De-Idealizing Bayesianism

2019 ◽  
pp. 12-33
Author(s):  
Julia Staffel
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Framework ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Ways Of Being

Chapter 2 is concerned with the question of how we should develop a comprehensive normative theory of the epistemic rationality of credences. Its aim is twofold: (i) to familiarize readers with the basics of the Bayesian framework that are essential for understanding the arguments in subsequent chapters, and (ii) to offer an interpretation of the goals and methods of the Bayesian framework that reveals its shortcomings when applied to non-ideal thinkers. It is argued that the Bayesian view of ideal norms that is currently being developed lacks the capacity to distinguish between better and worse ways of being imperfectly epistemically rational. Moreover, it lacks the resources to substantiate a central Bayesian claim, namely that ideal epistemic norms apply to the beliefs of non-ideal thinkers as aims that should be approximated.

Predictably Misleading Evidence

2019 ◽  
pp. 105-123
Author(s):  
Sophie Horowitz
Keyword(s):  
Higher Order ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Total Evidence ◽  
Rational Agent ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Misleading Evidence ◽  
Do So ◽  
Higher Order Evidence

Evidence can be misleading: it can rationalize raising one’s confidence in false propositions, and lowering one’s confidence in the truth. But can a rational agent know that her total evidence supports a (particular) falsehood? It seems not: if we could see ahead of time that our evidence supported a false belief, then we could avoid believing what our evidence supported, and hence avoid being misled. So, it seems, evidence cannot be predictably misleading. This chapter develops a new problem for higher-order evidence: it is predictably misleading. It then examines a radical strategy for explaining higher-order evidence, according to which there are two distinct epistemic norms at work in the relevant cases. Finally, the chapter suggests that mainstream accounts of higher-order evidence may be able to answer the challenge after all. But to do so, they must deny that epistemic rationality requires believing what is likely given one’s evidence.

scholarly journals Epistemic Norms, the False Belief Requirement, and Love

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-309
Author(s):  
J. Spencer Atkins ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Romantic Love ◽  
False Belief ◽  
The Other ◽  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Epistemic Agency ◽  
Special Position ◽  
Radical Claim ◽  
The Right

Many authors have argued that epistemic rationality sometimes comes into conflict with our relationships. Although Sarah Stroud and Simon Keller argue that friendships sometimes require bad epistemic agency, their proposals do not go far enough. I argue here for a more radical claim—romantic love sometimes requires we form beliefs that are false. Lovers stand in a special position with one another; they owe things to one another that they do not owe to others. Such demands hold for beliefs as well. Two facets of love ground what I call the false belief requirement , or the demand to form false beliefs when it is for the good of the beloved: the demand to love for the right reasons and the demand to refrain from doxastic wronging. Since truth is indispensable to epistemic rationality, the requirement to believe falsely, consequently, undermines truth norms. I demonstrate that, when the false belief requirement obtains, there is an irreconcilable conflict between love and truth norms of epistemic rationality: we must forsake one, at least at the time, for the other.

The Epistemic and the Zetetic

2020 ◽  
Vol 129 (4) ◽  
pp. 501-536
Author(s):  
Jane Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Normative Theory ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theory Of Inquiry

Call the norms of inquiry zetetic norms. How are zetetic norms related to epistemic norms? At first glance, they seem quite closely connected. Aren't epistemic norms norms that bind inquirers qua inquirers? And isn't epistemology the place to look for a normative theory of inquiry? While much of this thought seems right, this paper argues that the relationship between the epistemic and the zetetic is not as harmonious as one might have thought and liked. In particular, this paper argues that some familiar contemporary epistemic norms are in tension with, and even in conflict with, central zetetic norms.

Approximating Ideal Rationality with Multiple Norms

2019 ◽  
pp. 95-126
Author(s):  
Julia Staffel
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Principal Principle ◽  
Epistemic Values ◽  
Epistemic States

Chapter 6 considers views on which being ideally rational requires more than just being coherent. While extreme subjective Bayesians think that the coherence norm is the only requirement of epistemic rationality, more moderate proponents defend further requirements, such as versions of the Indifference Principle or the Principal Principle. This raises the question of how we can measure approximations to rationality, when being ideally rational requires thinkers to comply with multiple different epistemic norms. Different approaches to justifying norms of rationality are distinguished by whether they assume that there is a single epistemic value or good that explains the various requirements of rationality, or whether there are multiple epistemic values or goods that have to be aggregated somehow in evaluating the rationality of epistemic states. Each view of how epistemic values give rise to norms of rationality is then paired with a suitable strategy for measuring approximations to ideal rationality.

Modeling Interstation Travel Speed of Hybrid Bus Rapid Transit within A Bayesian Framework

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-hua Hu ◽  
Jia-xian Liang
Keyword(s):  
Road Traffic ◽  
Travel Speed ◽  
Bayesian Framework ◽  
Bus Rapid Transit ◽  
Rapid Transit ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Main Road ◽  
Traffic Lights ◽  
Speed Distribution ◽  
Hybrid Bus

Interstation travel speed is an important indicator of the running state of hybrid Bus Rapid Transit and passenger experience. Due to the influence of road traffic, traffic lights and other factors, the interstation travel speeds are often some kind of multi-peak and it is difficult to use a single distribution to model them. In this paper, a Gaussian mixture model charactizing the interstation travel speed of hybrid BRT under a Bayesian framework is established. The parameters of the model are inferred using the Reversible-Jump Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach (RJMCMC), including the number of model components and the weight, mean and variance of each component. Then the model is applied to Guangzhou BRT, a kind of hybrid BRT. From the results, it can be observed that the model can very effectively describe the heterogeneous speed data among different inter-stations, and provide richer information usually not available from the traditional models, and the model also produces an excellent fit to each multimodal speed distribution curve of the inter-stations. The causes of different speed distribution can be identified through investigating the Internet map of GBRT, they are big road traffic and long traffic lights respectively, which always contribute to a main road crossing. So, the BRT lane should be elevated through the main road to decrease the complexity of the running state.

Resonance in Dhvani Aesthetics and the Deleuzian Logic of Sensation

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-44
Author(s):  
Srajana Kaikini
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Sanskrit Poetics ◽  
Comparative Framework ◽  
Time Image

This paper undertakes an intersectional reading of visual art through theories of literary interpretation in Sanskrit poetics in close reading with Deleuze's notions of sensation. The concept of Dhvani – the Indian theory of suggestion which can be translated as resonance, as explored in the Rasa – Dhvani aesthetics offers key insights into understanding the mode in which sensation as discussed by Deleuze operates throughout his reflections on Francis Bacon's and Cézanne's works. The paper constructs a comparative framework to review modern and classical art history, mainly in the medium of painting, through an understanding of the concept of Dhvani, and charts a course of reinterpreting and examining possible points of concurrence and departure with respect to the Deleuzian logic of sensation and his notions of time-image and perception. The author thereby aims to move art interpretation's paradigm towards a non-linguistic sensory paradigm of experience. The focus of the paper is to break the moulds of normative theory-making which guide ideal conditions of ‘understanding art’ and look into alternative modes of experiencing the ‘vocabulary’ of art through trans-disciplinary intersections, in this case the disciplines being those of visual art, literature and phenomenology.

Aboutness

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Yablo
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Library Science ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Major Advance ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Made In

Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion. However, it has played no real role in philosophical semantics, which is surprising. This is the first book to examine through a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning. A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection—about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned. This book maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results—directed content—is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology. The book represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language.

Beyond Religious Freedom

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Religious Tolerance ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Religious Difference ◽  
Power Difference ◽  
Ways Of Being

In recent years, North American and European nations have sought to legally remake religion in other countries through an unprecedented array of international initiatives. Policymakers have rallied around the notion that the fostering of religious freedom, interfaith dialogue, religious tolerance, and protections for religious minorities are the keys to combating persecution and discrimination. This book argues that these initiatives create the very social tensions and divisions they are meant to overcome. It looks at three critical channels of state-sponsored intervention: international religious freedom advocacy, development assistance and nation building, and international law. It shows how these initiatives make religious difference a matter of law, resulting in a divide that favors forms of religion authorized by those in power and excludes other ways of being and belonging. In exploring the dizzying power dynamics and blurred boundaries that characterize relations between “expert religion,” “governed religion,” and “lived religion,” the book charts new territory in the study of religion in global politics. The book provides new insights into today's most pressing dilemmas of power, difference, and governance.

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