scholarly journals Cohen’s and Lewis’ solutions to the lottery paradox

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 121-137
Author(s):  
Milan Jovanovic
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Lottery Paradox ◽  
Modal Interpretation ◽  
Relevant Alternatives ◽  
Epistemological Problem ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology ◽  
The Lottery Paradox

The lottery paradox is considered to be one of the biggest problems concerning fallibilism in epistemology. This paper offers a presentation and critical analysis of two different contextualistic solutions to that paradox. The first part of the paper deals with the lottery paradox and Stewart Cohen?s proposed solution. The second part is a presentation of David Lewis? solution to that epistemological problem. The two analyses offered serve to show that Cohen is (while Lewis is not) committed to the claim that the same solution can be used for both: the lottery paradox and for the problem of skepticism. In the final part of the paper the main focus is on the question whether the same explanation of how conversational mechanisms work can really serve to explain these two problems of contemporary epistemology. It is argued, mainly on the basis of modal interpretation of the relevant alternatives approach, that there is a significant difference in structure between these two problems, and that they, therefore, deserve different treatment.

Lotteries, Knowledge, and Irrelevant Alternatives

Dialogue ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
RACHEL MCKINNON
Keyword(s):  
Lottery Paradox ◽  
Relevant Alternatives ◽  
Norms Of Assertion ◽  
The Lottery Paradox

The lottery paradox plays an important role in arguments for various norms of assertion. Why is it that, prior to information on the results of a draw, assertions such as, “My ticket lost,” seem inappropriate? This paper is composed of two projects. First, I articulate a number of problems arising from Timothy Williamson’s analysis of the lottery paradox. Second, I propose a relevant alternatives theory, which I call the Non-Destabilizing Alternatives Theory (NDAT), that better explains the pathology of asserting lottery propositions, while permitting assertions of what I call fallible propositions such as, “My car is in the driveway.”

scholarly journals Lewis’s contextual solution to the Lottery paradox and the Gettier problem

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-51
Author(s):  
Marija Rekovic
Keyword(s):  
David Lewis ◽  
Main Topic ◽  
Epistemic Contextualism ◽  
Lottery Paradox ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Conversational Contextualism ◽  
Skeptical Paradox ◽  
The Lottery Paradox ◽  
The Gettier Problem

The main topic of this paper is conversational contextualism, one of the most dominant versions of epistemic contextualism, endorsed by David Lewis. Proponents of conversational contextualism, including Lewis, argue that the key advantage of this view lies in its unique way of analyzing and solving the most prominent epistemological problems. Among those problems are the skeptical paradox, the Gettier problem and the Lottery paradox. The first part of the paper is concerned with the general features of conversational contextualism. In the second part of the paper the author highlights the main hypotheses of conversational contextualism, proposed by Lewis, as an attempt to solve the Gettier problem and the Lottery paradox. The last part of the paper analyzes the pros and cons of the Lewisian solutions to the aforementioned problems. The key part in that analysis is the Cohen?s criticism of those solutions.

scholarly journals Disappearing knowledge

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 869-883
Author(s):  
Ivan Nisavic
Keyword(s):  
David Lewis ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Alternative Possibilities ◽  
Lottery Paradox ◽  
On Certainty ◽  
The Lottery Paradox

Following the exposition of the basic standpoints of contextualism in relation to invariantistic position, which takes the concept of knowledge in its rigorous and fixed meaning, the text continues to deal with the analysis of the concept of knowledge offered by David Lewis, with a goal to solve common epistemological problems, one of those being the lottery paradox. Accepting fallibilism as the only plausible option regarding the possibility of acquiring knowledge, Lewis claims that, with the postulated rules that allow us to properly eliminate alternative possibilities, it is possible to resolve the previously mentioned paradox. If we want to base knowledge on probability, and not on certainty, and to directly stipulate it with the context in which it is being imposed or expressed, than it is obvious that knowledge will depend on whether the requirements for knowledge are high or low. Thus, in one case it might occur that we have knowledge, and in the other that we do not, even though nothing is changed except the conversational conditions that are already ?in the game?. Such, elusive knowledge, that gets lost, De Rose labels ?now you know it, now you don?t? and considers it to be a direct consequence of Lewis?s analysis. As such, the analysis should not be accepted.

Virtue Epistemology as Anti-luck Epistemology

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 77-94
Author(s):  
Alexey Z. Chernyak ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
General Study ◽  
Intellectual Virtues ◽  
Mental Attitude ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
The Status ◽  
Veritic Luck ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology

The idea that knowledge as an individual mental attitude with certain propositional content is not only true justified belief but a belief the truth of which does not result from any kind of luck, is widely spread in contemporary epistemology. This account is known as anti-luck epistemology. A very popular explanation of the inconsistency of that concept of knowledge with the luck-dependent nature of truth (so called veritic luck taking place when a subject’s belief could not be true if not by mere coincidence) presumes that the status of propositional knowledge crucially depends on the qualities of actions that result in the corresponding belief, or processes backing them, which reflect the socalled intellectual virtues mainly responsible for subject’s relevant competences. This account known as Virtue Epistemology presumes that if a belief is true exclusively or mainly due to its dependence on intellectual virtues, it just cannot be true by luck, hence no place for lucky knowledge. But this thesis is hard to prove given the existence of true virtuous beliefs which could nevertheless be false if not for some lucky (for the knower) accident. This led to an appearance of virtue epistemological theories aimed specifically at an assimilation of such cases. Their authors try to represent the relevant situations as such where the contribution of luck is not crucial whereas the contribution of virtues is crucial. This article provides a critical analysis of the corresponding arguments as part of a more general study of the ability of Virtue Epistemology to provide justification for the thesis of incompatibility of propositional knowledge with veritic luck. It is shown that there are good reasons to doubt that Virtue Epistemology can do this.

scholarly journals THE DISCURSIVE DILEMMA AS A LOTTERY PARADOX

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
IGOR DOUVEN ◽  
JAN-WILLEM ROMEIJN
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Impossibility Theorem ◽  
Lottery Paradox ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Discursive Dilemma ◽  
Individual Opinion ◽  
The Lottery Paradox

List and Pettit have stated an impossibility theorem about the aggregation of individual opinion states. Building on recent work on the lottery paradox, this paper offers a variation on that result. The present result places different constraints on the voting agenda and the domain of profiles, but it covers a larger class of voting rules, which need not satisfy the proposition-wise independence of votes.

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