ABSTRACT

Suppose you’re certain that a claim—say, ‘Frida is tall’—does not have a determinate truth value. What attitude should you take towards it? This is the question of the cognitive role of indeterminacy. This paper presents a puzzle for theories of cognitive role. Many of these theories vindicate a seemingly plausible principle: if you are fully certain that A, you are rationally required to be fully certain that A is determinate. Call this principle ‘Certainty’. We show that Certainty, in combination with some minimal side premises, entails a very implausible claim: whenever you’re certain that it’s indeterminate whether A, it is rationally required that you reject A. This is a surprising result, which requires abandoning at least some intuitive views about indeterminacy and cognitive role.

摘要

假设您确定某项声明（例如，“Frida 很高”）没有确定的真值。你应该以什么态度对待它？这就是不确定性的认知作用问题。本文为认知角色理论提出了一个难题。这些理论中的许多都证明了一个看似合理的原则：如果你完全确定 A，你就被合理地要求完全确定 A 是确定的。将此原则称为“确定性”。我们表明，确定性与一些最小的附带前提相结合，需要一个非常难以置信的主张：每当你确定 A 是否不确定时，理性地要求你拒绝 A。这是一个令人惊讶的结果，它至少需要放弃关于不确定性和认知作用的一些直觉观点。