Defeat reconsidered
Jake Chandler · Analysis · 2012
It appears to have gone unnoticed in the literature that John Pollock's widely endorsed analysis of evidential defeat entails a remarkably strong symmetry principle, according to which, for any three propositions D, E and H, if both E and D provide a reason to believe H, then D is a defeater for E's support for H if and only if, in turn, E is a defeater for D's support for H. After illustrating the counterintuitive character of this constraint, a simple, more suitable, alternative to the Pollockian account is offered.