Berislav Marušić

Evidence and agency : norms of belief for promising and resolving

Introduction 1. Promising and Resolving against the Evidence 2. Sincerity and Rationality 3. The Non-Cognitivist Response 4. The Practical Knowledge Response 5. The Evidentialist Response 6. The Sartrean Response 7. Trusting against the Evidence Conclusion Postscript Glossary References Index

Promising against the Evidence

We often promise to φ despite having evidence that there is a significant chance that we won’t φ. This gives rise to a pressing philosophical problem: Are we irresponsible in making such promises since, it seems, we are insincere or irrational in making them? I argue that we needn’t be. When it’s up to us to φ, our practical reasons for φ-ing partly determine whether it is rational for us to believe that we will φ. That is why we can sometimes rationally believe that we will φ even if our belief goes against the evidence.

The Self-Knowledge Gambit

If we hold that perceiving is sufficient for knowing, we can raise a powerful objection to dreaming skepticism: Skeptics assume the implausible KK-principle, because they hold that if we don’t know whether we are dreaming or perceiving p, we don’t know whether p. The rejection of the KK-principle thus suggests an anti-skeptical strategy: We can sacrifice some of our self-knowledge—our second-order knowledge—and thereby save our knowledge of the external world. I call this strategy the Self-Knowledge Gambit. I argue that the Self-Knowledge Gambit is not satisfactory, because the dreaming skeptic can avail herself of a normative counterpart to the KK-principle: When we lack second-order knowledge, we should suspend our first-order beliefs and thereby give up any first-order knowledge we might have had. The skeptical challenge is essentially a normative challenge, and one can raise it even if one rejects the KK-Principle.