Inquiry under bounds (Part 5: Applying the account)
This post applies the reason-responsive consequentialist view of rational inquiry to shed light on bounded rationality, the Standard Picture, and the epistemology of inquiry.
Category: Recent Work
Inquiry under bounds (Part 4: Justifying the account)
This post gives three arguments for the reason-responsive consequentialist view of rational inquiry.
Inquiry under bounds (Part 3: A theory of rational inquiry)
This post develops a theory of rational inquiry for bounded agents: the reason-responsive consequentialist view.
Inquiry under bounds (Part 2: Rationality at the crossroads)
This post introduces bounded rationality by contrasting it with a received Standard Picture of rationality.
Inquiry under bounds (Part 1: Introduction)
This post begins a five-part series introducing David Thorstad’s book, Inquiry under bounds.
Morality, the Problem of Possible Future Selves, and Christmas Parables
In my 2016 book, Rightness as Fairness: A Moral and Political Theory, I argue that morality is a solution to a problem of diachronic rationality called ‘the problem of possible future selves.’ To simplify (very) greatly, the problem–which is partially inspired by L.A. Paul’s groundbreaking work on transformative experience–is that (A) our present …
Is Consciousness a “Stream”?
In 1890 William James introduced the metaphor of the “stream of consciousness” into Western psychology: “Consciousness… is nothing jointed; it flows. A ‘river’ or ‘stream’ are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, …