Epistemic Risk and the Demands of Rationality

Richard Pettigrew, Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol

Richard Pettigrew is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bristol. In 2008, he obtained his PhD in Mathematical Logic from this university. His thesis sought a foundation for mathematics in a theory of finite sets. From 2008 until 2011, he was a British Academy Postdoctoral at the university. He was appointed to a Lectureship in the same department in 2011, to a Readership in 2012, and to a Professorship in 2014. He has published four academic books and over forty journal articles, primarily focussing on structuralism in the philosophy of mathematics, rational choice theory for decisions involving preference change, greater access to higher education, and the accuracy-first programme in formal epistemology.

Abstract
1. Introduction
Part I: A permissive theory of epistemic rationality
2. Varieties of Permissivism
3. Epistemic risk and epistemic utility for beliefs
4. Epistemic risk and epistemic utility for credences
5. Foundational results in epistemic utility theory
6. Epistemic risk and picking priors I: the decision rule
7. Epistemic risk and picking priors II: the consequences of the rule
8. Epistemic risk and picking posteriors
Part II: Putting the theory to work
9. What is the value of rationality?
10. Is brute shuffling irrational?
11. Priors that allow you to learn inductively
12. Clifford’s shipowner, conspiracy theories, and choosing with and for others
13. Summing up
Bibliography