PHIL 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Critical Thinking
26 May 2020
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This is not the case for ampliative arguments. We might have a good cogent argument for the claim q, but upon finding out more information, it might be most reasonable to abandon the belief in q. Since new information might undermine good reasons we previously had for a claim, whether it is reasonable to believe something depends on our total state of information. A belief is credible if your total state of information counts as reason to believe it. If the evidence points to something"s being true and you choose not to believe it, or if it points to it being false and you choose to believe it anyway, then you are being unreasonable. Almost all of what we believe is defeasible. That is, for almost anything we believe it is possible that new evidence would make it unreasonable to continue to believe it: for example, to take an extreme example, i believe that there are no talking dogs.
