Evidence: A Guide for the Uncertain

Abstract

Assume that it is your evidence that determines what opinions you should have. I argue that since you should take peer disagreement seriously, evidence must have two features. (1) It must sometimes warrant being modest: uncertain what your evidence warrants, and (thus) uncertain whether you're rational. (2) But it must always warrant being guided : disposed to treat your evidence as a guide. It is surprisingly difficult to vindicate these dual constraints. But diagnosing why this is so leads to a proposal-Trust-that is weak enough to allow modesty but strong enough to yield many guiding features. In fact, I argue that Trust is the Goldilocks principle-for it is necessary and sufficient to vindicate the claim that you should always prefer to use free evidence. Upshot: Trust lays the foundations for a theory of disagreement and, more generally, an epistemology that permits self-doubt-a modest epistemology.

Higher-Order Uncertainty

“…I have proposed such a theory elsewhere (Dorst 2018). But the framework proposed here is compatible with many, many alternatives.…”

The Humility Heuristic, or: People Worth Trusting Admit to What They Don’t Know

“…6 A remark on terminology here: the term "epistemic humility" (together with its close cousin "epistemic modesty") has been given a number of different meanings in the philosophical literature. For example, Elga (2016) stipulates that you're "epistemically humble" iff you're uncertain about whether your beliefs will converge to the truth given enough evidence, and Dorst (2019) stipulates that you're "epistemically modest" iff you're uncertain about what it is rational for you to believe. My usage of the term "epistemic humility" differs from both Elga's and Dorst's.…”

Does rationality demand higher-order certainty?

“…6 As usual, the mathematical expectation of a discrete random variable, X, calculated with respect to a probability function, P, is defined as follows: P(X) = ∑xP(X = x)x. 7 E.g., Christensen (2010b), Sliwa and Horowitz (2015), and Dorst (2019a;2019b). 8 For those interested in the technical details, Dorst (2019a;2019b) provides an excellent formal characterization of the result.…”

“…7 E.g., Christensen (2010b), Sliwa and Horowitz (2015), and Dorst (2019a;2019b). 8 For those interested in the technical details, Dorst (2019a;2019b) provides an excellent formal characterization of the result. Elga's own formulation of the proof goes as follows: let P' be any credence function that the agent thinks might be ideally rational.…”

“…The first option is to accept the Anti-Dogmatism Argument and deny the Anti-Akrasia Argument. This option has been explored in recent writings by Kevin Dorst (2019a;2019b). Very roughly, he argues that higher-order uncertainty need only commit us to certain moderate instances of epistemic akrasia, which we should be prepared to accept as rational.…”