Julia Staffel
Biographic Data
| ID | 1104788 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Julia Staffel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Julia |
| FAMILY NAME | Staffel |
| SIGNATURE | STAFFEL J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Colorado Boulder |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1095-5911 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Humble Reasoning: When can I Stop
One way of characterizing what makes someone a good reasoner is to appeal to intellectual virtues, such as curiosity, fair-mindedness, or epistemic humility. My aim in this paper is to show that explaining how the virtue of humility should manifest itself in complex reasoning is more difficult than one might think. A very natural view of what intellectually humble deliberation looks like is problematic, because it leads to an infinite regress. I …
On the Relationship between Attitude and Process Norms. Comments on david Thorstad’s Inquiry Under Bounds
Are there transitional beliefs? – I think so
This paper investigates a novel question about the relationship between belief and deliberation: Is it ever rationally permissible to believe an answer to a question Q prior to concluding one's deliberation about Q ? This question differs from a more commonly discussed one, insofar as it asks about the rationality of believing that p before settling on p as the answer to some question Q . By contrast, recent literature in this area has focused on…
An Improved Argument for Superconditionalization
Transitional attitudes and the unmooring view of higher‐order evidence
This paper proposes a novel answer to the question of what attitude agents should adopt when they receive misleading higher‐order evidence that avoids the drawbacks of existing views. The answer builds on the independently motivated observation that there is a difference between attitudes that agents form as conclusions of their reasoning, called terminal attitudes , and attitudes that are formed in a transitional manner in the process of reasoni…
Précis for Unsettled Thoughts
Replies to Fitelson and Konek
Pro tem rationality
Epistemologists routinely distinguish between two kinds of justification or rationality – the propositional and the doxastic kind – in order to characterize importantly different ways in which an attitude can be justified or rational for a person. I argue that these notions, as they are commonly understood, are well suited to capture rationality judgments about the attitudes that agents reach as conclusions of their reasoning. Yet, these notions …
Normative uncertainty and probabilistic moral knowledge
Updating incoherent credences ‐ Extending the Dutch strategy argument for conditionalization
In this paper, we ask: how should an agent who has incoherent credences update when they learn new evidence? The standard Bayesian answer for coherent agents is that they should conditionalize; however, this updating rule is not defined for incoherent starting credences. We show how one of the main arguments for conditionalization, the Dutch strategy argument, can be extended to devise a target property for updating plans that can apply to them r…
Reasons Fundamentalism and Rational Uncertainty – Comments on Lord, The Importance of Being Rational
In his new book "The Importance of Being Rational", Errol Lord aims to give a real definition of the property of rationality in terms of normative reasons. If he can do so, his work is an important step towards a defense of ‘reasons fundamentalism’ – the thesis that all complex normative properties can be analyzed in terms of normative reasons. I focus on his analysis of epistemic rationality, which says that your doxastic attitudes are rational …
A Process Model of Wisdom from Adversity
The Importance of Being Rational
Errol Lord's new book The Importance of Being Rational takes on the ambitious task of defending reasons fundamentalism. According to reasons fundamentalism, normative reasons are the fundamental building blocks of all normative phenomena. Defenders of reasons fundamentalism must therefore show that they can give real definitions of all complex normative properties in terms of normative reasons. Lord's book aims to show that this can be done for t…
Unsettled Thoughts: A Theory of Degrees of Rationality
Graded Incoherence for Accuracy-Firsters
This article investigates the relationship between two evaluative claims about agents’ degrees of belief: (i) that it is better to have more rather than less accurate degrees of belief and (ii) that it is better to have less rather than more probabilistically incoherent degrees of belief. We show that, for suitable combinations of inaccuracy measures and incoherence measures, both claims are compatible, although not equivalent; moreover, certain …
Measuring the overall incoherence of credence functions
Can there be reasoning with degrees of belief
Graded Incoherence for Accuracy-Firsters
This article investigates the relationship between two evaluative claims about agents’ degrees of belief: (i) that it is better to have more rather than less accurate degrees of belief and (ii) that it is better to have less rather than more probabilistically incoherent degrees of belief. We show that, for suitable combinations of inaccuracy measures and incoherence measures, both claims are compatible, although not equivalent; moreover, certain …
Measuring the overall incoherence of credence functions
Can there be reasoning with degrees of belief
Pro tem rationality
Epistemologists routinely distinguish between two kinds of justification or rationality – the propositional and the doxastic kind – in order to characterize importantly different ways in which an attitude can be justified or rational for a person. I argue that these notions, as they are commonly understood, are well suited to capture rationality judgments about the attitudes that agents reach as conclusions of their reasoning. Yet, these notions …
Normative uncertainty and probabilistic moral knowledge
The Importance of Being Rational
Errol Lord's new book The Importance of Being Rational takes on the ambitious task of defending reasons fundamentalism. According to reasons fundamentalism, normative reasons are the fundamental building blocks of all normative phenomena. Defenders of reasons fundamentalism must therefore show that they can give real definitions of all complex normative properties in terms of normative reasons. Lord's book aims to show that this can be done for t…
Can there be reasoning with degrees of belief
Measuring the overall incoherence of credence functions
Graded Incoherence for Accuracy-Firsters
This article investigates the relationship between two evaluative claims about agents’ degrees of belief: (i) that it is better to have more rather than less accurate degrees of belief and (ii) that it is better to have less rather than more probabilistically incoherent degrees of belief. We show that, for suitable combinations of inaccuracy measures and incoherence measures, both claims are compatible, although not equivalent; moreover, certain …
A Process Model of Wisdom from Adversity
The Importance of Being Rational
Errol Lord's new book The Importance of Being Rational takes on the ambitious task of defending reasons fundamentalism. According to reasons fundamentalism, normative reasons are the fundamental building blocks of all normative phenomena. Defenders of reasons fundamentalism must therefore show that they can give real definitions of all complex normative properties in terms of normative reasons. Lord's book aims to show that this can be done for t…
Unsettled Thoughts: A Theory of Degrees of Rationality
Reasons Fundamentalism and Rational Uncertainty – Comments on Lord, The Importance of Being Rational
In his new book "The Importance of Being Rational", Errol Lord aims to give a real definition of the property of rationality in terms of normative reasons. If he can do so, his work is an important step towards a defense of ‘reasons fundamentalism’ – the thesis that all complex normative properties can be analyzed in terms of normative reasons. I focus on his analysis of epistemic rationality, which says that your doxastic attitudes are rational …
Pro tem rationality
Epistemologists routinely distinguish between two kinds of justification or rationality – the propositional and the doxastic kind – in order to characterize importantly different ways in which an attitude can be justified or rational for a person. I argue that these notions, as they are commonly understood, are well suited to capture rationality judgments about the attitudes that agents reach as conclusions of their reasoning. Yet, these notions …
Normative uncertainty and probabilistic moral knowledge
Updating incoherent credences ‐ Extending the Dutch strategy argument for conditionalization
In this paper, we ask: how should an agent who has incoherent credences update when they learn new evidence? The standard Bayesian answer for coherent agents is that they should conditionalize; however, this updating rule is not defined for incoherent starting credences. We show how one of the main arguments for conditionalization, the Dutch strategy argument, can be extended to devise a target property for updating plans that can apply to them r…
Précis for Unsettled Thoughts
Replies to Fitelson and Konek
Transitional attitudes and the unmooring view of higher‐order evidence
This paper proposes a novel answer to the question of what attitude agents should adopt when they receive misleading higher‐order evidence that avoids the drawbacks of existing views. The answer builds on the independently motivated observation that there is a difference between attitudes that agents form as conclusions of their reasoning, called terminal attitudes , and attitudes that are formed in a transitional manner in the process of reasoni…
An Improved Argument for Superconditionalization
On the Relationship between Attitude and Process Norms. Comments on david Thorstad’s Inquiry Under Bounds
Are there transitional beliefs? – I think so
This paper investigates a novel question about the relationship between belief and deliberation: Is it ever rationally permissible to believe an answer to a question Q prior to concluding one's deliberation about Q ? This question differs from a more commonly discussed one, insofar as it asks about the rationality of believing that p before settling on p as the answer to some question Q . By contrast, recent literature in this area has focused on…
Humble Reasoning: When can I Stop
One way of characterizing what makes someone a good reasoner is to appeal to intellectual virtues, such as curiosity, fair-mindedness, or epistemic humility. My aim in this paper is to show that explaining how the virtue of humility should manifest itself in complex reasoning is more difficult than one might think. A very natural view of what intellectually humble deliberation looks like is problematic, because it leads to an infinite regress. I …
Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (15 works) · Epistemology (13 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Metaphysics (6 works) · Philosophy of language (6 works) · Economics (4 works) · Free Will and Agency (4 works) · Mathematics (4 works)