Introduction
Traditional epistemologists seek to understand the formation, nature, properties, consequences, and justification of our beliefs in propositions of interest. Most traditional work allows only for two or three attitudes one may take towards a proposition: (i) believe it, (ii) not believe it, or possibly (iii) suspend judgment on it. Bayesian epistemology seeks to extend this picture by putting forward a notion of graded belief which allows for degrees of belief. The (intermediate) degree to which one believes a proposition is represented by some real number between 0 and 1. The stronger one’s graded belief in a proposition, the greater the number used to represent the belief. Absolute belief in a proposition is represented by 1 and absolute disbelief by 0. Beliefs of some uncertainty in between these two extremes are represented by a number strictly between 0 and 1.
The main area of application of Bayesian epistemology in epistemology is as a theory of belief which applies...
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Acknowledgments
I gratefully acknowledge funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) under the grant agreement: LA 4093/2-1. Thanks to my colleagues Rush T. Stewart and Tom Sterkenburg for their help as well as to Gerard Dunne for all his efforts.
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Landes, J. (2020). Bayesian Epistemology. In: Peters, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_693-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_693-1
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