Abstract

The Inscrutable Evidence Argument targets the thesis that credences are thoughts about evidential probabilities (CTEP). It does so using cases where one knows one’s evidence speaks either strongly in favor of or strongly against a proposition, but one doesn’t know which; in such cases, it seems possible to have a middling credence in that proposition even though one doesn’t think the probability of the proposition is near 50%—contra CTEP. In this paper, I defend CTEP by conceiving of the thoughts involved differently than usual. My diagnosis of the argument turns on appreciating the difference between believing and accepting (in the sense of Bratman 1992) that a proposition has probability n, where accepting is context dependent and allows for guidance in action without commitment to truth. I develop this diagnosis in two directions, one according to which acceptances of probability-involving propositions are credences and another according to which they aren’t. Both views elude the Inscrutable Evidence Argument and are compatible with CTEP.