Religious Epistemology, Contextualism, and Pragmatic Encroachment

Alan Hájek (Australian National University) gives a talk for the New Insights seminar series on 21st May 2015. Abstract: A number of prominent authors—Levi, Spohn, Gilboa, Seidenfeld, and Price among them—hold that rational agents cannot assign subjective probabilities to their options while deliberating about which one they will choose. This has been called the "deliberation crowds out prediction" thesis. The thesis, if true, has important ramifications for many aspects of Bayesian epistemology, decision theory, and game theory. The stakes are high.

The thesis is not true—or so I maintain. After some scene-setting, I will precisify and rebut several of the main arguments for the thesis. I will defend the rationality of assigning probabilities to options while deliberating about them: deliberation welcomes prediction. I will also consider application of the thesis, and its denial, to Pascal's Wager.

Roger White (MIT) gives the final talk in the New Insights in Religious Epistemology International Conference, held in Oxford in June 2015.

Richard Cross (Notre Dame) gives a talk in the New Insights in Religious Epistemology International Conference, held in Oxford in June 2015. The commentator is Christina Van Dyke, Calvin

John Hawthorne (Oxford/USC) gives a talk in the New Insights in Religious Epistemology International Conference, held in Oxford in June 2015.

Jennifer Lackey (Northwestern) gives a talk in the New Insights in Religious Epistemology International Conference, held in Oxford in June 2015.

Hans Halvorson (Princeton) give a talk in the New Insights in Religious Epistemology International Conference, held in Oxford in June 2015. The commentator is John Pittard (Yale).

Keith DeRose (Yale), gives a talk in the New Insights in Religious Epistemology International Conference, held in Oxford in June 2015. The commentator is Jane Friedman (NYU).

Paulina Sliwa (Cambridge) gives the first talk in the New Insights in Religious Epistemology International Conference, held in Oxford in June 2015.

Peter van Inwagen (Notre Dame) gives the second talk for the New Insights in Religious Epistemology International Conference, held in Oxford in June 2015. The commentator is Jeffrey Sanford Russell (USC).

Richard Swinburne, University of Oxford, gives the first talk in the New Insights in Religious Epistemology International Conference, held in Oxford in June 2015.