Jakob Donskov

When can you rationally resist misleading evidence? One influential answer appeals to the idea that knowledge can serve as a safeguarding instrument, which, if not allowing you to outright dismiss misleading evidence—as Kripke’s dogmatism paradox suggests—at least makes it more likely that your true beliefs rationally resist defeat (Williamson, 2000). I reject the idea, arguing that any such rational resistance is well accounted for by our beliefs, regardless of whether they amount to knowledge. By paying attention to how evidential strength influences the resilience of rational belief, I offer an evidential account of rational resistance. I use the account to evaluate Harman’s solution to Kripke’s dogmatism paradox, highlighting the limits of the knowledge-based approach.

In some cases of higher-order defeat, you rationally doubt whether your credence in p is rational without having evidence of how to improve your credence in p. According to the resilience framework proposed by Steglich-Petersen (Higher-order defeat and Doxastic Resilience), such cases require loss of doxastic resilience: retain your credence level but become more disposed to change your mind given future evidence. Henderson (Higher-Order Evidence and Losing One’s Conviction) responds that this allows for irrational decision-making and that we are better off understanding higher-order defeat in terms of imprecise probabilities. We argue first that Henderson’s imprecise probability framework models the wrong kind of thing. Credal imprecision is neither necessary nor sufficient for higher-order doubt. Second, we offer two ways of understanding the practical import of higher-order defeat given loss of doxastic resilience.