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A Pragmatist’s Guide to Epistemic Utility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Benjamin Anders Levinstein
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Abstract

We use a theorem from M. J. Schervish to explore the relationship between accuracy and practical success. If an agent is pragmatically rational, she will quantify the expected loss of her credence with a strictly proper scoring rule. Which scoring rule is right for her will depend on the sorts of decisions she expects to face. We relate this pragmatic conception of inaccuracy to the purely epistemic one popular among epistemic utility theorists.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 84 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 613 - 638
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Thanks to Seamus Bradley, Catrin Campbell-Moore, Greg Gandenberger, James Joyce, Richard Pettigrew, Patricia Rich, and audiences in Bristol and Munich. I was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) starting grant Epistemic Utility Theory: Foundations and Applications during some of the work on this article. I received funding from the ERC under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant 669751).

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