Induction and Lotteries

null, Jeremy Goodman (Brown University, Oxford University)

Prof. Jeremy Goodman (University of Southern California) will give an online lecture titled "Induction and Lotteries" in the "Epistemology+" Lecture Series at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Prof. Ru Ye (Wuhan University) will be the commentator. 

The lecture will be held on October 9th, from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM, Beijing Time (7 AM, London Time; 2 AM, New York Time). To attend the lecture over Zoom, please use the following link: 

Zoom meeting info:

Time: 14:00-16:00 (UTC+8), 09 Oct 2023

Link:  https://us05web.zoom.us/j/6622740726?pwd=qcavReaXLIET1mOCaRe7jhzfasHo2g.1

Meeting ID: 662 274 0726

Password: zXp35R

Title: Induction and Lotteries

Abstract: What you can know depends on who you are. In one sense this is trivial: different people have different evidence and what you can know depends in part on your evidence. I will argue for a more radical kind of epistemic asymmetry, one that divides agents with the same relevant evidence. I begin with a new puzzle about induction, and argue that it motivates positing such asymmetries. I then suggest that this solution extends to the lottery paradox: people are better positioned to know that they will lose the lottery than to know that a given person disconnected from them will lose. In general, we know enough to run our lives, but not enough to predict the improbable. I explain how this anti-skeptical strategy can be developed within a framework on which inductive knowledge is underwritten by a default entitlement to ignore especially abnormal possibilities.