Philosophy of Mind Seminar (Friday - Week 2, HT26)

(Joint work with Jake Quilty-Dunn)

Abstract: It’s not always the right time to update on new information. You might get more epistemically out of updating on a proposition later than if you do so now. Given the nature of human belief, once updating is performed, it is surprisingly difficult to go back and modify resulting belief states. Updating can also disrupt epistemically rewarding practices of inquiry. We argue on these grounds that agents are sometimes rationally required to hold onto (or “hoard”) information that they learn, and to update on it only when certain conditions are met. It follows from this picture that belief update has some properties in common with rational action. We also provide a sketch of how to integrate cognitive hoarding into formal epistemology.