Epistemic Judgments are Insensitive to Probabilities.

Multiple epistemological programs make use of intuitive judgments pertaining to an individual's ability to gain knowledge from exclusively probabilistic/statistical information. This paper argues that these judgments likely form without deference to such information, instead being a function of the...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Metaphilosophy Vol. 51; no. 4; pp. 499 - 522
Autor principal: Bricker, Adam Michael
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Wiley-Blackwell Jul2020
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:Multiple epistemological programs make use of intuitive judgments pertaining to an individual's ability to gain knowledge from exclusively probabilistic/statistical information. This paper argues that these judgments likely form without deference to such information, instead being a function of the degree to which having knowledge is representative of an agent. Thus, these judgments fit the pattern of formation via a representativeness heuristic, like that famously described by Kahneman and Tversky to explain similar probabilistic judgments. Given this broad insensitivity to probabilistic/statistical information, it directly follows that these epistemic judgments are insensitive to a given agent's epistemic status. From this, the paper concludes that, breaking with common epistemological practice, we cannot assume that such judgments are reliable.