Pragmatic Intellectualism

Reasons First ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 168-182
Author(s):  
Mark Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Pragmatic Encroachment

Chapter 8 introduces and defends the default reliance account of the nature of binary belief and the resulting package of views about epistemic reasons—Pragmatic Intellectualism. According to the default reliance account, binary beliefs play the role of giving us something to rely on in reasoning by default—without need to engage in further reasoning about what to rely on. It is argued that the default reliance account predicts and explains the rational inertia of beliefs, and explains why both the risks of error and the availability of further evidence will count as epistemic reasons against belief. The resulting view, Pragmatic Intellectualism, is contrasted with other defenses of pragmatic encroachment in epistemology with respect to the role it grants to knowledge-action principles, the rational stability of belief, the principle of reflection, and pragmatic encroachment on confidence or degreed belief.

Does Friendship Exert Pressure on Belief?

2020 ◽  
pp. 124-148
Author(s):  
Sanford C. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
Loved One ◽  
Normative Pressure ◽  
Epistemic Standards ◽  
Epistemic Partiality

It has been alleged that we should be epistemically partial to our friends, that is, that there are cases in which the demands of friendship would require one to give a friend the benefit of the doubt, and thereby come to believe something in violation of ordinary epistemic standards on justified or responsible belief. The burden of this chapter is to argue against this idea. It argues that the impression of epistemic partiality in friendship dissipates once we acknowledge the sorts of practical and epistemic reasons that are generated by our values: value-reflecting reasons. Unlike other proposals seeking to resist the arguments for epistemic partiality, the present proposal has the virtue of remaining neutral with respect to two controversial epistemic doctrines (Uniqueness and Pragmatic Encroachment); and it has the further virtue of being able to offer a unified account of the various forms of normative pressure in play when we consider information regarding a friend or loved one.

Religious Beliefs as World-View Beliefs

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-25
Author(s):  
Winfried Löffler
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
World View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
German Contribution

In this paper, I defend a moderately cognitive account of religious beliefs. Religious beliefs are interpreted as “worldview beliefs”, which I explicate as being indispensable to our everyday and scientific practice; my reading is nonetheless distinct from non-cognitivist readings of “worldview belief” which occasionally appear in the literature. I start with a brief analysis of a recent German contribution to the debate which on the one hand (rightly) insists on the priority of epistemic reasons for or against religious beliefs, but on the other hand contends that religious beliefs are worldview beliefs (section 1). This leads me to explicate a special sense of worldview beliefs, as well as their cognitive role (2). After that, I shed some light on a special epistemological characteristic of worldview beliefs, namely the strong involvement of “free certitude” in their acceptance. I explore the implications for the possible role of arguments for worldview beliefs, especially for worldview beliefs concerning theism (3).

Practical Interests and Reasons for Belief

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baron Reed
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Reasons For Belief ◽  
The Social ◽  
Truth Norm ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Share Information

This chapter examines the relationship between the practical and the epistemic. It rejects two broad ways of thinking about that relationship—pragmatic encroachment and an epistemology centered on the truth norm—before offering a new approach, which explains epistemic normativity as arising from our practical commitment to a social practice that has arisen from our need to share information with one another. The chapter discusses the way in which the social practice view captures the importance of knowledge and epistemic reasons to action, while preventing our practical interests from playing a disruptive role in how we arrive at our beliefs.

The Game of Belief

2020 ◽  
Vol 129 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Maguire ◽  
Jack Woods
Keyword(s):  
Functional Role ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Epistemic Standard ◽  
Reasons For Belief ◽  
Important Sense

It is plausible that there is a distinctively epistemic standard of correctness for belief. It is also plausible that there is a range of practical reasons bearing on belief. These theses are often thought to be in tension with each other. To resolve the tension, the authors draw on an analogy with a similar distinction between types of reasons for actions in the context of activities. This motivates a two-level account of the structure of normativity. The account relies upon a further distinction between normative reasons and authoritatively normative reasons. Only the latter constitutively play the functional role of explaining what state one just plain ought to be in. The authors conjecture that all and only practical reasons are authoritative. Hence, in one important sense, all reasons for belief are practical reasons. But this account also preserves the autonomy and importance of epistemic reasons.

Role of dactinomycin in the improved survival of children with Wilms' tumor

JAMA ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 195 (12) ◽  
pp. 1005-1009 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Fernbach
Keyword(s):  
Wilms Tumor

Role of the allergist in diagnosis and management of patients with uveitis

JAMA ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 195 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. E. Van Metre
Keyword(s):  
Diagnosis And Management

The power of norms to sway fused group members

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Winnifred R. Louis ◽  
Craig McGarty ◽  
Emma F. Thomas ◽  
Catherine E. Amiot ◽  
Fathali M. Moghaddam
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Anthropology ◽  
Normative Systems ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
Identity Fusion ◽  
Group Members

AbstractWhitehouse adapts insights from evolutionary anthropology to interpret extreme self-sacrifice through the concept of identity fusion. The model neglects the role of normative systems in shaping behaviors, especially in relation to violent extremism. In peaceful groups, increasing fusion will actually decrease extremism. Groups collectively appraise threats and opportunities, actively debate action options, and rarely choose violence toward self or others.

Elaborating the role of reflection and individual differences in the study of folk-economic beliefs

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Arceneaux
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Behavioral Responses ◽  
History Of ◽  
Economic Beliefs

AbstractIntuitions guide decision-making, and looking to the evolutionary history of humans illuminates why some behavioral responses are more intuitive than others. Yet a place remains for cognitive processes to second-guess intuitive responses – that is, to be reflective – and individual differences abound in automatic, intuitive processing as well.

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