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Wisdom Updated

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Arthur Falk
Arthur Falk*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy Western Michigan University
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Abstract

Given the personalist's latitudinarian conception of rationality, what is progress toward wisdom? An answer is in C. I. Lewis's concept of the “congruence” of propositions, propositions so related that the antecedent probability of any one of them will be increased if the remainder can be assumed. This effect can be modelled in the probability calculus with due attention to the temporal sequencing of our learning of contingent propositions without ever becoming certain of them, as Jeffrey proposes. A diachronic bootstrapping effect is obtained for Ockham's razor and premises of arguments about a god's existence. As a theory's probability rises with increased evidence, the probability of our earlier evidence rises too.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 389 - 403
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1995

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Footnotes

†

This essay incorporates my presentations at the Eighth International Congress of Philosophy, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, Moscow, 1987, titled “Using Bayes's Theorem Repeatedly to Corroborate Results,” and at the Eastern division of the A. P. A., 1988, titled “Is C. I. Lewis's Epistemology Bayesian Bootstrapping?” I thank my A. P. A. commentator, Davis Baird, for many comments, but especially for forcing me to acknowledge that my real interest is in the goal of rationality, wisdom, rather than rationality merely. I thank Evan Fales for encouragement essential to the resurrection of this essay, and for important criticisms.

‡

Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5022, or internet: [email protected].

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