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Full Idea
It is rare for pragmatic considerations to influence the rationality of our beliefs in the crass, direct way that Pascal's Wager envisions. Instead, they determine the direction and shape of our investigative and deliberative projects and practices.
Gist of Idea
We aren't directly pragmatic about belief, but pragmatic about the deliberation which precedes it
Source
Richard Foley (Justified Belief as Responsible Belief [2005], p.320)
Book Ref
'Contemporary Debates in Epistemology', ed/tr. Steup,M/Sosa,E [Blackwell 2005], p.320
A Reaction
[See Idea 6684 for Pascal's Wager] Foley is evidently a full-blown pragmatist (which is bad), but this is nicely put. We can't deny the importance of the amount of effort put into an enquiry. Maybe it is an epistemic duty, rather than a means to an end.
Related Ideas
Idea 6684 If you win the wager on God's existence you win everything, if you lose you lose nothing [Pascal]
Idea 7455 Pascal knows you can't force belief, but you can make it much more probable [Pascal, by Hacking]
| 6598 | We need our beliefs to be determined by some external inhuman permanency [Peirce] |
| 20140 | We shouldn't object to a false judgement, if it enhances and preserves life [Nietzsche] |
| 20122 | We have no organ for knowledge or truth; we only 'know' what is useful to the human herd [Nietzsche] |
| 2548 | If knowledge is merely justified belief, justification is social [Rorty] |
| 3247 | Epistemology is centrally about what we should believe, not the definition of knowledge [Nagel] |
| 3595 | What works always takes precedence over theories [Williams,M] |
| 12802 | We aren't directly pragmatic about belief, but pragmatic about the deliberation which precedes it [Foley] |
| 12803 | Justification comes from acceptable procedures, given practical constraints [Foley] |