Evidential nihilism

Analysis 80 (4):674-683 (2020)
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Abstract

A considerable literature has grown up around the claim of Uniqueness, according to which evidence rationally determines belief. It is opposed to Permissivism, according to which evidence underdetermines belief. This paper highlights an overlooked third possibility, according to which there is no rational doxastic attitude. I call this 'Nihilism'. I argue that adherents of the other two positions ought to reject it but that it might, nevertheless, obtain at least sometimes.

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P. D. Magnus
State University of New York, Albany

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References found in this work

Moral dimensions: permissibility, meaning, blame.Thomas Scanlon - 2008 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Permissivism, Underdetermination, and Evidence.Elizabeth Jackson & Margaret Greta Turnbull - 2024 - In Maria Lasonen-Aarnio & Clayton Littlejohn (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 358–370.
Epistemic permissiveness.Roger White - 2005 - Philosophical Perspectives 19 (1):445–459.

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