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Cogency, Warrant Transmission‐Increase and non‐Ideal Thinkers
Author(s) -
Pérez Otero Manuel
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/papq.12211
Subject(s) - warrant , argument (complex analysis) , epistemology , abandonment (legal) , subject (documents) , ideal (ethics) , philosophy , appeal , law , political science , computer science , economics , biochemistry , chemistry , library science , financial economics
Contemporary debates concerning warrant transmission take for granted this thesis: when warrant transmission fails the argument fails. I challenge this thesis. An argument with conclusion C, addressed to subject S, can be cogent in the sense that recognition that the premises entail (or make highly likely) C can rationally foster in S the belief in C, without the warrant for C necessarily being gained (or reinforced) by such recognition. A key idea is to accept that some arguments should be understood in a way that involves the abandonment of two characteristic idealizations imposed on rational thinkers by Bayesian modelling.