Please join us for a Philosophy Work In Progress Talk with Dr. Jeff Kasser, Associate Professor of Philosophy (CSU). Dr. Kasser will present “Parsing Peirce’s Puzzling Problem Pairing Probability and Pedigree” on Tuesday, Oct. 20th at 5 p.m. in Eddy Hall, Room 200.

Abstract: Charles Peirce’s doubt-belief theory of inquiry figures crucially in his pragmatism and is independently interesting and influential. It has generally been taken to have the exciting and controversial implication that pedigree epistemology should be rejected: epistemology should be forward-looking, not backward-looking. It should focus on the improvement of current opinion, not the defensive study of the grounds of our confident beliefs. Surprisingly, however, Peirce’s adamantly frequentist interpretation of probability statements seems to impose a clear pedigree demand; probability statements should be grounded in evidence about samples. As it would be very strange indeed to impose a pedigree demand on probabilistic beliefs but not on full beliefs, something will have to give.