In this paper I propose and motivate a logic of the interdefined concepts of making true and control, understood as intensional propositional operators to be indexed to an agent. While bearing a resemblance to earlier logics in the tradition, the motivations, semantics, and object language theory differ on crucial points. Applying this logic to widespread formal theories of agency, I use it as a framework to argue against the ubiquitous assumption that the strongest actions or options available to a given (...) agent must always be pairwise incompatible. The conclusion is that this assumption conflicts with failures of higher order control of agents over their degree or precision of control, failures exhibited by such imperfect agents as ourselves. I discuss models in this setting for understanding such imperfectly self-controlling agents. In an appendix, I prove several relevant results about the logic described, including soundness and completeness both for it and for certain natural extensions. (shrink)

Accuracy-first epistemology says that the rational update rule is the rule that maximizes expected accuracy. Externalism says, roughly, that we do not always know what our total evidence is. It’s been argued in recent years that the externalist faces a dilemma: Either deny that Bayesian Conditionalization is the rational update rule, thereby rejecting traditional Bayesian epistemology, or else deny that the rational update rule is the rule that maximizes expected accuracy, thereby rejecting the accuracy-first program. Call this the Bayesian Dilemma. (...) Here is roughly how the argument goes. Schoenfield (2017) has shown that following Metaconditionalization maximizes expected accuracy. But if externalism is true, Metaconditionalization is not Bayesian Conditionalization. Therefore, the externalist must choose between the rule that maximizes expected accuracy (Metaconditionalization) and Bayesian Conditionalization. I am not convinced by this argument; once we make the premises fully explicit, we see that it relies on assumptions that the externalist has every reason to reject. Still, I think that the Bayesian Dilemma is a genuine dilemma. I give a new argument—I call it the continuity argument—that doesn’t make any assumptions the externalist rejects. Roughly, I show that if you're sufficiently confident that you will correctly identify your evidence, then you'll expect adopting a rule that I call Accurate Metaconditionalization to be more accurate than adopting Bayesian Conditionalization. (shrink)