Practical reasoning and degrees of outright belief

According to a suggestion by Williamson (Knowledge and its limits, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 99), outright belief comes in degrees: one has a high/low degree of belief iff one is willing to rely on the content of one's belief in high/low-stakes practical reasoning. This paper develops an epistemic norm for degrees of outright belief so construed. Starting from the assumption that outright belief aims at knowledge, it is argued that degrees of belief aim at various levels of strong knowledge, that is, knowledge which satisfies particularly high epistemic standards. This account is contrasted with and shown to be superior to an alternative proposal according to which higher degrees of outright belief aim at higher-order knowledge. In an Appendix, it is indicated that the logic of degrees of outright belief is closely linked to ranking theory.

Automated summary

This paper discusses the degrees of outright belief and their epistemic norms, emphasizing that the goal of outright belief is to acquire knowledge, with different degrees of belief aiming at different levels of strong knowledge. Compared to alternative proposals, the explanation in this paper is shown to be superior, while indicating a close link between the logic of degrees of outright belief and ranking theory.