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Accuracy as epistemic utility

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TitleInfo
Title
Accuracy as epistemic utility
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Levinstein
NamePart (type = given)
Benjamin Anders
NamePart (type = date)
1984-
DisplayForm
Benjamin Levinstein
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
author
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Fitelson
NamePart (type = given)
Branden
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Branden Fitelson
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
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chair
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Loewer
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Barry
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Barry Loewer
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Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
internal member
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Gillies
NamePart (type = given)
Anthony
DisplayForm
Anthony Gillies
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
internal member
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Weatherson
NamePart (type = given)
Brian
DisplayForm
Brian Weatherson
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
outside member
Name (type = corporate)
NamePart
Rutgers University
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
degree grantor
Name (type = corporate)
NamePart
Graduate School - New Brunswick
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
school
TypeOfResource
Text
Genre (authority = marcgt)
theses
OriginInfo
DateCreated (qualifier = exact)
2013
DateOther (qualifier = exact); (type = degree)
2013-10
Place
PlaceTerm (type = code)
xx
Language
LanguageTerm (authority = ISO639-2b); (type = code)
eng
Abstract (type = abstract)
As an epistemic agent, my ultimate goal is to match my doxastic attitudes to the world. Matching isn't an all-or-nothing affair. Instead I face a gradational criterion of success: the closer I come to fitting my beliefs to the world, the better. I then have reason to follow a given epistemic constraint on my credences only insofar as I have reason to think it will help me in my quest for accuracy. Truth, in other words, is the highest epistemic good, and closeness to truth is epistemic utility. In matters both pragmatic and epistemic, an agent ought to maximize her utility, and I exploit the standard apparatus of decision theory throughout the dissertation. However, while rational agents may have vastly different practical utility functions, they mostly agree about which doxastic states are preferable to others. Even if Hume is right that it is not pragmatically irrational to prefer the destruction of the world to the scratching of his little finger, it's epistemically irrational to prefer a credence of 1/2 to a credence of 3/4 in a true proposition. Because the space of reasonable epistemic utility functions is so limited, cognitive decision theory is a powerful formal tool for answering normative questions in epistemology. This dissertation develops the decision-theoretic approach. Chapter 1 explores how the quest for accuracy ought to determine derivative norms on doxastic states. I argue that if a kind of epistemic attitude can be taken as primitive---i.e., not derived from a more fundamental kind of attitude---then it should come packaged with a sufficiently robust notion of accuracy. Unlike full-belief and credence, comparative confidence has no prospects for its own measure of accuracy. Chapter 2 examines which epistemic utility functions are rationally permissible. I attack the most popular measures of inaccuracy---quadratic scoring rules---and provide considerations in favor of logarithmic rules. Chs. 3 and 4 apply cognitive decision theory to the problem of peer disagreement.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Philosophy
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_4873
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
xi, 141 p.
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = vita)
Includes vita
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Benjamin Anders Levinstein
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Epistemic logic
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Knowledge, Theory of
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore19991600001
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
NjNbRU
Identifier (type = doi)
doi:10.7282/T39C6VF4
Genre (authority = ExL-Esploro)
ETD doctoral
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Rights

RightsDeclaration (ID = rulibRdec0006)
The author owns the copyright to this work.
RightsHolder (type = personal)
Name
FamilyName
Levinstein
GivenName
Benjamin
Role
Copyright Holder
RightsEvent
Type
Permission or license
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = start)
2013-06-06 17:18:38
AssociatedEntity
Name
Benjamin Levinstein
Role
Copyright holder
Affiliation
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
AssociatedObject
Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
Copyright
Status
Copyright protected
Availability
Status
Open
Reason
Permission or license
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Technical

RULTechMD (ID = TECHNICAL1)
ContentModel
ETD
OperatingSystem (VERSION = 5.1)
windows xp
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