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DELIBERATION, JUDGEMENT AND THE NATURE OF EVIDENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2015

Jon Williamson
Jon Williamson*
Affiliation:
Philosophy Department, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 8AX, UK. Email: j.williamson@kent.ac.uk. URL: http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/philosophy/jw/
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Abstract:

A normative Bayesian theory of deliberation and judgement requires a procedure for merging the evidence of a collection of agents. In order to provide such a procedure, one needs to ask what the evidence is that grounds Bayesian probabilities. After finding fault with several views on the nature of evidence (the views that evidence is knowledge; that evidence is whatever is fully believed; that evidence is observationally set credence; that evidence is information), it is argued that evidence is whatever is rationally taken for granted. This view is shown to have consequences for an account of merging evidence, and it is argued that standard axioms for merging need to be altered somewhat.

Keywords

DeliberationJudgementEvidenceBayesianismMerging
Type
Symposium on Individual and Social Deliberation
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 27 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 

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