Justification under uncertainty

Analytics of subjectivity and intersubjectivity

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15407/fd2020.06.078

Keywords:

failure of justification transmission, justification, transmission of justification, uncertainty

Abstract

Belief formation and justification of belief is the subject of epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of action. In this article we are mostly interested in the application of ana- lytic techniques for the explication of belief justification under uncertainty. We need to explicate this phenomenon in order to answer, at least in part, the question of what are the features of reasoning made in conditions that cause doubts, how people make decisions in such conditions.

Arguments used for the justification of such decisions have the status of plausible arguments. The crucial issues related to the analysis and evaluation of plausible arguments are of the acceptability of the premises and the transmission of their acceptability to the conclusion. In this article, we have focused on the transition from the premises to the conclusions of plausible arguments, on the transmission of justification of premises to the conclusions. To establish the peculiarities of such a transmission an outline of the semantics for such arguments is proposed. Its key component is the measures of the plausibility of the premises and rules of inference.

A plausible argument itself does not provide the ultimate reason for accepting its con- clusion. The justification of the conclusion also depends on other arguments that support or defeat it. So to establish the degree of justification of the conclusion we need to attribute the weights to the premises and rules of inference.

We hope that this study provides at least a preliminary answer to the question of how the failure of the transmission of justification in plausible arguments differs from the failure of transmission in deductive arguments.

Author Biography

Volodymyr Navrotskyi

Doctor of Sciences in Philosophy, Senior Research Fellow at the H.S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, NAS of Ukraine, 4, Triohsviatitelska St., Kyiv, 01001

References

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Published

2021-01-16

How to Cite

Navrotskyi, V. (2021). Justification under uncertainty: Analytics of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Filosofska Dumka, (6), 78–85. https://doi.org/10.15407/fd2020.06.078

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