Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Ma, Zhiyao

Titel

The Yin-Yang Belief Concatenation and Akrasia

Ist Teil von

• Journal of comparative literature & aesthetics, 2023-12, Vol.46 (4), p.90-101

Ort / Verlag

Cuttack: Vishvanatha Kaviraja Institute of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

Literature Online (LION)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Epistemic akrasia describes a non-ideal situation in which an agent holds a belief like, "P, but my evidence does not support P." It is controversial whether it is possible or rational to hold such an akratic belief. In this paper, I attempt to explain akratic beliefs in terms of an updated notion of yin and yang in Chinese philosophy. Epistemologists evaluate akratic beliefs as if they are the end of an inquiry or inference. Drawing from the updated notion of yin/yang in which yin is conceived as receptivity and yang is conceived as direct purpose (or impulsion), an akratic belief is shown to be an unstable, intermediate temporal belief state in the middle of the entire process. It is not the end result, rather, it is a transitional episode of an inquiry or inference in progress. Hence, it is the entire process to be evaluated rather than the temporal belief state in the middle of the process. Given this notion of yin/yang, an akratic belief illustrates that an agent is open-minded in the sense that she is receptive to evidence, which motivates her to proceed through further investigation. Ultimately, the so-called akratic beliefs are segments of a diachronic process of belief concatenation. Keywords: yin, yang, complementary, belief, inference, akrasia