Bayesianism and self-doubt
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Bayesianism and self-doubt Darren Bradley1 Received: 13 February 2020 / Accepted: 16 September 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract How should we respond to evidence when our evidence indicates that we are rationally impaired? I will defend a novel answer based on the analogy between self-doubt and memory loss. To believe that one is now impaired and previously was not is to believe that one’s epistemic position has deteriorated. Memory loss is also a form of epistemic deterioration. I argue that agents who suffer from epistemic deterioration should return to the priors they had at an earlier time. I develop this argument regarding memory loss then extend it to cases of self-doubt. Keywords Self-doubt · Forgetting · Bayesianism
1 Introduction How should we respond to evidence when our evidence indicates that we are rationally impaired? Christensen (2010) and Schoenfield (2018) have argued that there is a tension between conditionalization and the belief that you are rationally impaired. I offer a novel theory of how we should respond when we believe we are rationally impaired. I will argue that an extension of conditionalization applies in cases where the agent loses information, and then argue that cases of self-doubt can be assimilated to cases of losing information. Section 2 explains a case of believed rational impairment and Sect. 3 describes Christensen’s and Schoenfield’s positions. Section 4 shows how agents can respond to memory loss, then argues that a similar response is called for when self-doubting evidence is acquired. Section 5 applies the account to a series of cases that build up to the original case of believed rational impairment. Section 6 argues that this strategy can be used to guide agents by taking a step back and focussing on the synchronic constraints needed for both memory loss and self-doubt. Section 7 discusses objections. Section 8 concludes.
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Darren Bradley [email protected] Philosophy Department, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds University, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
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Synthese
2 Drug case Where there is a source of information, there is room for doubt about whether it is trustworthy. We’ll focus on two sources of information—memories and reason. We can doubt our memories and we can doubt that we are reasoning correctly. Let’s start with Christensen’s example1 which is most directly a case of self-doubt about reasoning: Drug Suppose first that I’m a rational scientist investigating some phenomenon experimentally, and suppose that, were I to get evidence E, it would give me excellent reason for confidence in G (say, because E is highly unexpected, and G would be a terrific explanation for E). And suppose it’s Sunday, and I’ll get the results of my experiment when I get to the lab Monday morning. In this case, it seems that these things may well be true of me: 1. I’m not highly confident that G is true. 2. I am highly confident that if I will learn E tomorrow, G is true. 3. If I get to the lab and learn that E is true, I should become highly confident that G is true. So the confidence in
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