Metaphysics and Epistemology Group (Tuesday - Week 6, MT22)

Here are two attractive, if roughly formulated, principles: (1) 'If I know that E is true, and that the chance of H given E is p, then, absent complications, my credence in H should be p.' (2) 'If I know I'm an F, and the proportion of Fs that are Gs is p, then, absent complications, my credence that I'm a G should be p.' I'll argue that the best way of spelling out the first principle (that is, the best way of understanding what Lewis calls the Principal Principle) supports a version of the second. I'll explain what this has to do with the sleeping beauty problem and with the doomsday argument. And I'll develop the story in a way that respects the difference between metaphysical and epistemic modality (leaning heavily on Chalmers-style two-dimensionalism).

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