Applications

2021 ◽  
pp. 138-169
Author(s):  
Sven Rosenkranz
Keyword(s):  
Lottery Paradox ◽  
Preface Paradox ◽  
Present Account ◽  
Doxastic Justification ◽  
The Preface Paradox ◽  
The Lottery Paradox

To earn their keep, theories of justification must be shown to have fruitful applications and to provide the means to address well-known puzzles and paradoxes. It is argued that the present account of justification does very well on this score. Not only does it prove amenable to the idea that standards for knowledge and justification may shift, it allows for an explanation of why they shift in tandem. It lends itself to a justificationist conception of the rules that may guide the formation of beliefs, to the extent that these beliefs aspire to be knowledgeable. The present account moreover affords principled solutions to the preface paradox, the lottery paradox, the related but distinct lottery puzzle, and a more recent sceptical challenge targeting doxastic justification.

Paradoxes, epistemic

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan L. Kvanvig
Keyword(s):  
Lottery Paradox ◽  
Preface Paradox ◽  
Similar Reasoning ◽  
Knowability Paradox ◽  
Thursday Evening ◽  
Epistemic Paradoxes ◽  
The Preface Paradox ◽  
The Lottery Paradox

The four primary epistemic paradoxes are the lottery, preface, knowability, and surprise examination paradoxes. The lottery paradox begins by imagining a fair lottery with a thousand tickets in it. Each ticket is so unlikely to win that we are justified in believing that it will lose. So we can infer that no ticket will win. Yet we know that some ticket will win. In the preface paradox, authors are justified in believing everything in their books. Some preface their book by claiming that, given human frailty, they are sure that errors remain. But then they justifiably believe both that everything in the book is true, and that something in it is false. The knowability paradox results from accepting that some truths are not known, and that any truth is knowable. Since the first claim is a truth, it must be knowable. From these claims it follows that it is possible that there is some particular truth that is known to be true and known not to be true. The final paradox concerns an announcement of a surprise test next week. A Friday test, since it can be predicted on Thursday evening, will not be a surprise yet, if the test cannot be on Friday, it cannot be on Thursday either. For if it has not been given by Wednesday night, and it cannot be a surprise on Friday, it will not be a surprise on Thursday. Similar reasoning rules out all other days of the week as well; hence, no surprise test can occur next week. On Wednesday, the teacher gives a test, and the students are taken completely by surprise.

Attributing Knowledge

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jody Azzouni
Keyword(s):  
Rational Belief ◽  
Cognitive Ethology ◽  
Lottery Paradox ◽  
Preface Paradox ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Correct Application ◽  
Mechanical Devices ◽  
The Preface Paradox ◽  
The Lottery Paradox ◽  
Knowledge Closure

The word “know” is revealed as vague, applicable to fallible agents, factive, and criterion-transcendent. It is invariant in its meaning across contexts and invariant relative to different agents. Only purely epistemic properties affect its correct application—not the interests of agents or those who attribute the word to agents. These properties enable “know” to be applied correctly—as it routinely is—to cognitive agents ranging from sophisticated human knowers, who engage in substantial metacognition, to various animals, who know much less and do much less, if any, metacognition, to nonconscious mechanical devices such as drones, robots, and the like. These properties of the word “know” suffice to explain the usage phenomena that contextualists and subject-sensitive invariantists invoke to place pressure on an understanding of the word that treats its application as involving no interests of agents, or others. It is also shown that the factivity and the fallibilist-compatibility of the word “know” explain Moorean paradoxes, the preface paradox, and the lottery paradox. A fallibility-sensitive failure of knowledge closure is given along with a similar failure of rational-belief closure. The latter explains why rational agents can nevertheless believe A and B, where A and B contradict each other. A substantial discussion of various kinds of metacognition is given—as well as a discussion of the metacognition literature in cognitive ethology. An appendix offers a new resolution of the hangman paradox, one that turns neither on a failure of knowledge closure nor on a failure of KK.

scholarly journals A Case Against Closure

2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Doris Olin
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Lottery Paradox ◽  
Preface Paradox ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Epistemic Paradoxes ◽  
Epistemic Modesty ◽  
The Lottery Paradox

Este artigo examina a objeção ao fechamento [dedutivo] que surge no contexto de certos paradoxos epistêmicos, paradoxos cuja conclusão é que a crença justificada pode ser inconsistente. É universalmente aceito que, se essa conclusão é correta, o fechamento deve ser rejeitado, para que se evite a crença justificada em enunciados contraditórios (P, ~P). Mas, mesmo que os argumentos desses paradoxos – o paradoxo da falibilidade (do prefácio) e o paradoxo da loteria – sejam mal-sucedidos, eles, ainda assim, sugerem a existência de evidência independente para uma objeção mais direta contra o fechamento. O exame do argumento da falibilidade revela uma exigência de modéstia epistêmica que viola o fechamento a partir de múltiplas premissas. A reflexão sobre o paradoxo da loteria nos confronta com um dilema em que cada alternativa fornece um contra-exemplo ao fechamento a partir de uma única premissa. Seja ou não possível a inconsistência racional, há uma objeção contra o fechamento. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Fechamento dedutivo. Falibilidade. Paradoxo da Loteria. Paradoxo do Prefácio. Justificação. Inconsistência. ABSTRACT This paper examines the case against closure that arises in the context of certain epistemic paradoxes, paradoxes whose conclusion is that it is possible for justified belief to be inconsistent. It is generally agreed that if this conclusion is correct, closure must be rejected in order to avoid justified belief in contradictory statements (P, ~P). But even if the arguments of these paradoxes – the fallibility (preface) paradox and the lottery paradox – are unsuccessful, they nonetheless suggest independent grounds for a more direct case against closure. Examination of the fallibility argument reveals a requirement of epistemic modesty that violates multiple premise closure. Reflection on the lottery paradox presents us with a dilemma in which each alternative provides a counterexample to single premise closure. Whether or not rational inconsistency is possible, there is a case against closure. KEY WORDS – Closure. Fallibility. Lottery paradox. Preface paradox. Justification. Inconsistency.

scholarly journals Multi-Peer Disagreement and the Preface Paradox

Ratio ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Boyce ◽  
Allan Hazlett
Keyword(s):  
Peer Disagreement ◽  
Preface Paradox ◽  
The Preface Paradox
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