Comments on: Big Ideas

By: Aidan McGlynn

Aidan McGlynn — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 06:46:04 +0000

Of course Brian can give a better response when he gets the chance, but since he’s APAing I’ll give one reference to start things off. In ‘The Skeptic and the Dogmatist’ (Nous 34 (2000): 517-49), Pryor gives a reconstruction of the sceptical argument that he thinks puts it in a form which allows us to appreciate its true force, which can be translated into an argument against perceptual justification (530), and which allows the various lines of resistance to be mapped out as denials of a particular compenent of the argument (531). One way to resist the argument, which Brian has been discussing a lot recently, is to hold ‘that we can know we’re not being deceived by an evil demon (and so on) on purely a priori or non-perceptual grounds.’ (Pryor 531) If one doesn’t like that direction, one has to pick another point out as the weak point in the argument and tell some plausible story about why it is in fact a weak point.

So I’d start by looking at that paper, especially section 2.

By: Heath White

Heath White — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 23:48:02 +0000

OK, now can you give references for 3? Thanks.

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 19:55:02 +0000

Here are three important papers that Stalnaker has done on this topic.

“Knowledge, Belief, and Counterfactual Reasoning in Games.” In Cristina Bicchieri, Richard Jeffrey, and Brian Skyrms, eds., The Logic of Strategy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

“Belief Revision in Games: Forward and Backward Induction.” Mathematical Social Sciences (July 1998), 36(1):31-56.

“Knowledge, Belief and Counterfactual Reasoning in Games.” Economics and Philosophy (October 1996), 12(2):133-163.

By: P.Mod.

P.Mod. — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 19:35:52 +0000

Can you please elaborate on 6, or point to the relevant references? Thanks very much.