Decision Theory as a primary part of Critical Thinking Courses

Episteme

Epistemic burdens – the nature and extent of our ignorance (that and how) with respect to various courses of action – serve to determine our incentive structures. Courses of action that seem to bear impossibly heavy epistemic burdens are typically not counted as options in an actor's menu, while courses of action that seem to bear comparatively heavy epistemic burdens are systematically discounted in an actor's menu relative to options that appear less epistemically burdensome. That ignorance serves to determine what counts as an option means that epistemic considerations are logically prior to moral, prudential, and economic considerations: in order to have moral, prudential, or economic obligations, one must have options, and epistemic burdens serve to determine our options. One cannot have obligations without doing some epistemic work. We defend this claim on introspective grounds. We also consider how epistemic burdens distort surrogate decision-making. The unique episte...

Mind, 2013

I explore the prospects for modelling epistemic rationality (in the probabilist setting) via an epistemic decision theory, in a consequentialist spirit. Previous work has focused on cases in which the truth-values of the propositions in which the agent is selecting credences do not depend, either causally or merely evidentially, on the agent's choice of credences. Relaxing that restriction leads to a proliferation of puzzle cases and theories to deal with them, including epistemic analogues of evidential and causal decision theory, and of the Newcomb problem and 'Psychopath Button' problem. A variant of causal epistemic decision theory deals well with most cases. However, there is a recalcitrant class of problem cases for which no epistemic decision theory seems able to match our intuitive judgements of epistemic rationality. This lends both precision and credence to the view that there is a fundamental mismatch between epistemic consequentialism and the intuitive notion of epistemic rationality; the implications for understanding the latter are briefly discussed.

2006

2023

The thesis of experiential revelation-Rev for brevity-in the philosophy of mind claims that to have an experience-i.e., to be acquainted with it-is to know its nature. It is widely agreed that although at least moderate versions of Rev might strike one as plausible and perhaps even appealing, at least up to a certain extent, most of them are nonetheless inconsistent with almost any coherent form of physicalism about the mind. Thus far, the issue of the alleged tension between Rev and physicalism has mostly been put in the relevant literature in terms of phenomenal concepts-those concepts which refer to phenomenal properties, or qualia, and characterize them in terms of the peculiar quality(ies) they exhibit-and some kind of "special feature" those concepts allegedly possess. I call this version of Rev C-Rev. This paper aims to suggest that while it is true that phenomenal concepts reveal the nature of their referent(s)-i.e., it is a priori, for a subject possessing the concept and just in virtue of possessing it, what it is for the referent(s) of the concept to be part of reality-this feature of them, in turn, rests on a nonconceptual non-propositional kind of knowledge, namely, sui generis introspective knowledge by acquaintance of one's own phenomenally conscious states. I call this version of Rev A-Rev. §1 provides some introductory material. In §2 I discuss two arguments that have recently been put forth to undermine the cogency of C-Rev against physicalism. §3 elaborates on the historical roots of C-Rev. §4 presents some of the major arguments which have been offered for A-Rev. A few concluding remarks close the paper.

This article examines the philosophical necessity of beginning from divine Revelation as the foundational axiom of thought. It challenges the modern assumption that rationality must be self-grounding, arguing instead that every philosophical system depends on unprovable first principles. Drawing on thinkers such as Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Collingwood, and Gilson, the study contends that Revelation—far from being irrational or fideistic—functions as the only legitimate meta-rational ground for reason itself. The argument is developed historically through the lens of Lactantius, who proposed that without the “rule of faith,” philosophy remains adrift among competing opinions. From this starting point, the article explores the Bahá’í paradigm in which the Manifestation of God is not only the source of revealed truth but also the ontological and epistemological axis around which all knowledge coheres. Revelation is shown to be the origin of philosophy, the ground of metaphysical closure, the telos of epistemic integration, and the condition for ethical world-building. The article concludes by reinterpreting ten interrelated Bahá’í philosophical studies as logical consequences of adopting Revelation as the first principle. In so doing, it defends faith not as an abandonment of reason, but as its fulfillment—an alignment with the source of intelligibility and the foundation for true rationality.

Philosophical Quarterly, 2004

A Priori Justification. By Albert Casullo.Epistemic Justification: Internalism vs Externalism, Foundations vs Virtues. By Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa.New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge. Edited by Susana Nuccetelli.Pathways to Knowledge: Private and Public. By Alvin I. Goldman.The Sceptics: Contemporary Essays. Edited by Steven Luper.Thinking about Knowing. By Jay F. Rosenberg.

Penultimate draft of Introduction to a special issue of Discourse Studies V. 18, no. 2 on "The epistemics of Epistemics." The published draft is available through the journal Discourse Studies.

Australasian Philosophical Review, 2022

This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. It will be published in its final form in an upcoming issue of Australasian Philosophical Review). This paper focuses on three aspects of Dormandy's discussion: Evidentialism about Faith, stubborn counterevidence and horrendous evils (HE). 1 On Dormandy's account, 'Evidentialism about Faith' says: Respect for evidence about the object of faith is an excellent-making feature of faith, even though this may, in a world like ours, mean forming negative beliefs about that object. [Dormandy forthcoming: 14]. On Dormandy's account, there exists much apparently stubborn counterevidence in our world, on the basis of which, any competent person who respects her evidence would likely form negative beliefs about God [ibid.: 2, 4, 5, 8, 14, 15 20]. This paper focuses on (HE) as a form of stubborn counterevidence [ibid.: 4, 8]. On my reading, there are two ways to understand how likely it would be, on Dormandy's account, for the evidentialist to form negative beliefs about God due to (HE). On the weaker view, it is logically possible for an evidentialist to form negative beliefs about God. Dormandy explains that respect for evidence 'may' mean forming negative beliefs [ibid.: 14]. On the stronger view, due to our world being filled with stubborn counterevidence, it is highly probable that an evidentialist would form negative beliefs about God [ibid.: 2, 5]. Against the stronger view, I consider the case of the Theistic Evidentialist. A Committed Theistic Evidentialist is an evidentialist who possesses a defeater belief against (HE). An Uncommitted Theistic Evidentialist is an evidentialist who allows that some defeater belief against (HE) might be true. Both these positions are important as I suspect that most theists who are evidentialists would subscribe to some defeater belief against apparently stubborn evidence, and even if one is not a theist, I suspect that the number of evidentialists who are willing to countenance the possibility that some defeater belief might be true would be rather significant. This paper focuses primarily on the Committed

2008

John Hawthorne’s marvelous book contains a wealth of arguments and insights based on an impressive knowledge and understanding of contemporary discussion. We can address only a small aspect of the topic. In particular, we will offer our own answers to two questions about knowledge that he discusses. (Q1) Why is it intuitively correct that one can know one will be in San Francisco next year but not intuitively correct that one can know one won’t die in the interim? (Q2) Why is it intuitively correct that one can know using statistical reasoning that a given coin is not heavily biased toward heads by tossing it a few times but not intuitively correct that one can know using statistical reasoning that one’s lottery ticket is not the winning ticket? The paper will appeal to two theses about knowledge that seem to us correct. (T1) What one knows can and usually does rest on assumptions one justifiably takes for granted without knowing them to be true. (T2) One knows only if one believes ...