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Book/Printed Material Fading Foundations : Probability and the Regress Problem

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Title

  • Fading Foundations : Probability and the Regress Problem

Summary

  • This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book addresses the age-old problem of infinite regresses in epistemology. How can we ever come to know something if knowing requires having good reasons, and reasons can only be good if they are backed by good reasons in turn? The problem has puzzled philosophers ever since antiquity, giving rise to what is often called Agrippa's Trilemma. The current volume approaches the old problem in a provocative and thoroughly contemporary way. Taking seriously the idea that good reasons are typically probabilistic in character, it develops and defends a new solution that challenges venerable philosophical intuitions and explains why they were mistakenly held. Key to the new solution is the phenomenon of fading foundations, according to which distant reasons are less important than those that are nearby. The phenomenon takes the sting out of Agrippa's Trilemma; moreover, since the theory that describes it is general and abstract, it is readily applicable outside epistemology, notably to debates on infinite regresses in metaphysics. The book is a potential game-changer and a must for any advanced student or researcher in the field.

Names

  • Atkinson, David, author
  • Peijnenburg, Jeanne, author

Created / Published

  • Cham : Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Springer, 2017.

Contents

  • 1. The Regress Problem -- 2. Epistemic Justification -- 3. The Probabilistic Regress -- 4. Fading Foundations and the Emergence of Justification -- 5 Finite Minds -- 6. Conceptual Objections -- 7. Higher-Order Probabilities -- 8. Loops and Networks.

Headings

  • -  Decision making
  • -  Epistemology
  • -  Mathematical logic
  • -  Operations research
  • -  Physics
  • -  Statistics
  • -  History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics
  • -  Mathematical Logic and Foundations
  • -  Operations Research/Decision Theory
  • -  Statistical Theory and Methods

Notes

  • -  Description based on publisher-supplied MARC data.
  • -  Philosophy and Religion (R0) (SpringerNature-43725)
  • -  Religion and Philosophy (SpringerNature-41175)

Medium

  • 1 online resource (XI, 238 pages)

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2019766604

Rights Advisory

Access Advisory

  • Unrestricted online access.

Online Format

  • image
  • pdf

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Rights & Access

The books in this collection are licensed under open access licenses allowing for the reuse and distribution of each book following the terms described in each license. Researchers should consult the Rights Advisory statement for each title and the accompanying license details for information about rights and permissions associated with each of the licenses.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Atkinson, David, Author, and Jeanne Peijnenburg. Fading Foundations: Probability and the Regress Problem. Cham: Springer International Publishing: Imprint: Springer, 2017. Pdf. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/2019766604/.

APA citation style:

Atkinson, D. & Peijnenburg, J. (2017) Fading Foundations: Probability and the Regress Problem. Cham: Springer International Publishing: Imprint: Springer. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/2019766604/.

MLA citation style:

Atkinson, David, Author, and Jeanne Peijnenburg. Fading Foundations: Probability and the Regress Problem. Cham: Springer International Publishing: Imprint: Springer, 2017. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <aj.sunback.homes/item/2019766604/>.