Suspension, Equipollence, and Inquiry: A Reply to Wieland

Analytic Philosophy 56 (2):177-187 (2015)
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Abstract

It is generally thought that suspension of judgment about a proposition p is the doxastic attitude one is rationally compelled to adopt whenever the epistemic reasons for and against p are equipollent or equally credible, that is, whenever the total body of available evidence bearing on p epistemically justifies neither belief nor disbelief in p. However, in a recent contribution to this journal, Jan Wieland proposes “to broaden the conditions for suspension, and argue that it is rational to suspend belief on a certain issue even if one’s current evidence is not neutral (or even close to neutral)”. My aim in this paper is to point to a number of problems in Wieland’s position, some of which in connection with the account of Pyrrhonian skepticism found in the extant works of Sextus Empiricus.

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Citations of this work

Rational Suspension.Alexandra Zinke - 2021 - Theoria 87 (5):1050-1066.
Sextus and the Nature of Suspension.Robb Dunphy - 2023 - Philosophia 51 (4):2241-2259.

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References found in this work

Sextus Empiricus: Outlines of Scepticism.Julia Annas & Jonathan Barnes (eds.) - 1994 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
The Pyrrhonian Argument from Possible Disagreement.Diego E. Machuca - 2011 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 93 (2):148-161.
Pyrrhonism, Inquiry, and Rationality.Diego E. Machuca - 2013 - Elenchos: Rivista di Studi Sul Pensiero Antico 34 (1):201-228.

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