Sarah Moss
Biographic Data
| ID | 5967364 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sarah Moss |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sarah |
| FAMILY NAME | Moss |
| SIGNATURE | MOSS S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Department of Philosophy University of Michigan |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 45 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 11 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
A synthesis view of counterfactuals
There are two prominent views of counterfactuals in the literature—variably strict conditional accounts developed by Stalnaker 1968 and D. K. Lewis 1973, and strict conditional accounts defended by von Fintel 2001, Gillies 2007, and others. Unfortunately, both views face serious challenges. This paper argues that traditional strict conditional views fail to accommodate our judgments about probabilistic variants of Heim sequences, where these judg…
Global Constraints on Imprecise Credences
The move to imprecise credence models leaves many formal norms of rationality surprisingly intact, as rational constraints on precise credences are often reinterpreted as constraints on individual elements of a rational agent’s representor. However, constraints on imprecise credences needn’t take this form. Whether an imprecise agent is rational might just as easily depend on global features of her representor. This paper is an extended investiga…
Full Belief and Loose Speech
This paper defends an account of full belief, including an account of its relationship to credence. Along the way, I address several familiar and difficult questions about belief. Does fully believing a proposition require having maximal confidence in it? Are rational beliefs closed under entailment, or does the preface paradox show that rational agents can believe inconsistent propositions? Does whether you believe a proposition depend partly on…
Probabilistic Knowledge
Traditional philosophical discussions of knowledge have focused on the epistemic status of full beliefs. This book argues that in addition to full beliefs, credences can constitute knowledge. For instance, your .4 credence that it is raining outside can constitute knowledge, in just the same way that your full beliefs can. In addition, you can know that it might be raining, and that if it is raining then it is probably cloudy, where this knowledg…
IX—Moral Encroachment
This paper develops a precise understanding of the thesis of moral encroachment, which states that the epistemic status of an opinion can depend on its moral features. In addition, I raise objections to existing accounts of moral encroachment. For instance, many accounts fail to give sufficient attention to moral encroachment on credences. Also, many accounts focus on moral features that fail to support standard analogies between pragmatic and mo…
On the semantics and pragmatics of epistemic vocabulary
This paper motivates and develops a novel semantics for several epistemic expressions, including possibility and necessity modals and indicative conditionals. The semantics I defend constitutes an alternative to standard truth conditional theories, as it assigns sets of probability measures rather than sets of worlds as sentential semantic values. I argue that what my theory lacks in conservatism, it makes up for in strength — namely, the theory …
On fiction, art and medicine
This is a deliberately eclectic and eccentric meditation on some of the connections between writing fiction, academic research in the history of medicine and the practice of medicine. The essay discusses creativity in research and writing, suggesting comparisons with the instincts of experienced clinicians, and explains the author's interest in women's entry to the medical profession. There is the suggestion of parallels between artists' models a…
Epistemology Formalized
This paper argues that just as full beliefs can constitute knowledge, so can properties of your credence distribution. The resulting notion of probabilistic knowledge helps us give a natural account of knowledge ascriptions embedding language of subjective uncertainty, and a simple diagnosis of probabilistic analogues of Gettier cases. Just like propositional knowledge, probabilistic knowledge is factive, safe, and sensitive. And it helps us buil…
Updating as Communication
On many traditional theories of belief, your belief state is represented by an assignment of credences to propositions, or sets of possible worlds.If you are rational, your credence distribution will be a probability measure.Traditional theories of belief fit with a standard Bayesian theory of rational belief change: on learning a proposition, you must update your belief state by conditionalizing your credence distribution on the proposition you …
Subjunctive Credences and Semantic Humility
Slicing the Silence
Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica, by Tom Griffiths, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2007, 399 pp., $29.95, ISBN: 978-0-6740-2633-9. Tom Griffiths writes in his prologue that two
Epistemology Formalized
This paper argues that just as full beliefs can constitute knowledge, so can properties of your credence distribution. The resulting notion of probabilistic knowledge helps us give a natural account of knowledge ascriptions embedding language of subjective uncertainty, and a simple diagnosis of probabilistic analogues of Gettier cases. Just like propositional knowledge, probabilistic knowledge is factive, safe, and sensitive. And it helps us buil…
Updating as Communication
On many traditional theories of belief, your belief state is represented by an assignment of credences to propositions, or sets of possible worlds.If you are rational, your credence distribution will be a probability measure.Traditional theories of belief fit with a standard Bayesian theory of rational belief change: on learning a proposition, you must update your belief state by conditionalizing your credence distribution on the proposition you …
Subjunctive Credences and Semantic Humility
Full Belief and Loose Speech
This paper defends an account of full belief, including an account of its relationship to credence. Along the way, I address several familiar and difficult questions about belief. Does fully believing a proposition require having maximal confidence in it? Are rational beliefs closed under entailment, or does the preface paradox show that rational agents can believe inconsistent propositions? Does whether you believe a proposition depend partly on…
Global Constraints on Imprecise Credences
The move to imprecise credence models leaves many formal norms of rationality surprisingly intact, as rational constraints on precise credences are often reinterpreted as constraints on individual elements of a rational agent’s representor. However, constraints on imprecise credences needn’t take this form. Whether an imprecise agent is rational might just as easily depend on global features of her representor. This paper is an extended investiga…
Slicing the Silence
Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica, by Tom Griffiths, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2007, 399 pp., $29.95, ISBN: 978-0-6740-2633-9. Tom Griffiths writes in his prologue that two
Updating as Communication
On many traditional theories of belief, your belief state is represented by an assignment of credences to propositions, or sets of possible worlds.If you are rational, your credence distribution will be a probability measure.Traditional theories of belief fit with a standard Bayesian theory of rational belief change: on learning a proposition, you must update your belief state by conditionalizing your credence distribution on the proposition you …
Subjunctive Credences and Semantic Humility
Epistemology Formalized
This paper argues that just as full beliefs can constitute knowledge, so can properties of your credence distribution. The resulting notion of probabilistic knowledge helps us give a natural account of knowledge ascriptions embedding language of subjective uncertainty, and a simple diagnosis of probabilistic analogues of Gettier cases. Just like propositional knowledge, probabilistic knowledge is factive, safe, and sensitive. And it helps us buil…
On fiction, art and medicine
This is a deliberately eclectic and eccentric meditation on some of the connections between writing fiction, academic research in the history of medicine and the practice of medicine. The essay discusses creativity in research and writing, suggesting comparisons with the instincts of experienced clinicians, and explains the author's interest in women's entry to the medical profession. There is the suggestion of parallels between artists' models a…
On the semantics and pragmatics of epistemic vocabulary
This paper motivates and develops a novel semantics for several epistemic expressions, including possibility and necessity modals and indicative conditionals. The semantics I defend constitutes an alternative to standard truth conditional theories, as it assigns sets of probability measures rather than sets of worlds as sentential semantic values. I argue that what my theory lacks in conservatism, it makes up for in strength — namely, the theory …
Probabilistic Knowledge
Traditional philosophical discussions of knowledge have focused on the epistemic status of full beliefs. This book argues that in addition to full beliefs, credences can constitute knowledge. For instance, your .4 credence that it is raining outside can constitute knowledge, in just the same way that your full beliefs can. In addition, you can know that it might be raining, and that if it is raining then it is probably cloudy, where this knowledg…
IX—Moral Encroachment
This paper develops a precise understanding of the thesis of moral encroachment, which states that the epistemic status of an opinion can depend on its moral features. In addition, I raise objections to existing accounts of moral encroachment. For instance, many accounts fail to give sufficient attention to moral encroachment on credences. Also, many accounts focus on moral features that fail to support standard analogies between pragmatic and mo…
Full Belief and Loose Speech
This paper defends an account of full belief, including an account of its relationship to credence. Along the way, I address several familiar and difficult questions about belief. Does fully believing a proposition require having maximal confidence in it? Are rational beliefs closed under entailment, or does the preface paradox show that rational agents can believe inconsistent propositions? Does whether you believe a proposition depend partly on…
Global Constraints on Imprecise Credences
The move to imprecise credence models leaves many formal norms of rationality surprisingly intact, as rational constraints on precise credences are often reinterpreted as constraints on individual elements of a rational agent’s representor. However, constraints on imprecise credences needn’t take this form. Whether an imprecise agent is rational might just as easily depend on global features of her representor. This paper is an extended investiga…
A synthesis view of counterfactuals
There are two prominent views of counterfactuals in the literature—variably strict conditional accounts developed by Stalnaker 1968 and D. K. Lewis 1973, and strict conditional accounts defended by von Fintel 2001, Gillies 2007, and others. Unfortunately, both views face serious challenges. This paper argues that traditional strict conditional views fail to accommodate our judgments about probabilistic variants of Heim sequences, where these judg…
Computer Science (9 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (9 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (5 works) · Credence (4 works) · Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge (4 works) · Art (3 works) · Artificial Intelligence (3 works) · History (3 works)