Being Rational and Being Right - Paperback

by Juan Comesa (Author)

In Being Rational and Being Right, Juan Comesa argues for a cluster of theses related to the rationality of action and belief. His starting point is that rational action requires rational belief but tolerates false belief. From there, Comesa provides a novel account of empirical evidence according to which said evidence consists of the content of undefeated experiences. This view, which Comesa calls Experientialism, differs from the two main views of empirical evidence on offer nowadays: Factualism, according to which our evidence is what we know, and Psychologism, according to which our experiences themselves are evidence. He reasons that Experientialism fares better than these rival views in explaining different features of rational belief and action. Comesa embeds this discussion in a Bayesian framework, and discusses in addition the problem of normative requirements, the easy knowledge problem, and how Experientialism compares to forms of evidentialism and reliabilism.

Author Biography

Juan Comesa, Professor, Rutgers University