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From: jiml@alberta.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Uncertainty in life
Message-ID: <1149@cavell.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-May-87 20:47:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: cavell.1149
Posted: Wed May 27 20:47:35 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 29-May-87 04:10:44 EDT
References: <6762@mimsy.UUCP> <1782@sphinx.uchicago.edu> <1146@cavell.UUCP> <6794@mimsy.UUCP>
Reply-To: jiml@cavell.UUCP (Jim Laycock)
Organization: U. of Alberta, Edmonton, AB
Lines: 44
Keywords: certain

]In article <1146@cavell.UUCP> jiml@cavell.UUCP (Jim Laycock) writes:
]There are lots of claims and theories that I accept and believe, and
]I'll argue 'til I'm blue in the face why a particular position is a
]reasonable one to hold, or why it would be utterly foolish to hold a
]contrary view, but I shy away from any talk about 'truth' in such
]discussions.
]
In article <6794@mimsy.UUCP> flink@mimsy.UUCP (Paul V Torek) writes:
>I may be missing some technical sense of `truth' which you are using, but
>isn't believing a proposition pretty much the same as believing that the
>proposition is true?  I'm not necessarily endorsing a redundancy theory of
>truth, just the good old-fashioned condition that 
>	"p is true" iff p.
>So, if you really believe p, I don't see any reason to shy away from saying
>that p is true.
>
>Perhaps we don't disagree.  I think that it is rational sometimes to believe
>propositions, _with_(psychological)_certainty_, even though they are possibly
>false.  In other words, I'm a fallibilist.  And one reason I'm a fallibilist 
>is that I think that in accepting empirical propositions one always, from an
>epistemic viewpoint, risks falsehood; yet one cannot go about life without 
>believing any empirical propositions.  

When I toss a fair coin, I am epistemically indifferent about the outcome
of the toss.  Do I believe in one outcome or the other?  No, I commit myself
to neither alternative.  So, Bel(Jim,Prob(heads)=.5) and
Bel(Jim,Prob(tails)=.5)
I believed that the Oilers would win Game 5 of the Cup Finals.  I could
construct an argument to lend credence to my belief.  I was by no means
certain that they would win (I say in hindsight), but I thought they stood
a pretty good chance.  Let's assign a measure of probability, say .75.
So, Bel(Jim,Prob(win)=.75) and Bel(Jim,Prob(lose)=.25).  I can't say I
entertained the latter belief a great deal (until the third period, but
by then I had changed my assessment of probability), and one might wish
to argue that I had no such belief at all.  But I definitely had the former
belief in mind.
So, while it is the case that I believed that the Oilers would win the game,
I would not admit to Bel(Jim,Prob(win)=1.0), and hence I'd never assert
that it's true that the Oilers were going to win Game 5.  With regard to
more reliable empirical observations/predictions, I'd assign much higher
probabilities, and would likely reach a point whereat the negation of my
belief would never be entertained at all.  But, being a skeptic, upon
being asked whether a particular proposition was true, I'd be reluctant
to agree even to the most blatantly obvious claims.