An Error Concerning Noses |
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Authors: | GREGORY CURRIE JERROLD LEVINSON |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Philosophy, The University of York, Heslington, York, United Kingdom;2. Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland |
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Abstract: | We identify a strategy for getting beliefs from fiction via three assumptions: (1) a certain causal generality holds in the fiction and does so because (2) causal generalities in fiction are (with noted exceptions) carried over from what the author takes to be fact; (3) the author is reliable on this topic, so what the author takes to be fact is fact. We do not question (2). While (3) will, in particular cases, be doubtful, the strategy is vulnerable more generally to the worry that what looks like a causal generality may be instead an authorial intervention of a kind from which no causal connection can be inferred; in such cases (1) turns out to be false though it may seem at first sight to be true. In consequence we have extra reason for being careful in forming beliefs based on fictions. |
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