Lotteries, Knowledge, and Rational Belief
Lotteries, Knowledge, and Rational Belief
Essays on the Lottery Paradox
We talk and think about our beliefs both in a categorical (yes/no) and in a graded way. How do the two kinds of belief hang together? The most straightforward answer is that we believe something categorically if we believe it to a high enough degree. But this seemingly obvious, near-platitudinous claim is known to give rise to a paradox commonly known as the 'lottery paradox' – at least when it is coupled with some further seeming near-platitudes about belief. How to resolve that paradox has been a matter of intense philosophical debate for over fifty years. This volume offers a collection of newly commissioned essays on the subject, all of which provide compelling reasons for rethinking many of the fundamentals of the debate.
- Covers various approaches to the lottery paradox
- Includes contributions from mainstream as well as formal epistemologists
- Provides an excellent overview of research on the lottery paradox from the last three decades
Product details
November 2022Paperback
9781108433051
278 pages
228 × 152 × 15 mm
0.4kg
Not yet published - available from February 2025
Table of Contents
- Introduction Igor Douven
- 1. Rational belief and statistical evidence: blame, bias, and the law Dana Nelkin
- 2. Knowledge attributions and lottery cases: a review and new evidence John Turri
- 3. The psychological dimension of the lottery paradox Jennifer Nagel
- 4. Three puzzles about lotteries Julia Staffel
- 5. Four arguments for denying that lottery beliefs are justified Martin Smith
- 6. Rethinking the lottery paradox: a dual processing perspective Igor Douven and Shira Elqayam
- 7. Rational belief in lottery- and preface-situations: impossibility results and possible solutions Gerhard Schurz
- 8. Stability and the lottery paradox Hannes Leitgeb
- 9. The lottery, the preface and epistemic rule consequentialism Christoph Kelp and Francesco Praolini
- 10. Beliefs, probabilities, and their coherent correspondence Kevin Kelly and Hanti Lin
- 11. The relation between degrees of belief and binary beliefs: a general impossibility theorem Franz Dietrich and Christian List
- Bibliography
- Index.
