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(1994) Synthese 98 (2).

A critique of van Fraassen's voluntaristic epistemology

Jonathan Kvanvig

pp. 325-348

Van Fraassen's epistemology is forged from two commitments, one to a type of Bayesianism and the other to what he terms voluntarism. Van Fraassen holds that if one is going to follow a rule in belief-revision, it must be a Bayesian rule, but that one does not need to follow a rule in order to be rational. It is argued that van Fraassen's arguments for rejecting non-Bayesian rules is unsound, and that his voluntarism is subject to a fatal dilemma arising from the non-monotonic character of reasoning.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/BF01063946

Full citation:

Kvanvig, J. (1994). A critique of van Fraassen's voluntaristic epistemology. Synthese 98 (2), pp. 325-348.

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