Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T23:01:39.806Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Truth-conduciveness as the primary epistemic justification of normative systems of reasoning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Gerhard Schurz
Gerhard Schurz
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Duesseldorf, D-40225 Duesseldorf, Germany. schurz@phil.uni-duesseldorf.dewww.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/philo/personal/thphil/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although I agree with Elqayam & Evans' (E&E's) criticisms of is-ought and ought-is fallacies, I criticize their rejection of normativism on two grounds: (1) Contrary to E&E's assumption, not every normative system of reasoning consists of formal rules. (2) E&E assume that norms of reasoning are grounded on intuition or authority, whereas in contemporary epistemology they have to be justified, primarily by their truth-conduciveness.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 34 , Issue 5 , October 2011 , pp. 266 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, E. W. (1998) A primer of probability logic. CSLI Press.Google Scholar
Bishop, M. A. & Trout, J. D. (2005) Epistemology and the psychology of human judgment. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, J. St. B. T., Handley, S. J. & Over, D. E. (2003) Conditionals and conditional probability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 29(2):321–55.Google Scholar
Frankena, W. (1963) Ethics, Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P. M. & the ABC Research Group, eds. (1999) Simple heuristics that make us smart. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. (1986) Epistemology and cognition. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. (1999) Knowledge in a social world. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldszmidt, M. & Pearl, J. (1996) Qualitative probabilities for default reasoning, belief revision and causal modeling. Artificial Intelligence 84:57–112.Google Scholar
Leitgeb, H. (2004) Inference on the low level. Kluwer.Google Scholar
Leplin, J. (2009) A theory of epistemic justification. Springer.Google Scholar
Oaksford, M. & Chater, N. (2007) Bayesian rationality: The probabilistic approach to human reasoning. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schurz, G. (1997) The is-ought problem: An investigation in philosophical logic. Kluwer.Google Scholar
Schurz, G. (1998) Probabilistic semantics for Delgrande's conditional logic and a counterexample to his default logic. Artificial Intelligence 102:81–95.Google Scholar
Schurz, G. (2005) Non-monotonic reasoning from an evolutionary viewpoint. Synthese 146(1–2):37–51.Google Scholar
Schurz, G. (2007) Human conditional reasoning explained by non-monotonicity and probability: An evolutionary account. In: Proceedings of EuroCogSci07. The European Cognitive Science Conference 2007, ed. Vosniadou, S., Kayser, D. & Protopapas, A., pp. 628–33. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Schurz, G. (2008) The meta-inductivist's winning strategy in the prediction game: A new approach to Hume's problem. Philosophy of Science 7:278–305.Google Scholar
Schurz, G. (2009) Meliorative reliabilist epistemology: Where externalism and internalism meet. Grazer Philosophische Studien 79:41–62.Google Scholar
Schurz, G. (2010) Non-trivial versions of Hume's is-ought thesis and their presuppositions. In: Hume on “Is” and “Ought”, ed. Pigden, C., pp. 198–216. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar