European University Institute Library

Luck, its nature and significance for human knowledge and agency, E.J. Coffman, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Tennessee, USA

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

index present

non fiction

Luck

bibliography

889522012

E.J. Coffman, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Tennessee, USA

Palgrave innovations in philosophy

its nature and significance for human knowledge and agency

As thinkers in the market for knowledge and as agents aspiring to free, morally responsible action, we are inevitably subject to a wide range of different kinds of luck. Once appreciated, luck's pervasive influence on human intellectual and practical endeavor can become a source of acute distress. Our inevitable subjection to luck threatens to thoroughly frustrate our aspirations to knowledge and free, responsible agency, thereby sapping much of the value from our intellectual and practical successes. This book presents and defends a comprehensive new theory of luck in light of a critical appraisal of the literature's leading accounts, then brings this new theory of luck to bear on central issues in the theory of knowledge and the philosophy of action. It argues for an optimistic view of luck's significance for human intellectual and practical endeavor according to which knowledge and free, responsible agency are compatible with a surprisingly wide range of luck-related phenomena.--, Provided by Publisher

1 Lucky Events: The Current Debate and a New Proposal 1.1 Three Leading Theories of Luck 1.2 Counterexamples to the Leading Theories of Luck 1.3 Lucky Events and Strokes of Luck 1.4 The Strokes Account: Further Support and Defense 2 What is a Stroke of Luck?: Enriching the Strokes Account 2.1 Initial Statement of the Analysis and Some Important Implications 2.2 The Analysis: Revisions and Defense 2.3 Putting it All Together: the Enriched Strokes Account of Lucky Events 2.4 How the Enriched Strokes Account Handles the Counterexamples to the Literature's Leading Theories of Luck 3 Knowledge and Luck I: Gettiered Belief and the Ease of Mistake Approach 3.1 An Initial Catalog of Kinds of Epistemic Luck 3.2 Pritchard on Evidence Luck and Belief Luck 3.3 The Scope of Gettiered Belief 3.4 The Ease of Mistake Approach to Gettiered Belief: Explanation and Support 3.5 Counterexamples to the Ease of Mistake Approach 4 Knowledge and Luck II: Three More Approaches to Gettiered Belief 4.1 From Ease of Mistake to Lack of Credit 4.2 Creditability as Explanatory Salience 4.3 Creditability as Power Manifestation 4.4 Two Riskier Approaches to Gettiered Belief 4.5 The Risk of Misleading Dispositions Approach to Gettiered Belief 4.6 The Risk of Misleading Justification Approach to Gettiered Belief 4.6.1 Objection 1: Kelp's Demonic Clock 4.6.2 Objection 2: Bogardus's Atomic Clock 5 Freedom, Responsibility, and Luck I: The Possibility of Moral Responsibility and Literal Arguments for the Proximal Determination Requirement 5.1 Defending the Possibility of Morally Responsible Action 5.2 Four Different Kinds of Luck-Involving Arguments for the Proximal Determination Requirement 5.3 Literal Versions of the Arguments for the Proximal Determination Requirement 5.3.1 An Intriguing Attempted Counterexample to (IA-2) 5.3.2 Against the 'at least partly a matter of luck' Readings of (DA-2) and (IA-2) 5.3.3 Against (DA/IA-1) 6 Freedom, Responsibility, and Luck II: Stipulative Arguments for the Proximal Determination Requirement and Three Arguments against It 6.1 Stipulative Versions of the Direct Argument for the Proximal Determination Requirement 6.2 Stipulative Versions of the Indirect Argument for the Proximal Determination Requirement 6.2.1 Five Arguments for (MI-2) 6.3 Three Arguments against the Proximal Determination Requirement 6.3.1 Objections to the Melean Argument 6.3.2 Objections to Fischer's Argument 6.3.3 Defending the Possibility Argument