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Second-Guessing: A Self-Help Manual

Roush, Sherrilyn (2009) Second-Guessing: A Self-Help Manual. Episteme, 6 (3). pp. 251-268.

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Abstract

I develop a general framework with a rationality constraint that shows how coherently to represent and deal with second-order information about one’s own judgmental reliability. It is a rejection of and generalization away from the typical Bayesian requirements of unconditional judgmental self-respect and perfect knowledge of one’s own beliefs, and is defended by appeal to the Principal Principle. This yields consequences about maintaining unity of the self, about symmetries and asymmetries between the first- and third-person, and a principled way of knowing when to stop second-guessing oneself. Peer disagreement is treated as a special case where one doubts oneself because of news that an intellectual equal disagrees. This framework, and variants of it, imply that the typically stated belief that an equally reliably peer disagrees is incoherent, and thus that pure rationality constraints without further substantive information cannot give an answer as to what to do. The framework also shows that treating both ourselves and others as thermometers in the disagreement situation does not imply the Equal Weight view.


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Item Type: Published Article or Volume
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Roush, Sherrilynsherri.roush@gmail.com
Keywords: disagreement, higher-order evidence, Principal Principle, second-order probability
Subjects: General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
General Issues > Evidence
Depositing User: Sherrilyn Roush
Date Deposited: 30 Jun 2020 02:39
Last Modified: 30 Jun 2020 02:39
Item ID: 17410
Journal or Publication Title: Episteme
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.3366/E1742360009000690
DOI or Unique Handle: 10.3366/E1742360009000690
Subjects: General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
General Issues > Evidence
Date: 2009
Page Range: pp. 251-268
Volume: 6
Number: 3
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/17410

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