Higher-Order Evidence

This chapter discusses higher-order evidence, i.e. evidence directly about the propriety of having some first-order belief. The mainstream position on higher-order evidence is that it can rationally require changes to first-order beliefs. In particular, it is irrational to both believe something, and think that belief is improper in some or other way. The usual argument for this rests on intuitions about cases. I argue that we haven’t considered enough cases, and that there are cases where level-crossing principles give the wrong answer. In particular, the literature has ignored cases where level-crossing principles implausibly imply we should increase our confidence in target propositions. I reconsider the cases that motivated level-crossing principles, and argue that a careful version of evidentialism can explain them.

Can Your Total Evidence Mislead About Itself?

10.1093/oso/9780198829775.003.0014 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 298-316

Author(s):

Alex Worsnip

Keyword(s):

Mathematical Model ◽

Higher Order ◽

Total Evidence ◽

Simple Mathematical Model ◽

First Order ◽

It’s fairly uncontroversial that you can sometimes get misleading higher-order evidence about what your first-order evidence supports. What is more controversial is whether this can result in a situation where your total evidence is misleading about what your total evidence supports: that is, where your total evidence is misleading about itself. It’s hard to arbitrate on purely intuitive grounds whether any particular example of misleading higher-order evidence is an example of misleading total evidence. This chapter tries to make progress by offering a simple mathematical model that suggests that higher-order evidence will tend to bear more strongly on higher-order propositions about what one’s evidence supports than it does on the corresponding first-order propositions; and then by arguing that given this, it is plausible that there will be some cases of misleading total evidence.

Return to Reason

10.1093/oso/9780198829775.003.0011 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 226-245 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Michael G. Titelbaum

Keyword(s):

Fixed Point ◽

Higher Order ◽

Peer Disagreement ◽

First Order ◽

Doxastic Justification ◽

Right Reason ◽

This chapter discusses responses to the author’s “Rationality’s Fixed Point (or: In Defense of Right Reason).” Among other things, the chapter: explains how the author understands rationality; explains why akrasia is irrational; intuitively overviews the argument from the Akratic Principle to the Fixed Point Thesis; explains why you can’t avoid this argument by distinguishing the rational from the reasonable, ideal rationality from everyday rationality, or substantive from structural norms; responds to the suggestion that misleading higher-order evidence creates rational dilemmas; explains why the Fixed Point Thesis doesn’t assume objectivist or externalist notions of rationality; dismisses complaints about agents who aren’t able to “figure out” what’s rational; then responds to an objection that peer disagreement undermines doxastic justification. Finally, the chapter modifies the author’s steadfast position on peer disagreement to take into account cases in which peer disagreement rationally affects an agent’s first-order opinions without affecting higher-order ones.

Suspension, Higher-Order Evidence, and Defeat

Reasons, Justification, and Defeat ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198847205.003.0006 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 116-145

Author(s):

Errol Lord ◽

Kurt Sylvan

Keyword(s):

Higher Order ◽

Functional Profile ◽

Reasons For Belief ◽

Epistemic Akrasia ◽

First Order ◽

Evidential Support ◽

Support Relations ◽

The Relationship ◽

Suspension Of Judgment ◽

This paper has two main goals. The first and most central goal is to develop a framework for understanding higher-order defeat. The framework rests on the idea that higher-order evidence provides direct reasons for suspending judgment which leave evidential support relations on the first order intact. Equally importantly, we also seek to explain how this sort of defeat is possible by showing how direct reasons for suspension of judgment flow from the functional profile of suspension of judgment. As a result, our framework is embedded within an account of the nature of suspension of judgment that shows how new insights about its nature lead to a different picture of its rational profile. A second and subsidiary goal of the paper is to show how our framework provides a compelling basis for more moderate positions about disagreement and epistemic akrasia. We show that the puzzles about these topics rest on more fundamental mistakes about suspension and the relationship between reasons for suspension, reasons for belief, and evidence.

Whither Higher-Order Evidence?

10.1093/oso/9780198829775.003.0012 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 246-264 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Daniel Whiting

Keyword(s):

Practical Reason ◽

Higher Order ◽

First Order ◽

Distinctive Difference ◽

Widespread View ◽

A widespread view is that higher-order evidence makes a difference to whether it is rational for a person to believe a proposition. This chapter considers in what way higher-order evidence might do this. More specifically, it considers whether and how higher-order evidence plays a role in determining what it is rational to believe distinct from that which first-order evidence plays. To do this, it turns to the theory of reasons, and tries to situate higher-order evidence within it. The only place for it there, distinct from that which first-order evidence already occupies, is as a practical reason, that is, as a reason for desire or action. One might take this to show either that the theory of reasons is inadequate as it stands or that higher-order evidence makes no distinctive difference to what it is rational to believe. The chapter tentatively endorses the second option.

Epistemic Akrasia, Higher-order Evidence, and Charitable Belief Attribution

International Journal for the Study of Skepticism ◽

10.1163/22105700-05011151 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

pp. 296-314 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Hamid Vahid

Keyword(s):

Higher Order ◽

Epistemic Status ◽

Belief Attribution ◽

Radical Interpretation ◽

Standard Argument ◽

Epistemic Akrasia ◽

First Order ◽

Epistemic akrasia refers to the possibility of forming an attitude that fails to conform to one’s best judgment. In this paper, I will be concerned with the question whether epistemic akrasia is rational and I will argue that it is not. Addressing this question, in turn, raises the question of the epistemic significance of higher-order evidence. After examining some of the views on this subject, I will present an argument to show why higher-order evidence is relevant to the epistemic status of the pertinent first-order beliefs. This helps to show why a standard argument for the rationality of epistemic akrasia does not work. Finally, I shall try to show how considerations involving Davidson’s theory of radical interpretation bear on the question of the rationality of epistemic akrasia.

Higher-Order Uncertainty

10.1093/oso/9780198829775.003.0002 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 35-61 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kevin Dorst

Keyword(s):

Higher Order ◽

Clear Picture ◽

Central Question ◽

Epistemology Of Disagreement ◽

Epistemic Akrasia ◽

First Order ◽

You have higher-order uncertainty iff you are uncertain of what opinions you should have. This chapter defends three claims about it. First, the higher-order evidence debate can be helpfully reframed in terms of higher-order uncertainty. The central question becomes how your first- and higher-order opinions should relate—a precise question that can be embedded within a general, tractable framework. Second, this question is nontrivial. Rational higher-order uncertainty is pervasive, and lies at the foundations of the epistemology of disagreement. Third, the answer is not obvious. The Enkratic Intuition—that your first-order opinions must “line up” with your higher-order opinions—is incorrect; epistemic akrasia can be rational. If all this is right, then it leaves us without answers—but with a clear picture of the question, and a fruitful strategy for pursuing it.

Evidentialism, Higher-Order Evidence, and Disagreement

Episteme ◽

10.3366/e1742360009000720 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

pp. 294-312 ◽

Cited By ~ 40

Author(s):

Richard Feldman

Keyword(s):

Higher Order ◽

First Order ◽

Epistemic Peers ◽

ABSTRACTEvidentialism is the thesis that a person is justified in believing a proposition iff the person's evidence on balance supports that proposition. In discussing epistemological issues associated with disagreements among epistemic peers, some philosophers have endorsed principles that seem to run contrary to evidentialism, specifying how one should revise one's beliefs in light of disagreement. In this paper, I examine the connection between evidentialism and these principles. I argue that the puzzles about disagreement provide no reason to abandon evidentialism and that there are no true general principles about justified responses to disagreement other than the general evidentialist principle. I then argue that the puzzles about disagreement are primarily puzzles about the evidential impact of higher-order evidence–evidence about the significance or existence of ordinary, or first-order, evidence. I conclude by arguing that such higher-order evidence can often have a profound effect on the justification of first-order beliefs.

Doxastic Responsibility is Owed to Others

Journal of Philosophical Research ◽

10.5840/jpr201944149 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 44 ◽

pp. 63-77

Author(s):

Sanford C. Goldberg ◽

Keyword(s):

Social Role ◽

Higher Order ◽

First Order ◽

Doxastic Responsibility ◽

In this paper I argue that Rik Peels’s account of doxastic responsibility (in his 2017 book Responsible Belief) is too subjectivist, as it fails to deliver the correct verdicts in some cases in which one’s responsibilities derive from a social role and where one has misleading higher-order evidence about the first-order evidence. The take-home point is that the notion of responsibility in doxastic responsibility is something that is owed to others.

Dual systems for all: Higher-order, role-based relational reasoning as a uniquely derived feature of human cognition

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x19000451 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel J. Povinelli ◽

Gabrielle C. Glorioso ◽

Shannon L. Kuznar ◽

Mateja Pavlic

Keyword(s):

Temporal Reasoning ◽

Higher Order ◽

Important Case ◽

Human Cognition ◽

Relational Reasoning ◽

Dual Systems ◽

First Order ◽

Reasoning System ◽

Role Based

Abstract Hoerl and McCormack demonstrate that although animals possess a sophisticated temporal updating system, there is no evidence that they also possess a temporal reasoning system. This important case study is directly related to the broader claim that although animals are manifestly capable of first-order (perceptually-based) relational reasoning, they lack the capacity for higher-order, role-based relational reasoning. We argue this distinction applies to all domains of cognition.

Challenging the Multidimensional Conception of Perceived Person-Environment Fit

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027/1015-5759/a000622 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-9

Author(s):

Julian M. Etzel ◽

Gabriel Nagy

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

University Students ◽

Educational Outcomes ◽

Factor Model ◽

Higher Order ◽

Substantial Proportion ◽

Unique Variance ◽

First Order ◽

Person Environment Fit ◽

Order Factor

Abstract. In the current study, we examined the viability of a multidimensional conception of perceived person-environment (P-E) fit in higher education. We introduce an optimized 12-item measure that distinguishes between four content dimensions of perceived P-E fit: interest-contents (I-C) fit, needs-supplies (N-S) fit, demands-abilities (D-A) fit, and values-culture (V-C) fit. The central aim of our study was to examine whether the relationships between different P-E fit dimensions and educational outcomes can be accounted for by a higher-order factor that captures the shared features of the four fit dimensions. Relying on a large sample of university students in Germany, we found that students distinguish between the proposed fit dimensions. The respective first-order factors shared a substantial proportion of variance and conformed to a higher-order factor model. Using a newly developed factor extension procedure, we found that the relationships between the first-order factors and most outcomes were not fully accounted for by the higher-order factor. Rather, with the exception of V-C fit, all specific P-E fit factors that represent the first-order factors’ unique variance showed reliable and theoretically plausible relationships with different outcomes. These findings support the viability of a multidimensional conceptualization of P-E fit and the validity of our adapted instrument.