Justification and the growth of error.
It is widely thought that in fallible reasoning potential error necessarily increases with every additional step, whether inferences or premises, in the same way that the probability of a lengthening conjunction shrinks. However, this has the absurd consequence that consulting an expert, proof-check...
| Published in: | Philosophical Studies Vol. 165; no. 2; pp. 527 - 552 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Sep2013
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=89769567&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 89769567 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00318116 4L8 jtl: Philosophical Studies issn: 00318116 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2013 vid: 165 iid: 2 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 89769567 10.1007/s11098-012-9967-7 ppf: 527 ppct: 25 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 281KB tig: atl: Justification and the growth of error. aug: au: Roush, Sherrilyn affil: Department of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley USA su: Error Justification (Ethics) Externalism (Philosophy of mind) Internalism (Theory of knowledge) Reasoning sug: subj: Error Justification (Ethics) Externalism (Philosophy of mind) Internalism (Theory of knowledge) Reasoning keyword: Connection thesis Consulting experts Double-checking Evidence Externalism Gap-free proof Growth of error Internalism Justification Proof-checking Reliability Reliability-checking Total probability ab: It is widely thought that in fallible reasoning potential error necessarily increases with every additional step, whether inferences or premises, in the same way that the probability of a lengthening conjunction shrinks. However, this has the absurd consequence that consulting an expert, proof-checking, filling gaps in proofs, and gathering more evidence for a given conclusion necessarily make us worse off, since they also add more steps. I will argue that the self-help steps listed here are of a distinctive type, involving composition rather than conjunction. Error grows differently over composition than over conjunction, I argue, and this dissolves the apparent paradox. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Philosophical Studies is a copyright of Springer, 2013. All Rights Reserved. item: Philosophical Studies holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2013 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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