that a crucial factor in answering this question is (...)
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  • Distorted reflection.Rachael Briggs - 2009 - Philosophical Review 118 (1):59-85.
    Diachronic Dutch book arguments seem to support both conditionalization and Bas van Fraassen's Reflection principle. But the Reflection principle is vulnerable to numerous counterexamples. This essay addresses two questions: first, under what circumstances should an agent obey Reflection, and second, should the counterexamples to Reflection make us doubt the Dutch book for conditionalization? In response to the first question, this essay formulates a new "Qualified Reflection" principle, which states that an agent should obey Reflection only if he or she is (...)
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  • Self-location is no problem for conditionalization.Darren Bradley - 2011 - Synthese 182 (3):393-411.
    How do temporal and eternal beliefs interact? I argue that acquiring a temporal belief should have no effect on eternal beliefs for an important range of cases. Thus, I oppose the popular view that new norms of belief change must be introduced for cases where the only change is the passing of time. I defend this position from the purported counter-examples of the Prisoner and Sleeping Beauty. I distinguish two importantly different ways in which temporal beliefs can be acquired and (...)
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  • A Non-factualist defense of the Reflection principle.Stephanie Beardman - 2013 - Synthese 190 (15):2981-2999.
    Are there plausible synchronic constraints on how a subject thinks of herself extended over time? At first glance, Bas van Fraassen’s principle of Reflection seems to prescribe the sort of epistemic authority one’s future self should be taken by one to have over one’s current epistemic states. (The gist of this principle is that I should now believe what I’m convinced I will believe tomorrow.) There has been a general consensus that, as a principle concerning epistemic authority, Reflection does not (...)
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  • Expert Deference De Se.J. Dmitri Gallow - manuscript
    Principles of expert deference say that you should align your credences with those of an expert. This expert could be your doctor, the objective chances, or your future self, after you've learnt something new. These kinds of principles face difficulties in cases in which you are uncertain of the truth-conditions of the thoughts in which you invest credence, as well as cases in which the thoughts have different truth-conditions for you and the expert. For instance, you shouldn't defer to your (...)
     
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  • Bayesian Epistemology.William Talbott - 2006 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    ‘Bayesian epistemology’ became an epistemological movement in the 20th century, though its two main features can be traced back to the eponymous Reverend Thomas Bayes (c. 1701-61). Those two features are: (1) the introduction of a formal apparatus for inductive logic; (2) the introduction of a pragmatic self-defeat test (as illustrated by Dutch Book Arguments) for epistemic rationality as a way of extending the justification of the laws of deductive logic to include a justification for the laws of inductive logic. (...)
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  • Varieties of Bayesianism.Jonathan Weisberg - 2011
    Handbook of the History of Logic, vol. 10, eds. Dov Gabbay, Stephan Hartmann, and John Woods, forthcoming.
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  • Chance and the dynamics of de se beliefs.Christopher G. J. Meacham - 2007 - Dissertation, Rutgers
    How should our beliefs change over time? The standard answer to this question is the Bayesian one. But while the Bayesian account works well with respect to beliefs about the world, it breaks down when applied to self-locating or de se beliefs. In this work I explore ways to extend Bayesianism in order to accommodate de se beliefs. I begin by assessing, and ultimately rejecting, attempts to resolve these issues by appealing to Dutch books and chance-credence principles. I then propose (...)
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  • Precise Credences.Michael Titelbaum - 2019 - In Richard Pettigrew & Jonathan Weisberg (eds.), The Open Handbook of Formal Epistemology. PhilPaper Foundation. pp. 1-55.
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