Category: Evidence
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Wrong to Believe on Insufficient Evidence? Contra Clifford
Is it wrong always and everywhere for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence? (W. K. Clifford) If so, the young would never be right to believe in the realization of their potentials. But they are right so to believe. If they didn't, none of them would ever have 'made it.' But many of us…
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W. K. Clifford
I take a poke at his main claim to fame over at Substack. (What work does 'over' do in the preceding sentence? None at all. But I like the sound of it. So stet.)
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Fake it and Make it
When we started out, did we know what we were doing? We do now. A bit of posturing and pretense may be needed to launch a life. Posture and pretense become performance. The untested ideal becomes the verified real. At the start of a life scant is the evidence that you can do what you…
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Believing on Insufficient Evidence
The notion that we should always and everywhere apportion belief to evidence in such a way that we affirm only that for which we have sufficient evidence ignores the fact that belief for beings like us subserves action. If one acted only on those beliefs for which one had sufficient evidence one would not act as one…