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Learning is a Risky Business

Myrvold, Wayne C. (2017) Learning is a Risky Business. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Richard Pettigrew has recently advanced a justification of the Principle of Indifference on the basis of a principle that he calls “cognitive conservatism,” or “extreme epistemic conservatism.” However, the credences based on the Principle of Indifference, as Pettigrew formulates it, violate another desideratum, namely, that learning from experience be possible. If it is accepted that learning from experience should be possible, this provides grounds for rejecting cognitive conservatism. Another set of criteria considered by Pettigrew, which involves a weighted mean of worst-case and best-case accuracy, affords some learning, but not the sort that one would expect. This raises the question of whether accuracy-based considerations can be adapted to justify credence functions that permit induction.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Myrvold, Wayne C.wmyrvold@uwo.ca0000-0002-7033-2647
Keywords: Accuracy; Principle of Indifference;
Subjects: General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
Depositing User: Wayne Myrvold
Date Deposited: 03 Jan 2018 22:05
Last Modified: 03 Jan 2018 22:05
Item ID: 14254
Subjects: General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
Date: October 2017
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/14254

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