Ben Holguin (NYU): Thinking, Guessing, and Believing
This talk defends the view, put roughly, that to believe that p is to guess that p is the answer to the question at hand, and that to rationally believe that p is for one’s guess to be non-arbitrary. Some theses that will be argued for along the way include: that belief is question-sensitive and, correspondingly, that ‘believes’ is context-sensitive; that it can be rational to believe that p while having arbitrarily low credence that p; that (nonetheless) rational belief is closed under entailment; that one can rationally believe that p, acquire evidence that makes p strictly more likely to be true, but as a result become rationally compelled to no longer believe that p; that (rational) belief does not supervene on (rational) credence; and that in many cases what one believes on certain matters is, in a very literal sense, a choice.
After the talks all are invited to socialise and continue discussion over drinks in the Ryle Room. If you would like to join for dinner after the drinks reception, please email daniel.kodsi@balliol.ox.ac.uk.
