Why we doubt : a cognitive account of our skeptical inclinations / N. Ángel Pinillos.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pinillos, N. Ángel, author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Belief and doubt.

Skepticism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (267 pages)

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2023.

Summary:

N. Ángel Pinillos explores what is going on in our minds when we experience skeptical doubt. He suggests that there is a hidden mental rule which, for better or worse, motivates our skeptical inclinations; he gives an account of the broader cognitive purpose of this rule; and he suggests that it may also lie behind certain pathologies.

Contents:

Intro

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication page

Preface

Contents

List of Figures

Introduction and Book Summary

Skeptical Doubt

The Rational Tension Created by Our Skeptical Judgments

The Importance of Knowledge

The Traditional and Cognitive Projects

The Skeptical Rule

Hidden Rules and Reflective Thought

Determining the Rule

The Function of the Skeptical Rule

Applications

Outline of the Book

Part I. Skeptical Tension

1. The Need for an Explanation

1.0 Chapter Summary

1.1 Closure-Based Skeptical Paradoxes

1.2 Probabilistic Rational Tension without Closure

1.3 Knowledge or Justification

1.4 Getting Clear on "Skeptical Doubt"

1.5 Intuitions or Arguments?

1.6 Five Arguments for the Skeptical Premise

1.7 Summary of What Needs to Be Explained

1.8 The Human Attraction to Skepticism

1.9 Direct vs Indirect Doubt

1.10 Cognitive Explanations

Part II. The Positive Account

2. The Skeptical Rule

2.0 Chapter Summary

2.1 The Guiding Idea

2.2 The Focus on Error

2.3 Sensitivity as the Core of the Skeptical Rule

2.4 Principal Base Sensitivity as a Heuristic for Doubt

2.5 Explaining Lottery, Local, and Statistical Cases

2.6 Explaining the Attraction to Global Skepticism

2.7 The Under-Determination Argument for the Skeptical Premise and Sensitivity

2.8 The Cartesian Argument for the Skeptical Premise and Sensitivity

2.9 The "Prior Justification" Argument for the Skeptical Premise and Sensitivity

3. Broad Function (Part 1)

3.0 Chapter Summary

3.1 Guided by First-Person Cases

3.2 Meta-Cognitive Preliminaries

3.3 A Model for Meta-Cognition

3.4 Meta-Cognitive Experiences

3.5 The Role of Meta-Cognitive Experiences

3.6 The Skeptical Experience.

3.7 Some Negative Epistemic Feelings Will Not Be Produced by Meta-Cognitive Processes

3.8 Some States of Uncertainty Do Not Involve Feelings

4. Broad Function (Part 2)

4.0 Chapter Summary

4.1 General Description of the Model

4.2 Philosophical Reflection and the Monitor-Control Dynamics

4.3 Summary of Evidence that Skeptical Inclinations Fit the Model

4.4 Black Box Status

4.5 Functional Role of Skeptical Judgments

4.6 Evidence from Our Intuitive Assessments of Reasoning

4.7 Knowledge-Action Norms

4.8 Experimental Work on Knowledge and Action

4.9 Knowledge and Practical Interests

4.10 Priority of First- vs Third-Person Judgments

5. Narrow Function

5.0 Chapter Summary

5.1 Taking Stock

5.2 Sosa and DeRose on Why We Deploy Sensitivity in Forming Skeptical Judgments

5.3 The Bottom-Up Approach

5.4 The Bayesian Function of Principal Base Sensitivity

5.5 Further Remarks on PBS and Norm

5.6 What Counts as Explanatory Success?

Part III. Applications

6. Solving the Skeptical Paradox

6.0 Chapter Summary

6.1 Three Grades of Solutions to Skepticism

6.2 Two Models of Justification from Heuristics

6.3 A Defeating Principle for Heuristic-Based Beliefs

6.4 Defeating Global Skepticism

6.5 Local, Lottery, and Statistical Cases

6.6 Are We Begging the Question?

7. Skepticism in Society

7.0 Chapter Summary

7.1 Creative Inquiry

7.2 Do Knowledge Norms Dampen Creativity?

7.3 Skepticism as an Antidote to Conservativism Bias

7.4 When Skepticism Hinders Inquiry

7.5 Conspiracy Theories

8. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

8.0 Chapter Summary

8.1 OCD and Skepticism

8.2 The Doubting Disease

8.3 The Skeptical Model of OCD Doubt (SMOD)

8.4 Support for SMOD: Seven Features of OCD That Can Be Explained by SMOD

8.5 Final Remarks

9. Varieties of Doubt.

9.0 Chapter Summary

9.1 Characterizing Doubt

9.2 Sub-Personal States of Doubt

9.3 Can We Doubt Things We Never Believed? The Spinozan Model

9.4 Heuristic Doubt

9.5 Doubt without Denials of Knowledge

9.6 Principal Base Sensitivity without Meta-Cognition

9.7 Doubt in the Brain: Deficiencies of Doubt

Part IV. Competing Views and Objections

10. Philosophically Accommodating Accounts

10.0 Chapter Summary

10.1 Language and Philosophy

10.2 External World Skepticism

10.3 Relevant Alternative Theory

10.4 Eliminating Alternatives

10.5 What Counts as a Relevant Alternative?

11. Psychological Accounts

11.0 Chapter Summary

11.1 General Remarks about Extant Accounts

11.2 Availability Heuristic

11.3 Gerken's Stereotypical Knowledge Ascriptions

11.4 Nagel's Ego-Centric Approach

11.5 Hawthorne's Sub-Cases

11.6 Turri's Explanations

12. Objections to Sensitivity

12.0 Chapter Summary

12.1 Genuine Counter-Examples to PBS: The Closure Worry

12.2 Genuine Counter-Examples to PBS: Probative Yet Insensitive Evidence Which Puts You over the Knowledge Threshold

Preemption with Perfect Replacement?

12.3 Some Failed Counter-Examples

12.4 Grandparent

12.5 Williamson's Under-Estimator

12.6 Ice Cubes and Garbage Chutes

12.7 Extreme Cases

12.8 Statistical Evidence

12.9 Small Changes in Statistical Evidence

12.10 Bold Prisoner

Works Cited

Index.

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2023.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on September 1, 2023).

Other Format:

Print version: Pinillos, N. Ángel Why We Doubt

ISBN:

0-19-198305-5

0-19-887197-X

0-19-887198-8