In-Progress
“Finding Truth-Directedness in the Guessing Framework”
It is typically assumed that an acceptable account of accuracy must vindicate Truth-Directedness: the principle that our credences are more accurate as they get closer to the truth. Epistemic utility theory builds in Truth-Directedness as a foundational assumption, whereas the educated guessing framework of Horowitz (2019) aims to show that Truth-Directedness can emerge from more basic principles that relate true guesses to epistemic accuracy. I raise a number of concerns about the original guessing argument for Truth-Directedness, and suggest a method for avoiding these challenges. I further develop the framework by proposing a precise measure for scoring accuracy with guesses. I then show that there are general limitations on guessing arguments for Truth-Directedness that have not previously been considered by proponents of guessing, and discuss two ways that Truth-Directedness can be made to fit with the guessing framework nonetheless.“Educated Guesses and The Principal Principle”
I show that it follows from the guessing approach to accuracy, introduced in Horowitz (2019), that our credences are more accurate if cr(P) > cr(Q) whenever ch(P) > ch(Q). I then show that so long as we adopt a certain set of axioms as rational constraints on our comparative confidence ranking, the standard version of the Principal Principle follows from this result and Villegas’s Theorem, which is a theorem that relates comparative confidence rankings and probability functions. I present reasons for adopting each of the axioms, some of which involve expanding the guessing framework to include new rational constraints on guessing.Self-Undermining Assumptions in the Relativity Objection to Presentism”
Presentism, the view that only present objects exist, has been criticized for being in conflict with the theory of special relativity. I outline the standard Minkowski interpretation of relativity and a competing neo-Lorentzian interpretation, noting that only the former causes trouble for the presentist. I then investigate the background assumptions that appear to motivate the Minkowski interpretation, and argue that some of these principles are self-undermining for an eternalist: these are principles that the eternalist assumes for the purposes of the relativity objection, but violates elsewhere in their theorizing. “Fundamental Laws and the Methodology of Science” co-authored work with Travis McKenna
Looking to analyses of what makes laws fundamental in both science and philosophy of science, we argue that neither discipline has a definition of fundamental law that appropriately captures those laws which are well-suited to tell us about the fundamental structure of reality. “Wavefunction Realism and Fundamentality” co-authored work with Nina Emery
We present a novel version of wavefunction realism, wavefunction non-fundamentalism, that differs from the standard version when it comes to which features of the ontology are fundamental. We argue that comparing the two versions of wavefunction realism will reveal how physicists and philosophers of physics are operating with substantive background assumptions about the nature of fundamentality--and that which interpretation one finds preferable will ultimately depend on their background commitments regarding the nature of fundamentality and connected concepts like supervenience, locality, and explanation.Handouts from Recent Talks
A New Approach to Scoring on the Educated Guessing Framework