Acta Structuralica

international journal for structuralist research

Journal | Volume | Article

234675

Rational action without knowledge (and vice versa)

Jie Gao

pp. 1901-1917

Abstract

It has been argued recently that knowledge is the norm of practical reasoning. This norm can be formulated as a bi-conditional: it is appropriate to treat p as a reason for acting if and only if you know that p. Other proposals replace knowledge with warranted or justified belief. This paper gives counter-examples of both directions of any such bi-conditional. To the left-to-right direction: scientists can appropriately treat as reasons for action propositions of a theory they believe to be false but good approximations to the truth for present purposes. Cases based on a variant of Pascal’s Wager and actions performed by a skeptic also illustrate the point. To the right-to-left direction: in certain circumstances, it can be unreasonable for a scientist to reason from propositions of a theory she knows to be true.

Publication details

Published in:

(2017) Synthese 194 (6).

Pages: 1901-1917

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-016-1027-y

Full citation:

Gao Jie (2017) „Rational action without knowledge (and vice versa)“. Synthese 194 (6), 1901–1917.