James Joyce's article “A Nonpragmatic Vindication of Probabilism” introduced an approach to arguing for credal norms by appealing to the epistemic value of accuracy. The central thought was that credences ought to accurately represent the world, a guiding thought that has gone on to generate an entire research paradigm on the rationality of credences. Recently, a number of epistemologists have begun to apply this same thought to full beliefs, attempting to explain and argue for norms of belief in terms of (...) epistemic value. This paper examines these recent attempts, showing how they interact with work on the accuracy of credences. It then examines how differing judgments about epistemic value give rise to distinct rational requirements for belief, concluding by considering some of the fundamental questions and issues yet to be fully explored. (shrink)

According to an increasingly popular epistemological view, people need outright beliefs in addition to credences to simplify their reasoning. Outright beliefs simplify reasoning by allowing thinkers to ignore small error probabilities. What is outright believed can change between contexts. It has been claimed that thinkers manage shifts in their outright beliefs and credences across contexts by an updating procedure resembling conditionalization, which I call pseudo-conditionalization (PC). But conditionalization is notoriously complicated. The claim that thinkers manage their beliefs via PC is (...) thus in tension with the view that the function of beliefs is to simplify our reasoning. I propose to resolve this puzzle by rejecting the view that thinkers employ PC. Based on this solution, I furthermore argue for a descriptive and a normative claim. The descriptive claim is that the available strategies for managing beliefs and credences across contexts that are compatible with the simplifying function of outright beliefs can generate synchronic and diachronic incoherence in a thinker’s attitudes. Moreover, I argue that the view of outright belief as a simplifying heuristic is incompatible with the view that there are ideal norms of coherence or consistency governing outright beliefs that are too complicated for human thinkers to comply with. (shrink)

Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Volume 52, Issue 4, Page 235-257, July 2022. Charles Pigden’s 1995 article “Popper Revisited, or What is Wrong with Conspiracy Theories?” stimulated what is today a fertile sub-field of philosophical enquiry into conspiracy theories. In his article, Pigden identifies Karl Popper as the originator of the philosophical argument that it is naïve to believe in any conspiracy theory. But Popper was not criticizing belief in conspiracy theories at all, as Pigden defined them or as they (...) have usually come to be understood since about the 1960s. Pigden has therefore fundamentally and anachronistically misinterpreted Popper. The object of Popper’s criticism was, rather, the inadequate approach to social science that is limited to the discovery of human intentions, including conspiracies, in particular the will of Great Men. Popper’s critique of the conspiracy theory of society was correct and should be rehabilitated. Pigden is correct only insofar as he concludes that we should not dismiss conspiracy theories without critical evaluation, a proposition with which Popper would likely have wholeheartedly agreed. (shrink)

Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Volume 52, Issue 4, Page 235-257, July 2022. Charles Pigden’s 1995 article “Popper Revisited, or What is Wrong with Conspiracy Theories?” stimulated what is today a fertile sub-field of philosophical enquiry into conspiracy theories. In his article, Pigden identifies Karl Popper as the originator of the philosophical argument that it is naïve to believe in any conspiracy theory. But Popper was not criticizing belief in conspiracy theories at all, as Pigden defined them or as they (...) have usually come to be understood since about the 1960s. Pigden has therefore fundamentally and anachronistically misinterpreted Popper. The object of Popper’s criticism was, rather, the inadequate approach to social science that is limited to the discovery of human intentions, including conspiracies, in particular the will of Great Men. Popper’s critique of the conspiracy theory of society was correct and should be rehabilitated. Pigden is correct only insofar as he concludes that we should not dismiss conspiracy theories without critical evaluation, a proposition with which Popper would likely have wholeheartedly agreed. (shrink)