Reliability for degrees of belief

Philosophical Studies 172 (7):1929-1952 (2015)
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Abstract

We often evaluate belief-forming processes, agents, or entire belief states for reliability. This is normally done with the assumption that beliefs are all-or-nothing. How does such evaluation go when we’re considering beliefs that come in degrees? I consider a natural answer to this question that focuses on the degree of truth-possession had by a set of beliefs. I argue that this natural proposal is inadequate, but for an interesting reason. When we are dealing with all-or-nothing belief, high reliability leads to high levels of truth-possession. However, when it comes to degrees of belief, reliability and truth-possession part ways. The natural answer thus fails to be a good way to evaluate degrees of belief for reliability. I propose and develop an alternative method based on the notion of calibration, suggested by Frank Ramsey, which does not have this problem and consider why we should care about such assessments of reliability even if they are not tied directly to truth-possession

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Jeff Dunn
DePauw University

Citations of this work

Reliabilist Epistemology.Alvin Goldman & Bob Beddor - 2021 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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Impermissive Bayesianism.Christopher J. G. Meacham - 2013 - Erkenntnis 79 (Suppl 6):1185-1217.
Being Rational and Being Wrong.Kevin Dorst - 2023 - Philosophers' Imprint 23 (1).
Bayesian Epistemology.William Talbott - 2006 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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References found in this work

Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Epistemology and cognition.Alvin I. Goldman - 1986 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
The Logic of Decision.Richard C. Jeffrey - 1965 - New York, NY, USA: University of Chicago Press.
Knowledge in a social world.Alvin I. Goldman - 1999 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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