Social Consolidations: Rational Belief in a Many-Valued Logic of Evidence and Peerhood

2020 ◽  
pp. 58-78
Author(s):  
Yuri David Santos
Keyword(s):  
Rational Belief

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Wedgwood
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Rational Belief ◽  
True Proposition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Relevant Notion

It is explained how the conception of rationality proposed earlier in this book can set the agenda for the study of rational belief and rational choice. Part of the task will be to investigate the kind of ‘rational probability’ that was introduced in Chapter 9; the other part will be to study the conditions under which each kind of mental state counts as ‘correct’. There are reasons for thinking that the relevant notion of correctness must be such that in the case of belief, a correct belief is a belief in a true proposition, and in the case of choice, it is ‘akratic’ to choose something if one is fully confident that it is not correct to choose it. It is explained what light this approach could shed on the traditional issues about rational belief and rational choice.

Is Rationality Normative?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Wedgwood
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Belief ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Ought Implies Can ◽  
Normative Concept ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
Formal Theories

In its original meaning, the word ‘rational’ referred to the faculty of reason—the capacity for reasoning. It is undeniable that the word later came also to express a normative concept—the concept of the proper use of this faculty. Does it express a normative concept when it is used in formal theories of rational belief or rational choice? Reasons are given for concluding that it does express a normative concept in these contexts. But this conclusion seems to imply that we ought always to think rationally. Four objections can be raised. (1) What about cases where thinking rationally has disastrous consequences? (2) What about cases where we have rational false beliefs about what we ought to do? (3) ‘Ought’ implies ‘can’—but is it true that we can always think rationally? (4) Rationality requires nothing more than coherence—but why does coherence matter?

On Identifying the Problem of Evil and the Possibility of Its Theist Solution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Bishop
Keyword(s):  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Rational Belief ◽  
Alternative Conception ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
Cognitive Level ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Face ◽  
Argument From Evil ◽  
Existential Problem ◽  
Foundational Problem

The argument of this chapter is that the foundational problem of evil is the existential problem of maintaining hopeful commitment to virtuous living in the face of all that may undermine human fulfilment. Dealing with this problem at the cognitive level involves commitment to a view of reality as favourable to practical commitment to ethical ideals. An intellectual problem of evil then arises to the extent that it seems that the fact of evil is evidence against the truth of the salvific worldview we are inclined to adopt for dealing with it. In relation to theism’s ‘revelatory’ worldview, this intellectual problem is expressible as an Argument from Evil. A ‘normatively relativized’ version of the Argument from Evil is proposed that seeks to exclude rational belief in the ‘personal omniGod’. As a viable alternative conception of God is possible, however, the Argument fails to justify outright atheism.

Reasoning Without the Conjunction Closure

Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Alicja Kowalewska
Keyword(s):  
Computational Complexity ◽  
Error Rate ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Rational Belief ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Confidence Levels

Abstract Some theories of rational belief assume that beliefs should be closed under conjunction. I motivate the rejection of the conjunction closure, and point out that the consequences of this rejection are not as severe as it is usually thought. An often raised objection is that without the conjunction closure people are unable to reason. I outline an approach in which we can – in usual cases – reason using conjunctions without accepting the closure in its whole generality. This solution is based on the notion of confidence levels, which can be defined using probabilities. Moreover, on this approach, reasoning has a scalable computational complexity adaptable to cognitive abilities of both rationally bounded and perfectly rational agents. I perform a simulation to assess its error rate, and compare it to reasoning with conjunction closure.

Sanctifying evidentialism

2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
HORACE FAIRLAMB
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Rational Belief ◽  
Proper Function ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology

AbstractIn contemporary epistemology of religion, evidentialism has been included in a wider critique of traditional foundationalist theories of rational belief. To show the irrelevance of evidentialism, some critics have offered alternatives to the foundationalist approach, prominent among which is Alvin Plantinga's ‘warrant as proper function’. But the connection between evidentialism and foundationalism has been exaggerated, and criticisms of traditional foundationalism do not discredit evidentialism in principle. Furthermore, appeals to warranted belief imply that the heart of evidentialism – the proportioning of belief to rational grounds – has not been discredited but assimilated to the reliabilist view of knowledge by expanding the concept of evidence to include religious experience. In the end, the warrant concept extends the reach of evidentialism, thereby enhancing rather than diminishing its relevance for rational belief.

Impossibility Results for Rational Belief

Noûs ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Schurz
Keyword(s):  
Rational Belief ◽  
Impossibility Results
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