Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Pollock on defeasible reasons

  • Published:
Philosophical Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. See, for instance, Pollock (Pollock 1987a, p. 35). Pollock emphasized defeasible reasons from the very beginning of his career. See his (1967), (1970) and his (1974), as well as the classics (1987a, b). I assume in what follows that reasons under discussion are all of equal strength. Nothing will turn on that assumption.

  2. On p. 196. I have renamed the claims in the example. Pollock used the same form of words in the singly-authored first edition of the book.

  3. p. 197.

  4. (1987a): p. 486.

  5. This is sloppy notation, of course, since I use "v" in two different ways: sometimes it appears as a variable for visual experience, other times as a name for the claim such experience exists.

  6. Φ-BOS might be the claim that your belief in Φ is based on S, or the claim that your belief in Φ is likely to be based on S, or the claim that your belief in Φ has a high objective chance of being based on S is high, etc. Φ-BOS can be any claim belief in which amounts to a commitment to there being a strong link between source of information S and your belief in Φ.

  7. Pollock has long defended dogmatism: for instance see his (1974) or (Pollock 1987b). The term "dogmatism" comes from Pryor (2000), who also champions the view.

References

  • Pollock, J. (1967). Criteria and our knowledge of the natural world. Philosophical Review, 76, 28–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pollock, J. (1970). The structure of epistemic justification. American Philosophical Quarterly, 4, 62–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pollock, John. (1974). Knowledge and Justification. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pollock, J. (1987a). Contemporary Theories of Knowledge. Second edition: Joe Cruz. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pollock, J. (1987b). Defeasible reasons. Cognitive Science, 11, 481–518.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pryor, J. (2000). The skeptic and the dogmatist. Nous, 34, 517–549.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Scott Sturgeon

Authors
  1. Scott Sturgeon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Scott Sturgeon.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Sturgeon, S. Pollock on defeasible reasons. Philos Stud 169, 105–118 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-9891-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-9891-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation