Moore-paradoxical belief, conscious belief and the epistemic Ramsey test

Synthese 188 (2):231-246 (2012)
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Abstract

Chalmers and Hájek argue that on an epistemic reading of Ramsey’s test for the rational acceptability of conditionals, it is faulty. They claim that applying the test to each of a certain pair of conditionals requires one to think that one is omniscient or infallible, unless one forms irrational Moore-paradoxical beliefs. I show that this claim is false. The epistemic Ramsey test is indeed faulty. Applying it requires that one think of anyone as all-believing and if one is rational, to think of anyone as infallible-if-rational. But this is not because of Moore-paradoxical beliefs. Rather it is because applying the test requires a certain supposition about conscious belief. It is important to understand the nature of this supposition

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Author's Profile

John N. Williams
Singapore Management University

References found in this work

The Rediscovery of the Mind.John R. Searle - 1992 - MIT Press. Edited by Ned Block & Hilary Putnam.
Blindspots.Roy A. Sorensen - 1988 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The Rediscovery of the Mind.John Searle - 1992 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (1):201-207.
General Propositions and Causality.Frank Plumpton Ramsey - 1929 - In The Foundations of Mathematics and other Logical Essays. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner. pp. 237-255.

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