Reflective Equilibrium Flashcards
What is reflective equilibrium? What should a person think about when trying to reach reflective equalibrium?
-happens in a lot of subjects (i.e., philosophy, science, etc)
-in all of these subjects, you accumulate date. But sometimes the data doesn’t fit together. You must weigh all of your information together and deetrermine what you want (i.e., you may want a simple explanation, or a deep explanation)
-You have to make decisions, and determine which data to emphasize vs cancel out
-In essence, it’s trying to weigh information and determine which decision is best, and what the right view is for all of this stuff
-someone should try and think about what they value in a solution, and which information/data seems the most misleading. From this, they can determine the best decision.
If a person’s beliefs are in reflective equilibrium, are their beliefs justified? Are their beliefs knowledge?
-People can come to different equilibrium’s from the same data set (this might be because they have different value preferences, i.e., valuing simplicity or valuing a detailed explanation)
-This might be justification, it seems likely that it’s justification. But it’s justification for very complicated questions (i.e., the nature of morality)
-These beliefs may be knowledge, but there is no settled view abbout what is enough to be considered knowledge
In short: they may be justified (it seems likely) and they may be knowledge (but it’s unclear)
What would Huemer and the process reliabilist say about whether or not beliefs in reflective equlibrium are justified/knowledge?
What is the relationship between Bayesian confirmation and reflective equilibrium?
Bayesian confirmation says that you have to have your priors and gather your information with these priors. It believes if you come in with different priors, you will come to different views – this is highly similar to reflective equilibrium
Bayesian confirmation is the process in which we gather our priors/data and detrmine information from this. Reflective equlibrium is the end state in which we use this data and information to make decisions
