Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-s9k8s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-15T20:59:28.369Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pragmatic Interests and Imprecise Belief

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Brad Armendt
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Does the strength of a particular belief depend upon the significance we attach to it? Do we move from one context to another, remaining in the same doxastic state concerning p yet holding a stronger belief that p in one context than in the other? For that to be so, a doxastic state must have a certain sort of context-sensitive complexity. So the question is about the nature of belief states, as we understand them, or as we think a theory should model them. I explore the idea and how it relates to work on imprecise probabilities and second-order confidence.

Type
General Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 80 , Issue 5 , December 2013 , pp. 758 - 768
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Thanks to audiences at the EpiConFor Workshop in Nancy and at the Center for Philosophy of Science in Pittsburgh for discussion of earlier versions of this article. Particular thanks to Rich Thomason, Mark Wilson, Teddy Seidenfeld, Jim Joyce, Darrell Rowbottom, Bob Batterman, and Paul Teller for helpful conversations about topics raised here.

References

Armendt, Brad. 2010. “Stakes and Beliefs.” Philosophical Studies 147:71–87.10.1007/s11098-009-9451-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, David. 2004. Putting Logic in Its Place. Oxford: Clarendon.10.1093/0199263256.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fantl, Jeremy, and McGrath, Matthew. 2002. “Evidence, Pragmatics, and Justification.” Philosophical Review 111:67–94.10.1215/00318108-111-1-67CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joyce, James M. 2010. “A Defense of Imprecise Credences in Inference and Decision Making.” Philosophical Perspectives 24:281–323.10.1111/j.1520-8583.2010.00194.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kyburg, Henry. 1988. “Full Belief.” Theory and Decision 25:137–62.Google Scholar
Levi, Isaac. 1985. “Imprecision and Indeterminacy in Probability Judgment.” Philosophy of Science 52:390–409.10.1086/289257CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nau, Robert. 1992. “Indeterminate Probabilities on Finite Sets.” Annals of Statistics 20:1737–67.10.1214/aos/1176348888CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nozick, Robert. 1993. The Nature of Rationality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400820832CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomason, Richmond. 2007. “Three Interactions between Context and Epistemic Locutions.” In Modeling and Using Context, ed. Kokinov, Boicho N. et al., 467–81. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Thomason, Richmond. 2013. “Belief, Intention, and Practicality: Loosening Up Agents and Their Propositional Attitudes.” In Epistemology, Context, Formalism, ed. Lihoreau, Franck and Rebuschi, Manuel, 167–84. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Walley, Peter. 1991. Statistical Reasoning with Imprecise Probabilities. London: Chapman & Hall.10.1007/978-1-4899-3472-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weatherson, Brian. 2005. “Can We Do without Pragmatic Encroachment?” Philosophical Perspectives 19:417–43.10.1111/j.1520-8583.2005.00068.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar