The Space of Reasons 2007-06-18

Defending the Lottery Argument (Part 2)

In this post, I will address Aidan's second objection to my lottery argument. By his lights, even if we grant whatever closure (or conjunction) step I need to make the aforementioned inference, premise (A6) still seems in need of defence. For example, suppose that S, due to some introspective failure, does not recognise that what she may justifiably believe about this lottery has the form of (a*). This is consistent with S's recognizing that if she believed something which had the form (a*) she would be believing a set of inconsistent propositions.The upshot, according to Aidan, is that (A3) and (A4) might be true, and my opponent might grant me whatever I need to conclude from that that what S may justifiably believe about this lottery is (by (A5)) inconsistent. But even in the presence of (A6) that's not enough ...

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