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‘Ramseyfying’ Probabilistic Comparativism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Edward Elliott
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Abstract

Comparativism is the view that comparative confidences (e.g., being more confident that P than that Q) are more fundamental than degrees of belief (e.g., believing that P with some strength x). I outline the basis for a new, nonprobabilistic version of comparativism inspired by a suggestion made by Frank Ramsey in “Probability and Partial Belief.” I show how, and to what extent, ‘Ramseyan comparativism’ might be used to weaken the (unrealistically strong) probabilistic coherence conditions that comparativism traditionally relies on.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 87 , Issue 4 , October 2020 , pp. 727 - 754
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Thanks are due to Nick DiBella, Daniel Elstein, Alan Hájek, Jessica Isserow, James Joyce, Léa Salje, Jack Woods, and anonymous referees for discussions and comments on drafts. Thanks are also due to audiences at the Australian National University, the University of Leeds, and the 2018 Formal Epistemology Workshop. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant 703959.

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