The persuasiveness puzzle about bootstrapping

Guido Melchior
2020 Ratio  
This paper aims at resolving a puzzle about the persuasiveness of bootstrapping. On the one hand, bootstrapping is not a persuasive method of settling questions about the reliability of a source. On the other hand, our beliefs that our sense apparatus is reliable is based on other empirically formed beliefs, that is, they are acquired via a presumably complex bootstrapping process. I will argue that when we doubt the reliability of a source, bootstrapping is not a persuasive method for coming
more » ... believe that the source is reliable. However, when being initially unaware of a source and its reliability, as in the case of forming beliefs about our sense apparatus, bootstrapping can be eventually persuasive.
doi:10.1111/rati.12253 pmid:32103840 pmcid:PMC7027492 fatcat:qh7oa7vjszdbldq4sjghvgimvq