Epistemic approaches towards understanding ultimate reality proceed chiefly via the rational, the empirical, and the fideistic way, each yielding a theological view consistent to the approach chosen. Rational theologies tend to be ultimately monist in nature, while empirical theologies are pluralistic, e.g. polytheism. Fideism has its dangers as well where blind faith only hampers scientific research. However, Indian philosophy has suggested few criteria for verifying a source of authoritative testimony. This dissertation investigates why an authentic revelation would (...) solve the ultimate clash between reason and experience. (shrink)

It is argued that standard accounts of the epistemology of religious commitmentfail to be properly sensitive to certain important features of the nature of religious conviction. Once one takes these features of religious conviction seriously, then it becomes clear that we are not to conceive of the epistemology of religious conviction along completely rational lines.But the moral to extract from this is not fideism, or even a more moderate proposal that casts the epistemic standing of basic religious beliefs (...) along nonrational lines. Rather, one needs to recognise that in an important sense religious convictions are not beliefs at all, but that this is compatible with the idea that many other religious commitments are beliefs. This picture of the nature of religious commitment is shown to fit snugly with the Wittgensteinian account of hinge commitments, such that all rational belief essentially presupposes certain basic arational hinge commitments, along lines originally suggested by John Henry Newman. We are thus able to marshal a parity-style argument in defence of religious commitment. Although religious belief presupposes basic arational religious convictions, it is not on this score epistemically amiss since all belief presupposes basic arational convictions, or hinge commitments. The resulting view of the epistemology of religious commitment is a position I call quasi-fideism. (shrink)

Close examination of the works of David Hume shows that his aim to explain the problem of evil is to attack natural theology and introduce it as a situation that is non-epistemological and unsystematic. So, contrary to what the majority of interpretations which typically express that he makes an argument against the existence of God, Hume wants to show that the statements of natural theology are rationally unprovable, and he does not want to totally decline them. As a matter of (...) fact, they ontologically exist, and are epistemologically out of human cognition. This article shows that the popular interpretation is false, and this would be done in two ways: the first is Hume’s statements about the cause of the world, and the second is Hume’s solutions for the problem of evil, that have mystical streaks. Based on these fact, it will be shown that Hume is not an atheist, but he is a mystical fideist. (shrink)

In recent years, Duncan Pritchard has developed a position in religious epistemology called quasi‐fideism that he claims traces back to John Henry Newman's treatment of the rationality of religious belief. In this paper, we give three reasons to think that Pritchard's reading of Newman as a quasi‐fideist is mistaken. First, Newman's parity argument does not claim that religious and non‐religious beliefs are on a par because both are groundless; instead, for Newman, they are on a par because both often (...) stem from implicit rather than explicit reasoning. Second, pace Pritchard, Newman's distinction between simple and complex assent does not map onto the Wittgensteinian distinction between groundless hinge commitments and beliefs that flow from these hinges. For Newman, simple and complex assent differ in terms of the believer's level of awareness of their grounds. Third, and finally, Newman does not reject Locke's evidentialism in toto. Instead, he argues that certitude is not restricted to beliefs stemming from intuition and demonstration but often rightly includes probabilistically supported (or fallibly evidenced) beliefs. (shrink)

Soren Kierkegaard was a profound and prolific writer in the Danish “golden age” of intellectual and artistic activity. His work crosses the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, literary criticism, devotional literature and fiction. Kierkegaard brought this potent mixture of discourses to bear as social critique and for the purpose of renewing Christian faith within Christendom. At the same time he made many original conceptual contributions to each of the disciplines he employed. He is known as the “father of existentialism”, but (...) at least as important are his critiques of his peer Hegel and of the German romantics, his contributions to the development of modernism, his literary experimentation, his vivid re-presentation of biblical figures to bring out their modern relevance, his invention of key concepts which have been explored and redeployed by thinkers ever since, his interventions in contemporary Danish church politics, and his fervent attempts to analyse and revitalise Christian faith. Kierkegaard is regarded by modern contemporaries as somewhat of an intellectual ‘time bomb’, although writing in the early 19th century, Kierkegaards ideas did not explode upon the western intellectual world until the 20th century. Both the contemporary philosophical and theological scenes have been profoundly influenced by this explosion, and chances are that in coming generations writers will still draw insight on some of Kierkegaards unique ideas. His philosophy on religious belief took centuries of philosophical discourse concerning the existence of God and took the discussion in a completely new direction. Up until the writing of Kierkegaard religious philosophy was centered around attempts to ‘prove’ Gods existence via means of a logically consistent, well reasoned argument ala Aquinas’ Five Ways, Anselm etc. To vindicate religious belief, one would traditionally offer some form of structured argument in favour of deity that appealed to reason e.g First Cause, Ontological argument etc, a field which is now known as apologetics-the intellectual defense of religious belief. For Kierkegaard however, reason and faith are a false dichotomy- rational argument and human reason are somewhat irrelevant to religious belief,and this plays a central role in his philosophical doctrine which is an attempt to vindicate Christian faith through his thesis that ‘truth is subjectivity’(Schaeffer, 1982). Firstly, what will be discussed here is a critical evaluation of Kierkegaards philosophy of religious belief as expounded in his works Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Secondly, a look at some responses and criticisms of Kierkegaards religious views- as he was a notoriously ambiguous and vague writer, he wrote the majority of his famous works pseudonymously, his work has been frequently scrutinised. Finally, concluding with an analysis of his philosophy and if we can consider his work a complete vindication of religious belief. (shrink)

Is belief in God rational? The atheist says “No” due to the lack of evidence. Theists who say “Yes” fall into two major categories: (1) those who claim that belief in God has sufficient evidence for it to be rational (i.e. Theistic evidentialists), and 2) those who claim that belief in God does not require evidence for it to be rational (i.e. Reformed epistemologists). Theists who say “No” are those who claim that belief in God does not (...) belong to the realm of the rational (i.e. Philosophical fideists). This paper seeks to explore the contention that there is enough evidence to ground rational belief in God. While this paper does not attempt to do a detailed analysis of the arguments for the existence of God, the writer will try to examine 1) what is rationality?, (2) is it rational to believe in God?, (3) what are the arguments against the rationality of belief in God?, and (4) what are the arguments for the rationality of belief in God? (shrink)

This paper examines the following three questions: (1) In The Rose Garden of Mystery (Golshan-e Rāz), how does the prominent 7-8th-century Iranian Sufi, Maḥmūd Shabistarī, distinguish the mystical “contemplation” and “rational reflection” in pursuing divine knowledge? (2) Was Shabistarī an anti-rationalist (strict fideist)? (3) How does Shabistarī’s position fit into the ancient Greek, Neoplatonist, and medieval Islamic and Christian metaphysics? This paper examines Golshan-e Rāz in the context of Shabistarī’s other works, commentaries, secondary sources, and Islamic thought—Sufism and philosophy. (...) Existing literature on Golshan-e Rāz primarily focuses on its literary aspects, neglecting its philosophical and mystical concepts. However, a thorough understanding requires examining these concepts in a broad context, which will inspire further research. The rationale behind this research is rooted in the religious obligation for believers to know God, with “thinking” as the means to acquire such knowledge. This is why the first question Herawī poses to Shabistarī pertains to the nature of thought—justifying this paper’s focus. Contemporary opposition to religion often stems from its perceived incongruity with the rational frameworks offered by positivism, materialism, or scientific inquiry. By differentiating between mystical and rational modes of thought that Shabistarī presents, this study shows the contemporary person that intellectual inquiry extends beyond rationalism and encompasses mysticism. Consequently, rational and mystical perspectives should be pursued in the quest for the divine. Furthermore, this study contends that Shabistarī should not be regarded as a strict fideist; instead, his criticism is directed toward the constraints inherent in rational thinking. (shrink)

There are three chief aims of the paper. First, it presents in short the beginning of the analytic philosophy of religion, its development, issues, and methods. Second, it puts forward a hypothesis that in the last five decades analytic philosophy of religion has been dominated by the epistemological paradigm, i.e. in most cases, any problem in question has been studied as part of the general problem of rationality of religious belief. That situation is changing slowly towards achieving more balance between (...) the issues of epistemology of religion and those concerned with philosophical theology. Third, the paper provides criteria for the classification of the different ways to understand the rationality of religious belief: the rationalistic and evidentialist approach, the natural theology approach, the Wittgensteinian fideism and Reformed epistemology approaches. A brief description of each of those four positions in epistemology of religion is included. (shrink)

Religious epistemology is the study of how subjects' religious beliefs can have, or fail to have, some form of positive epistemic status and whether they even need such status appropriate to their kind. The current debate is focused most centrally upon the kind of basis upon which a religious believer can be rationally justified in holding certain beliefs about God and whether it is necessary to be so justified to believe as a religious believer ought. Engaging these issues are primarily (...) three groups of people who call themselves ‘fideists’, ‘Reformed epistemologists’, and ‘evidentialists’. Each group has a position, but the positions are not mutually exclusive in every case, and in the debate, the names better describe the groups' emphases than mutually exclusive positions in the debate. In this article, we will first give a brief historical survey of evidentialism, fideism, and reformed epistemology. Second, we will give the fideist's position. Third, we will give the evidentialist's position. Fourth, we will give the reformed epistemologist's position, and last, we will include some comments on the current state of the debate, where we will show that the groups' positions are not mutually exclusive. (shrink)

What is faith? How is faith different than belief and hope? Is faith irrational? If not, how can faith go beyond the evidence? This chapter introduces the reader to philosophical questions involving faith and reason. First, we explore a four-part definition of faith. Then, we consider the question of how faith could be rational yet go beyond the evidence.

ENGLISH: The author investigates whether the model prevalent today of an “humble reason” - based on fallibilism and epistemic humility - is the most appropriate to express the theological truth, even in the light of the debate within the contemporary theism (rational theology). To answer this question it is necessary to examine the epistemological status of “human truth” and the “truth of faith”, in order to develop a common approach to sciences, philosophy and theology. Finally, the author shows how (...) the communitarian dimension and the “choice” (a call for freedom) are inherent to theology understood as “critical faith”, whose peculiarity is to posit itself without nostalgia in the middle between fideism, rationalism and a certain relativism. From the path, finally, it emerges the proposal of a new “cristeologia”. ITALIAN: Il rapporto tra fede e ragione è la questione meta-teologica per eccellenza. L’autore si propone dunque d’indagare se il modello oggi prevalente di “ragione umile” – basato su fallibilismo e umiltà epistemica – sia il più adeguato per esprimere le verità teologiche, anche alla luce del dibattito interno al teismo contemporaneo (teologia razionale). Per rispondere a questa domanda è necessario esaminare lo statuto epistemologico della verità umana e della verità di fede, per poter elaborare un metodo comune alle discipline scientifiche, filosofiche e teologiche, capace di trovare un equilibrio tra fideismo e positivismo teologico. Dopo una breve panoramica storica dei rapporti tra fede e ragione nel pensiero occidentale (con particolare attenzione alla dottrina dei praeambula fidei), l’articolo cercherà di mostrare come, nel paradigma della verità relazionale e del fallibilismo sia necessario integrare il problema delle fonti, dell’autorità, del concetto di ispirazione e della nozione di “rivelazione”, giacché contraddistinguono la teologia rispetto alla filosofia. Si mostrerà infine come la dimensione comunitaria e della scelta (appello alla libertà) siano connaturate alla teologia intesa come fede critica, la cui peculiarità è di collocarsi senza nostalgie nel mezzo tra fideismo, razionalismo e un certo relativismo. Dal percorso emergerà infine la proposta di una nuova "cristeologia". (shrink)

John Rawls shows a deep influence of David Hume’s thought, mainly at his Theory of Justice, though also at the rest of his works. This influence is well-known in the field of political philosophy, much less in the field of moral philosophy. Rawls reads Hume’s thought with a sceptic and naturalistic key, attributing him what he calls a “nature fideism”. Besides this, attributes to Hume an ethical and political position linked with the classical utilitarianism. Nevertheless, his skeptical epistemology will (...) move away, paradoxically, to Hume from the utilitarian positions. Hume’s ethics and politics will finish, according to Rawls, showing a purely descriptive character and a lack of normative purposes. Hume does not have in the strict sense a theory of practical reason. This article examines and puts in question this interpretation of Hume proposed by John Rawls. The philosophy of Hume is not aporetically skeptical, articulates the moral roles of reason and the passions; and finally, is not only connected with utilitarianism; his defense of the role of utility frees to his theory of some of the main contradictions of classical utilitarianism. Besides this, the theory of the “judicious spectator” can be considered a form of a theory of practical rationality. (shrink)

The study pursues, in a historical as well as in a systematic-analytical way, the reading of Descartes' philosophy as a project of a fundamental critique of theology and transcendence. Besides the exclusion of everything 'theological' from the field of rational discourse and its relegation to the field of fideism, this also involves the reinterpretation of the concept of 'God' as Descartes uses it, in a sense that is to be purified of transcendental, but especially of theistic implications.

The issue of faith and reason arises from the claim that there are two kinds of truths: some truths are discoverable to human understanding and some are not. This paper argues that the epistemology of the prominent orthodox protestant theologian John Owen (1616–1683) does not fit the labels of evidentialism and fideism. According to evidentialism, every cognitive act (including faith) must depend on evidence available to reason. According to fideism, there is no relation between faith and reason so (...) that nothing of reason can be counted for or against faith. But Owen is a fideist in the sense that faith is not based on rational evidence, and an evidentialist in the sense that Christian faith ought to have some rational or cognitive support. Philosophical arguments count in favour of faith and are not the ground of faith. The paper suggests that this nuanced view is a viable alternative and option. (shrink)

Human beings by nature are rational beings. They are endowed with the gift of intellect in order to known, discern, and examine their self, reality, and God. The proper end of man’s intellectual endeavor is the Truth. However, attaining the truth is not an immediate and simple endeavor. The history of man reveals how various thinkers have debated and argued concerning the truth. Especially during the medieval and enlightenment period where the critical clash between faith and reason took place. (...) The medieval period thinkers emphasized the authority of faith in understanding the truth who is God. on the other hand, the enlightenment thinkers abandoned the eligibility of faith and solely relied on the capacity of reason. hence, the problem is: Which among these two modes of learning – faith and reason - will enable man to elevate himself towards the truth? This controversy was being addressed by Pope John Paul II on his encyclical letter Fides et Ratio. In the letter, he emphasized the mutual relationship between faith and reason. These two are distinct yet complementary factors in journeying towards the truth. This relationship is also understood under the context of Aristotle’s theory of the golden mean. This theory suggests that man should strike the mean and avoid the two vices: excess and defect. By moderation, man will become virtuous. Applying to the dialogue between faith and reason, man should avoid exceeding in giving authority to either of the two. Excess in faith would result to fideism and excess in reason would result to rationalism. Hence, man should observe moderation in order to have a harmonious dialogue between faith and reason. In this paper, the researcher will expose the relevance of Aristotle’s theory of moderation towards harmonizing the dialogue between faith and reason as seen in the Fides et Ratio of Karol Wojtyla. First, the researcher will discuss Aristotle’s theory of the Golden Mean; second, the researcher will expose the relationship between faith and reason in Pope John Paul II’s fides et ratio; and third will be the application of Aristotelian Moderation in the context of the dialogical encounter between faith and reason. -/- . (shrink)

The work of Richard H. Popkin both introduced the concept of skeptical fideism and served to impressively document its importance in the philosophies of a diverse range of thinkers, including Montaigne, Pascal, Huet, and Bayle. Popkin’s landmark History of Scepticism, however, begins its coverage with the Renaissance. In this paper I explore the roots of skeptical fideism in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, with special attention to Cicero’s De Natura Deorum, the oldest surviving text to clearly develop a (...) skeptical fideist perspective. (shrink)

This paper explores an initially attractive principle connecting beliefs in general with beliefs about what beliefs are rational. The principle turns out to be violated by intuitively rational beliefs in some situations. The paper lays out some options for reacting to this fact.

This paper proposes a new account of bounded or minimal doxastic rationality (in the sense of Cherniak 1986), based on the notion that beliefs are answers to questions (à la Yalcin 2018). The core idea is that minimally rational beliefs are linked through thematic connections, rather than entailment relations. Consequently, such beliefs are not deductively closed, but they are closed under parthood (where a part is an entailment that answers a smaller question). And instead of avoiding all inconsistency, minimally (...) rational believers only avoid blatant inconsistencies (where some beliefs are blatantly inconsistent when they contradict one another on a particular question). Rather than cohering into a single overall world view, beliefs are more loosely connected in what is best described as a web of questions. This view of minimally rational belief naturally gives rise to an account of deductive inquiry on which deductive reasoning is a matter of posing new questions. (shrink)

Despite their success in describing and predicting cognitive behavior, the plausibility of so-called ‘rational explanations’ is often contested on the grounds of computational intractability. Several cognitive scientists have argued that such intractability is an orthogonal pseudoproblem, however, since rational explanations account for the ‘why’ of cognition but are agnostic about the ‘how’. Their central premise is that humans do not actually perform the rational calculations posited by their models, but only act as if they do. Whether or (...) not the problem of intractability is solved by recourse to ‘as if’ explanations critically depends, inter alia, on the semantics of the ‘as if’ connective. We examine the five most sensible explications in the literature, and conclude that none of them circumvents the problem. As a result, rational ‘as if’ explanations must obey the minimal computational constraint of tractability. (shrink)

My replies to Errol Lord, Adam Pautz, and Peter Railton's commentaries on The Rationality of Perception (2017).

Rationalization, in our intended sense of the term, occurs when a person favors a particular conclusion as a result of some factor (such as self-interest) that is of little justificatory epistemic relevance, if that factor then biases the person’s subsequent search for, and assessment of, potential justifications for the conclusion. Empirical evidence suggests that rationalization is common in people’s moral and philosophical thought. We argue that it is likely that the moral and philosophical thought of philosophers and moral psychologists is (...) also pervaded by rationalization. Moreover, although rationalization has some benefits, overall it would be epistemically better if the moral and philosophical reasoning of people, including professional academics, were not as heavily influenced by rationalization as it likely is. We discuss the significance of our arguments for cognitive management and epistemic responsibility. (shrink)

According to a well-known view in the philosophy of mind, intentional attitudes by their very nature satisfy requirements of rationality (e.g. Davidson 1980; Dennett 1987; Millar 2004). This view (which I shall call Constitutivism) features prominently as the ‘principle of minimal rationality’ in de Sousa’s monograph The Rationality of Emotion (1987). By explicating this principle in terms of the notion of the formal object of an attitude, de Sousa articulates an interesting and original version of Constitutivism, which differs in important (...) respects from other extant versions. In this paper, I explore this version of Constitutivism against the background of recent developments in the theory of rationality and make explicit its ramifications for the long-standing dispute over whether the mind is essentially normative. My focus will be on how to conceive of the form of the rationality requirements that attitudes as such must satisfy according to this principle. I argue that, although de Sousa seems officially to endorse a structuralist conception of rationality, according to which these requirements are requirements of coherence, his considerations on formal objects suggest that they are more aptly conceived in terms of a reasons-responsive conception of rationality. I further argue that which of these two readings we choose makes a significant difference to the prospect of vindicating the essential normativity of mind by invoking the principle of minimal rationality. (shrink)

Philosophers and theologians acknowledge that "fideism" is difficult to define but rarely agree on what the best characterization of the term is. In this article, I investigate the history of use of "fideism" to explore why its meaning has been so contested and thus why it has not always been helpful for resolving philosophical problems. I trace the use of the term from its origins in French theology to its current uses in philosophy and theology, concluding that " (...) class='Hi'>fideism" is helpful in resolving philosophical problems only when philosophers scrupulously acknowledge the tradition of use that informs their understanding of the word. (shrink)

When surveying the scholarly literature over Wittgensteinian fideism, it is easy to get the sense that the principal interlocutors, Kai Nielsen and D.Z. Phillips, talk past one another, but finding the right words for appraising the distance between the two voices is difficult. In this paper, I seek to appreciate this intellectual distance through an exploration of the varying philosophical aims of Nielsen and Phillips, of the different intellectual imperatives that guide their respective conceptions of philosophical practice. In so (...) doing, I seek to show how a contemplative mode in philosophy may be used to appraise a philosophical dispute and the terms of disagreement. In this case, a contemplative approach to understanding the dispute would frame Nielsen’s and Phillips’ contributions against the backdrop of the ends they conceive philosophy to have. (shrink)

NOTE: this is a substantial revision of a previously uploaded draft. Intuitions are often thought of as inputs to theoretical reasoning. For example, you might form a belief by taking an intuition at face value, or you might take your intuitions as starting points in the method of reflective equilibrium. The aim of this paper is to argue that in addition to these roles intuitions also play action-guiding roles. The argument proceeds by reflection on the transmission of justification through inference. (...) According to inferential internalists, in order to gain justification for believing the conclusion of an argument by inferring it from the premises in that argument one must “see” that the premises support the conclusion. I motivate this view and endorse the idea that one’s “seeing” such a support relation consists of one’s having an intuition. In a number of recent papers, Paul Boghossian has pressed a regress argument against inferential internalism inspired by Lewis Carroll’s dialogue “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles.” I develop a response to Bogossian’s argument according to which intuitions work like mental imperatives and inferences are mental actions performed by obeying them. After developing this response to Boghossian’s argument, I take up the question of what it is in virtue of which intuitions play a guidance role, when they do so. (shrink)

The normativity of so-called “coherence” or “structural” requirements of rationality has been hotly debated in recent years. However, relatively little has been said about the nature of structural rationality, or what makes a set of attitudes structurally irrational, if structural rationality is not ultimately a matter of responding correctly to reasons. This paper develops a novel account of incoherence (or structural irrationality), critically examining Alex Worsnip’s recent account. It first argues that Worsnip’s account both over-generates and under-generates incoherent patterns of (...) attitudes, and then proposes an alternative that both avoids these problems and captures a crucial insight behind Worsnip’s account. According to this account, a set of attitudes is incoherent just in case having all of the attitudes in that set is incompatible with reacting to a question in a way that one is, in virtue of having the attitudes, committed to. (shrink)

According to an influential view that I call agentialism, our capacity to believe and intend directly on the basis of reasons—our rational agency—has a normative significance that distinguishes it from other kinds of agency (Bilgrami 2006, Boyle 2011, Burge 1996, Korsgaard 1996, Moran 2001). Agentialists maintain that insofar as we exercise rational agency, we bear a special kind of responsibility for our beliefs and intentions; and it is only those attitudes that represent the exercise of rational agency (...) that are truly our own. In this paper I challenge these agentialist claims. My argument centers on a case in which a thinker struggles to align her belief to her reasons, and succeeds only by resorting to non-rational methods. Because she relies on non-rational methods, this revision of her belief does not express her rational agency, in the agentialist sense. I argue that this process nevertheless expresses her capacities for rationality and agency; that she is responsible for the belief shaped through this process; and that the revised belief is truly her own. So rational agency is not distinctive in the ways that agentialists contend. (shrink)

This entry considers the question of whether rationality is normative; that is, the question of whether one always ought (or, more weakly, has a reason) to be rational. It first distinguishes substantive from structural rationality, noting how structural rationality presents a more serious challenge to the thesis that rationality is normative. It then considers the plausibility of skepticism about structural rationality, and notes some problems facing such skepticism. However, if we are not skeptics about structural requirements, we face the (...) task of formulating those requirements. But both narrow-scope and wide-scope formulations seem incompatible with the idea that we always ought to be rational. This suggests that we have good reason to think that rationality is not strongly normative. (shrink)

Bounded rationality gets a bad rap in epistemology. It is argued that theories of bounded rationality are overly context‐sensitive; conventionalist; or dependent on ordinary language (Carr, 2022; Pasnau, 2013). In this paper, I have three aims. The first is to set out and motivate an approach to bounded rationality in epistemology inspired by traditional theories of bounded rationality in cognitive science. My second aim is to show how this approach can answer recent challenges raised for theories of bounded rationality. My (...) third aim is to clarify the role of rational ideals in bounded rationality. (shrink)

In his recent article in Philosophy and Public Affairs, 'The Paradox of Voting and Ethics of Political Representation', Alexander A. Guerrero argues it is rational to vote because each voter should want candidates they support to have the strongest public mandate possible if elected to office, and because every vote contributes to that mandate. The present paper argues that two of Guerrero's premises require correction, and that when those premises are corrected several provocative but compelling conclusions follow about the (...) rationality of voting and duties of elected officials: (A) Voting is typically rational for the members of a political party’s base; (B) Voting is often (but not always) irrational for “swing” voters (i.e. independent voters who are not affiliated with any political party, as well as “undecided” voters who are considering voting across party lines); and (C) Elected officials have a moral duty to respond to changing levels of popular support once in office, as indicated by properly monitored and corroborated public opinion polls of constituents, functioning more as delegates the lower their level of popular support. Finally, I suggest that the last of these conclusions has wide-ranging implications for political ethics. I illustrate these implications by focusing on the questions -- under debate in the 2016 US Presidential election cycle -- of whether a sitting President has a moral duty to nominate or not nominate a new Supreme Court justice during his or her final year in office, and similarly, whether US Senators have a moral duty to obstruct, or not obstruct, confirmation of the President’s eventual nominee. (shrink)

This article gives an overview of some recent debates about the relationship between reasons and rational requirements of coherence - e.g. the requirements to be consistent in our beliefs and intentions, and to intend what we take to be the necessary means to our ends.

: In the epistemology of the late Wittgenstein, a central place is given to the notion of the hinge: an arational commitment that provides a foundation of some sort for the rest of our beliefs. Quasi-fideism is an approach to the epistemology of religion that argues that religious belief is on an epistemic par with other sorts of belief inasmuch as religious and non-religious beliefs all rely on hinges. I consider in this paper what it takes to find the (...) appropriate hinge for a quasi-fideist approach to the epistemology of religion. (shrink)

Structural requirements of rationality prohibit various things, like having inconsistent combinations of attitudes, having means-end incoherent combinations of attitudes, and so on. But what is the distinctive feature of structural requirements of rationality? And do we fall under an obligation to be structurally rational? These issues have been at the heart of significant debates over the past fifteen years. Some philosophers have recently argued that we can unify the structural requirements of rationality by analyzing what is constitutive of our (...) attitudes (Lee, 2020; Worsnip, 2018a). It has also been suggested that, in the course of good first-personal deliberation, agents should treat structurally irrational combinations of attitudes as off-limits (Worsnip, 2021). In this paper, I raise a worry for these two theses concerning structural rationality. Roughly, I argue that some imperfect epistemic agents (like us) can be disposed to have structurally irrational combinations of attitudes. Also, when these imperfect agents deliberate, they should not treat structurally irrational combinations of attitudes as off-limits. Given our imperfections, being structurally irrational can very well be the best option we have. More generally, these observations reveal that structural rationality should not always be theorized independently from more “substantive” norms, like responsiveness to reasons or expected value optimization. (shrink)

How can we be responsible for our attitudes if we cannot normally choose what we believe, desire, feel, and intend? This problem has received much attention during the last decades, both in epistemology and in ethics. Yet its connections to discussions about reasons and rationality have been largely overlooked. Responsibility for Rationality is the first book that connects recent debates on responsibility and on rationality in a unifying dialectic. It achieves four main goals: first, it reinterprets the problem of responsibility (...) for attitudes as a problem about the normativity of rationality; second, it breaks the stalemate between rationalist and voluntarist accounts of mental responsibility by defending a hybrid view; third, it provides novel support to recent accounts of the normativity of rationality by arguing that epistemic reasons and other ‘right-kind’ reasons are genuine normative reasons; fourth, it sets the foundations and the research agenda for an ‘ethics of mind’, including an illustration of how to approach applied issues in epistemology within the presented framework. After spelling out connections between responsibility and rationality (part I), the book engages in debates in normative epistemology (part II) and brings them to bear on the broader field of an ethics of mind (part III). -/- Full draft of current version available on request, comments welcome! (shrink)

A discussion of epistemic reasons, theoretical rationality, and the relationship between them. Discusses the ontology of reasons and evidence, the relationship between reasons (motivating, normative, possessed, apparent, genuine, etc.) and rationality, the relationship between epistemic reasons and evidence, the relationship between rationality, justification, and knowledge, and many other related topics.

Epistemic akrasia can be rational. I consider a lonely pragmatist who believes that her imaginary friend doesn’t exist, and also believes on pragmatic grounds that she should believe in him. She rationally believes that her imaginary friend doesn’t exist, rationally follows various sources of evidence to the view that she should believe in him to end her loneliness, and rationally holds these attitudes simultaneously. Evidentialism suggests that her ambivalent epistemic state is rational, as considerations grounded in the value (...) of truth justify her beliefs. (shrink)

Predictable polarization is everywhere: we can often predict how people’s opinions, including our own, will shift over time. Extant theories either neglect the fact that we can predict our own polarization, or explain it through irrational mechanisms. They needn’t. Empirical studies suggest that polarization is predictable when evidence is ambiguous, that is, when the rational response is not obvious. I show how Bayesians should model such ambiguity and then prove that—assuming rational updates are those which obey the value (...) of evidence—ambiguity is necessary and sufficient for the rationality of predictable polarization. The main theoretical result is that there can be a series of such updates, each of which is individually expected to make you more accurate, but which together will predictably polarize you. Polarization results from asymmetric increases in accuracy. This mechanism is not only theoretically possible, but empirically plausible. I argue that cognitive search—searching a cognitively accessible space for a particular item—often yields asymmetrically ambiguous evidence, I present an experiment supporting its polarizing effects, and I use simulations to show how it can explain two of the core causes of polarization: confirmation bias and the group polarization effect. (shrink)

Eco-Rational Education proposes an educational response to climate change, environmental degradation, and desctructive human relations to ecology through the delivery of critical land-responsive environmental education. -/- The book argues that education is a powerful vehicle for both social change and cultural reproduction. It proposes that the prioritisation and integration of environmental education across the curriculum is essential to the development of ecologically rational citizens capable of responding to the environmental crisis and an increasingly changing world. Using philosophical analysis, (...) particularly environmental philosophy, pragmatism, and ecofeminism, the book develops an understanding of contemporary issues in education, especially inquiry-based learning as pedagogy, diversifying knowledge, environmental and epistemic justice, climate change education, and citizenship education. -/- Eco-Rational Education will be of interest to researchers and post-graduate students of social and political philosophy, educational philosophy, as well as environmental philosophy, ethics, and teacher education. (shrink)

The paper argues against a widely held synchronic view of emotional rationality. I begin by considering recent philosophical literature on various backward‐looking emotions, such as regret, grief, resentment, and anger. I articulate the general problem these accounts grapple with: a certain diminution in backward‐looking emotions seems fitting while the reasons for these emotions seem to persist. The problem, I argue, rests on the assumption that if the facts that give reason for an emotion remain unchanged, the emotion remains fitting. However, (...) I argue there are rationally self‐consuming attitudes: affective attitudes that become less fitting the longer they endure while the facts that give reason for them persist. A widely held synchronic view of fitting affective attitudes denies that fittingness at a time depends on the agent's attitudes at different times and therefore denies that the fittingness of an affective attitude can depend on its duration. Once we reject the synchronic view, we may see that affective attitudes are often fitting due to the fitting processes of which they are part. These fitting processes explain the fitting diminution of backward‐looking emotions as well as other diachronic aspects of the fittingness of emotions. -/- . (shrink)

There are at least two threads in our thought and talk about rationality, both practical and theoretical. In one sense, to be rational is to respond correctly to the reasons one has. Call this substantive rationality. In another sense, to be rational is to be coherent, or to have the right structural relations hold between one’s mental states, independently of whether those attitudes are justified. Call this structural rationality. According to the standard view, structural rationality is associated with (...) a distinctive set of requirements that mandate or prohibit certain combinations of attitudes, and it’s in virtue of violating these requirements that incoherent agents are irrational. I think the standard view is mistaken. The goal of this paper is to explain why, and to motivate an alternative account: rather than corresponding to a set of law-like requirements, structural rationality should be seen as corresponding to a distinctive kind of pro tanto rational pressure—i.e. something that comes in degrees, having both magnitude and direction. Something similar is standardly assumed to be true of substantive rationality. On the resulting picture, each dimension of rational evaluation is associated with a distinct kind of rational pressure—substantive rationality with (what I call) justificatory pressure and structural rationality with attitudinal pressure. The former is generated by one’s reasons while the latter is generated by one’s attitudes. Requirements turn out to be at best a footnote in the theory of rationality. (shrink)

This paper is about the connection between rationality and accuracy. I show that one natural picture about how rationality and accuracy are connected emerges if we assume that rational agents are rationally omniscient. I then develop an alternative picture that allows us to relax this assumption, in order to accommodate certain views about higher order evidence.

This chapter addresses an ambiguity in some of the literature on rational peer disagreement about the use of the term 'rational'. In the literature 'rational' is used to describe a variety of normative statuses related to reasons, justification, and reasoning. This chapter focuses most closely on the upshot of peer disagreement for what is rationally required of parties to a peer disagreement. This follows recent work in theoretical reason which treats rationality as a system of requirements among (...) an agent's mental states. It is argued that peer disagreement has either no, or a very limited, affect on what rationality requires of an agent in a given circumstance. This is in part because of difficulties generated by a novel example of evidence of evidence of p being evidence against p. This example calls into question the mechanisms whereby peer disagreement might affect what is rationally required of an agent. The chapter also reevaluates the importance of actual peer disagreement against the backdrop of prior expectations about whether disagreement is believed to be likely, arguing that peer disagreement is most likely to change what is rationally required of an agent when it is believed to be unlikely. (shrink)

Epistemic akrasia arises when one holds a belief even though one judges it to be irrational or unjustified. While there is some debate about whether epistemic akrasia is possible, this paper will assume for the sake of argument that it is in order to consider whether it can be rational. The paper will show that it can. More precisely, cases can arise in which both the belief one judges to be irrational and one’s judgment of it are epistemically (...) class='Hi'>rational in the sense that both are supported by sufficient evidence. (shrink)

Does rationality require logical omniscience? Our best formal theories of rationality imply that it does, but our ordinary evaluations of rationality seem to suggest otherwise. This paper aims to resolve the tension by arguing that our ordinary evaluations of rationality are not only consistent with the thesis that rationality requires logical omniscience, but also provide a compelling rationale for accepting this thesis in the first place. This paper also defends an account of apriori justification for logical beliefs that is designed (...) to explain the rational requirement of logical omniscience. On this account, apriori justification for beliefs about logic has its source in logical facts, rather than psychological facts about experience, reasoning, or understanding. This account has important consequences for the epistemic role of experience in the logical domain. In a slogan, the epistemic role of experience in the apriori domain is not a justifying role, but rather an enabling and disabling role. (shrink)

We argue that the aesthetic domain falls inside the scope of rationality, but does so in its own way. Aesthetic judgment is a stance neither on whether a proposition is to be believed nor on whether an action is to be done, but on whether an object is to be appreciated. Aesthetic judgment is simply appreciation. Correlatively, reasons supporting theoretical, practical and aesthetic judgments operate in fundamentally different ways. The irreducibility of the aesthetic domain is due to the fact that (...) aesthetic judgment is a sensory-affective disclosure of, and responsiveness to, merit: it is a feeling that presents an object, and is responsive to it, as worthy of being liked. Aesthetic judgment is thus shown to be, on the hand, first personal and non-transferable; and, on the other hand, a presentation of reality. We thereby capture what is right in both subjectivist and objectivist conceptions of aesthetic judgment. (shrink)

The demands of rationality are linked both to our subjective normative perspective (given that rationality is a person-level concept) and to objective reasons or favoring relations (given that rationality is non-contingently authoritative for us). In this paper, I propose a new way of reconciling the tension between these two aspects: roughly, what rationality requires of us is having the attitudes that correspond to our take on reasons in the light of our evidence, but only if it is competent. I show (...) how this view can account for structural rationality on the assumption that intentions and beliefs as such involve competent perceptions of downstream reasons, and explore various implications of the account. (shrink)

What is structural rationality? Specifically, what is the distinctive feature of structural requirements of rationality? Some philosophers have argued, roughly, that the distinctive feature of structural requirements is coherence. But what does coherence mean, exactly? Or, at least, what do structuralists about rationality have in mind when they claim that structural rationality is coherence? This issue matters for making progress in various active debates concerning rationality. In this paper, I analyze three strategies for figuring out what coherence means in the (...) debates on structural rationality. I argue that these strategies face problems. (shrink)

The approximate number system (ANS) enables organisms to represent the approximate number of items in an observed collection, quickly and independently of natural language. Recently, it has been proposed that the ANS goes beyond representing natural numbers by extracting and representing rational numbers (Clarke & Beck, 2021a). Prior work demonstrates that adults and children discriminate ratios in an approximate and ratio-dependent manner, consistent with the hallmarks of the ANS. Here, we use a well-known “connectedness illusion” to provide evidence that (...) these ratio-dependent ratio discriminations are (a) based on the perceived number of items in seen displays (and not just non-numerical confounds), (b) are not dependent on verbal working memory, or explicit counting routines, and (c) involve representations with a part-whole (or subset-superset) format, like a fraction, rather than a part-part format, like a ratio. These results vindicate key predictions of the hypothesis that the ANS represents rational numbers. (shrink)

Do people tend to be overconfident? Many think so. They’ve run studies on whether people are calibrated: whether their average confidence in their opinions matches the proportion of those opinions that are true. Under certain conditions, people are systematically ‘over-calibrated’—for example, of the opinions they’re 80% confident in, only 60% are true. From this empirical over-calibration, it’s inferred that people are irrationally overconfident. My question: When and why is this inference warranted? Answering it requires articulating a general connection between being (...) rational and being right—something extant studies have not done. I show how to do so using the notion of deference. This provides a theoretical foundation for calibration research, but also reveals a flaw: the connection between being rational and being right is much weaker than is standardly assumed, since rational people can often be expected to be miscalibrated. Thus we can’t test whether people are overconfident by simply testing whether they are over-calibrated; instead, we must try to predict the rational deviations from calibration, and then compare those predictions to people’s performance. I show how this can be done—and that doing so complicates the interpretation of robust empirical effects. (shrink)