A Generalised Lottery Paradox for Infinite Probability Spaces

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61 (4):821-831 (2010)
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Abstract

Many epistemologists have responded to the lottery paradox by proposing formal rules according to which high probability defeasibly warrants acceptance. Douven and Williamson present an ingenious argument purporting to show that such rules invariably trivialise, in that they reduce to the claim that a probability of 1 warrants acceptance. Douven and Williamson’s argument does, however, rest upon significant assumptions – amongst them a relatively strong structural assumption to the effect that the underlying probability space is both finite and uniform. In this paper, I will show that something very like Douven and Williamson’s argument can in fact survive with much weaker structural assumptions – and, in particular, can apply to infinite probability spaces.

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Martin Smith
University of Edinburgh

Citations of this work

Belief and Credence: Why the Attitude-Type Matters.Elizabeth Grace Jackson - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (9):2477-2496.
Between Probability and Certainty: What Justifies Belief.Martin Smith - 2016 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
Credence: A Belief-First Approach.Andrew Moon & Elizabeth Jackson - 2020 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (5):652–669.

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References found in this work

Probability and the logic of rational belief.Henry Ely Kyburg - 1961 - Middletown, Conn.,: Wesleyan University Press.
The lottery paradox, knowledge, and rationality.Dana K. Nelkin - 2000 - Philosophical Review 109 (3):373-409.
Nomic Probability and the Foundations of Induction.John L. Pollock - 1990 - New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press.
Probability and the Logic of Rational Belief.Henry Ely Kyburg - 1961 - Middletown, CT, USA: Wesleyan University Press.
Generalizing the lottery paradox.Igor Douven & Timothy Williamson - 2006 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (4):755-779.

View all 10 references / Add more references