Belief's own ethics / Jonathan E. Adler.

By:

Adler, Jonathan Eric, 1948-

Material type: Text

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

9780262266826
0262266822
9780585436159
0585436150
9780262511940
0262511940
0262261375
9780262261371

Subject(s): Genre/Form:

Additional physical formats: Print version:: Belief's own ethics.DDC classification:

121/.6 21

LOC classification:

BD215 .A35 2002eb

NLM classification:

ELECTRONIC BOOK

Online resources:

EBSCOhost

Contents:

1. Getting off the wrong track -- 2. Can one will to believe? -- 3. Normative epistemology : the deceptively large scope of the incoherence test -- 4. Evading evidentialism and exploiting "possibility" : strategies of ignorance, isolation, and inflation -- 5. Testimony : background reasons to accept the word of others -- 6. Tacit confirmation and the regress -- 7. Three paradoxes of belief -- 8. Constraints on us to fully believe -- 9. Interlude-transparency, full belief, accommodation -- 10. The compatibility of full belief and doubt -- 11. Prospects for self-control : reasonableness, self-correction, and the fallibility structure.

Summary: The fundamental question of the ethics of belief is "What ought one to believe?" According to the traditional view of evidentialism, the strength of one's beliefs should be proportionate to the evidence. Conventional ways of defending and challenging evidentialism rely on the idea that what one ought to believe is a matter of what it is rational, prudent, ethical, or personally fulfilling to believe. Common to all these approaches is that they look outside of belief itself to determine what one ought to believe. In this book Jonathan Adler offers a strengthened version of evidentialism, arguing that the ethics of belief should be rooted in the concept of belief--that evidentialism is belief's own ethics. A key observation is that it is not merely that one ought not, but that one cannot, believe, for example, that the number of stars is even. The "cannot" represents a conceptual barrier, not just an inability. Therefore belief in defiance of one's evidence (or evidentialism) is impossible. Adler addresses such questions as irrational beliefs, reasonableness, control over beliefs, and whether justifying beliefs requires a foundation. Although he treats the ethics of belief as a central topic in epistemology, his ideas also bear on rationality, argument and pragmatics, philosophy of religion, ethics, and social cognitive psychology.

Holdings ( 1 )
Title notes ( 7 )

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
eBook	e-Library	EBSCO Psychology		Available

Total holds: 0

"A Bradford book."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 331-347) and index.

Print version record.

English.

The fundamental question of the ethics of belief is "What ought one to believe?" According to the traditional view of evidentialism, the strength of one's beliefs should be proportionate to the evidence. Conventional ways of defending and challenging evidentialism rely on the idea that what one ought to believe is a matter of what it is rational, prudent, ethical, or personally fulfilling to believe. Common to all these approaches is that they look outside of belief itself to determine what one ought to believe. In this book Jonathan Adler offers a strengthened version of evidentialism, arguing that the ethics of belief should be rooted in the concept of belief--that evidentialism is belief's own ethics. A key observation is that it is not merely that one ought not, but that one cannot, believe, for example, that the number of stars is even. The "cannot" represents a conceptual barrier, not just an inability. Therefore belief in defiance of one's evidence (or evidentialism) is impossible. Adler addresses such questions as irrational beliefs, reasonableness, control over beliefs, and whether justifying beliefs requires a foundation. Although he treats the ethics of belief as a central topic in epistemology, his ideas also bear on rationality, argument and pragmatics, philosophy of religion, ethics, and social cognitive psychology.

WorldCat record variable field(s) change: 650