{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Knowing Our Limits - Epistemology Without Bayes","description":"I was promised useful stories to assist me in a quest for justified belief. Instead I got a lesson in the limits of expertise. Unfortunately it was the author\u2019s expertise that was limited.  Knowing Our Limits By: Nathan Ballantyne Published: 2019 344 Pages Briefly, what is this book about? Regulative epistemology as opposed to descriptive epistemology. Put more simply, this is about how to find truth, as opposed to how to define truth. Though because the author recommends having very high standards, you may come away from the book thinking that there is no truth. That is not Ballantyne\u2019s intent, but most of his guidance revolves around less confidence rather than more confidence. There is some good stuff about tolerance, and the utility of doubt. And while I take issue with some of what he says on the subject of expertise, he covers the subject exhaustively and thought-provokingly. What authorial biases should I be aware of? Ballantyne isn\u2019t just interested in epistemology. He doesn\u2019t dabble in it. He is epistemology, or rather an epistemologist. Accordingly, even though it\u2019s apparent that he\u2019s trying really, really hard to not make the book overly academic, it\u2019s still pretty academic. For example: If an undefeated defeater for believing p were included in the evidence I don\u2019t have, then I (probably) would have heard of it by now. But I have not heard of it and the \u201csilence\u201d gives me reason to think that the unpossessed defeater is probably defeated. He\u2019s a big fan of the word defeater, and various constructions involving the word. In the course of a few pages he uses the term \u201cdefeater-defeater\u201d seventeen times. Who should read this book? Epistemological collapse is the major crisis of our time, so on some level it\u2019s probably useful to read everything you can get your hands on. (Which was my big reason for reading it.) But, as much as I crap on Yudkowsky\u2019s Rationality: From AI to Zombies I\u2019d probably read his chapters on Bayes\u2019 Theorem before reading this.  I heard about the book on Jesse Singal\u2019s substack. He was much more bullish on it. So you might read that if you\u2019re interested or on the fence. Specific thoughts: Lots of epistemic tools, Ballantyne really only covers one ","author_name":"We Are Not Saved","author_url":"http:\/\/wearenotsaved.com","html":"