Unsettled Thoughts

A Theory of Degrees of Rationality

By: Julia Staffel

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Hardcover | 19 December 2019

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Hardcover
256 Pages

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24.1 x 16.5 x 2.1

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How should thinkers cope with uncertainty? What makes their degrees of belief rational, and how should they reason about uncertain matters? In epistemology, recent research has attempted to answer these questions by developing formal models of ideally rational credences. However, we know from psychological research that perfect rationality is unattainable for human thinkers--and so this raises the question of how rational ideals can apply to human thinkers. A popular reply is that the more a thinker's imperfectly rational credences approximate compliance with norms of ideal rationality, the better. But what exactly does this mean? Why is it better to be less irrational, if we can't ever be completely rational? And what does being closer to ideally rational amount to? If ideal models of rationality are supposed to help us understand the rationality of human, imperfect thinkers, we need answers to these questions. Unsettled Thoughts breaks new ground in the study of rationality in
providing these answers: we can explain why it's better to be less irrational, because less irrational degrees of belief are generally more accurate and better at guiding our actions. Moreover, the way in which approximating ideal rationality is beneficial can be made formally precise by using a variety of distance measures that track the benefits of being more rational.

Industry Reviews

...rich and rewarding text. I cannot recommend Unsettled Thoughts strongly enough. If you haven't bought and read a copy of it yet, I urge you to do so. It truly repays careful study. * Branden Fitelson, Philosophical Studies *
...excellent book. * Jason Konek, Philosophical Studies *
I argue that for beliefs to properly play their simplifying role, reasoning with beliefs must inevitably lead to small degrees of incoherence among the agent's attitudes. There are many interesting questions about how to think of rationality as a graded notion that Unsettled Thoughts leaves open, and I point out a slew of them in Chap. 10. My hope is that others will join forces with me and continue the investigation of why humans should strive to be more rational. * Julia Staffel, Philosophical Studies *
Excellent book * Jason Konek, Philosophical Studies *

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