Ideal rationality and logical omniscience

Synthese 192 (9):2769-2793 (2015)
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Abstract

Does rationality require logical omniscience? Our best formal theories of rationality imply that it does, but our ordinary evaluations of rationality seem to suggest otherwise. This paper aims to resolve the tension by arguing that our ordinary evaluations of rationality are not only consistent with the thesis that rationality requires logical omniscience, but also provide a compelling rationale for accepting this thesis in the first place. This paper also defends an account of apriori justification for logical beliefs that is designed to explain the rational requirement of logical omniscience. On this account, apriori justification for beliefs about logic has its source in logical facts, rather than psychological facts about experience, reasoning, or understanding. This account has important consequences for the epistemic role of experience in the logical domain. In a slogan, the epistemic role of experience in the apriori domain is not a justifying role, but rather an enabling and disabling role

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Declan Smithies
Ohio State University

Citations of this work

Logical ignorance and logical learning.Richard Pettigrew - 2021 - Synthese 198 (10):9991-10020.
Epistemic Dilemmas: A Guide.Nick Hughes - forthcoming - In Essays on Epistemic Dilemmas. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Evidence: A Guide for the Uncertain.Kevin Dorst - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (3):586-632.
Evidential Probabilities and Credences.Anna-Maria Asunta Eder - 2023 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74 (1).

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References found in this work

Constructing the World.David John Chalmers (ed.) - 2012 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Skepticism and the Veil of Perception.Michael Huemer (ed.) - 2001 - Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
The nature of epistemic space.David J. Chalmers - 2011 - In Andy Egan & Brian Weatherson (eds.), Epistemic Modality. Oxford University Press.

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