Respecting all the evidence

Philosophical Studies 172 (11):2835-2858 (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Plausibly, you should believe what your total evidence supports. But cases of misleading higher-order evidence—evidence about what your evidence supports—present a challenge to this thought. In such cases, taking both first-order and higher-order evidence at face value leads to a seemingly irrational incoherence between one’s first-order and higher-order attitudes: you will believe P, but also believe that your evidence doesn’t support P. To avoid sanctioning tension between epistemic levels, some authors have abandoned the thought that both first-order and higher-order evidence have rational bearing. This sacrifice is both costly and unnecessary. We propose a principle, Evidential Calibration, which requires rational agents to accommodate first-order evidence correctly, while allowing rational uncertainty about what to believe. At the same time, it rules out irrational tensions between epistemic levels. We show that while there are serious problems for some views on which we can rationally believe, “P, but my evidence doesn’t support P”, Evidential Calibration avoids these problems. An important upshot of our discussion is a new way to think about the relationship between epistemic levels: why first-order and higher-order attitudes should generally be aligned, and why it is sometimes—though not always—problematic when they diverge

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,449

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Higher-order uncertainty.Kevin Dorst - 2019 - In Mattias Skipper & Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, Higher-Order Evidence: New Essays. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Higher-Order Defeat and Doxastic Resilience.Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen - 2019 - In Mattias Skipper & Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, Higher-Order Evidence: New Essays. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Higher‐Order Evidence and the Limits of Defeat.Maria Lasonen-Aarnio - 2014 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (2):314-345.
Higher-Order Evidence: New Essays.Mattias Skipper & Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen (eds.) - 2019 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Moral Disagreement and Higher-Order Evidence.Klemens Kappel & Frederik J. Andersen - 2019 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 22 (5):1103-1120.
Higher-Order Defeat and the Impossibility of Self-Misleading Evidence.Mattias Skipper - 2019 - In Mattias Skipper & Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, Higher-Order Evidence: New Essays. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-01-31

Downloads
477 (#63,190)

6 months
31 (#116,482)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Sophie Horowitz
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Paulina Sliwa
University of Vienna

Citations of this work

Rational Polarization.Kevin Dorst - 2023 - Philosophical Review 132 (3):355-458.
Epistemic Trespassing.Nathan Ballantyne - 2019 - Mind 128 (510):367-395.
Radical Externalism.Amia Srinivasan - 2020 - Philosophical Review 129 (3):395-431.
Philosophy Without Belief.Zach Barnett - 2019 - Mind 128 (509):109-138.
Evidence: A Guide for the Uncertain.Kevin Dorst - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (3):586-632.

View all 78 citations / Add more citations

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: Harvard University Press.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - Philosophy 76 (297):460-464.
Epistemology of disagreement: The good news.David Christensen - 2007 - Philosophical Review 116 (2):187-217.
The skeptic and the dogmatist.James Pryor - 2000 - Noûs 34 (4):517–549.

View all 31 references / Add more references