Jakob Donskov

The practical import of higher-order defeat: resilience vs. imprecise credences | 2026, Erkenntnis (with Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen)
In some cases of higher-order defeat, you rationally doubt whether your credence in p is rational without having evidence of how to improve your credence in p. According to the resilience framework proposed by Steglich-Petersen (Higher-order defeat and Doxastic Resilience), such cases require loss of doxastic resilience: retain your credence level but become more disposed to change your mind given future evidence. Henderson (Higher-Order Evidence and Losing One’s Conviction) responds that this allows for irrational decision-making and that we are better off understanding higher-order defeat in terms of imprecise probabilities. We argue first that Henderson’s imprecise probability framework models the wrong kind of thing. Credal imprecision is neither necessary nor sufficient for higher-order doubt. Second, we offer two ways of understanding the practical import of higher-order defeat given loss of doxastic resilience.

Resisting counterevidence: no knowledge needed | 2025, Synthese
When can you rationally resist misleading evidence? One influential answer appeals to the idea that knowledge can serve as a safeguarding instrument, which, if not allowing you to outright dismiss misleading evidence—as Kripke’s dogmatism paradox suggests—at least makes it more likely that your true beliefs rationally resist defeat (Williamson 2000). I reject the idea, arguing that any such rational resistance is well accounted for by our beliefs, regardless of whether they amount to knowledge. By paying attention to how evidential strength influences the resilience of rational belief, I offer an evidential account of rational resistance. I use the account to evaluate Harman’s solution to Kripke’s dogmatism paradox, highlighting the limits of the knowledge-based approach.

Publications

Under review

A Lewisian defence of Desire as Belief | (with Rodrigo Valencia Pacheco)
David Lewis (1988; 1996) rejected the Desire as Belief thesis because it either imposes implausible normative constraints on desires or else requires evaluative beliefs to be unresponsive to evidence. However, we contend that Lewis’ dispositional theory of value (1989) commits him to a restricted version of the principle, which we call Euthymia: rationality requires that our beliefs about the good correspond to our second-order desires. We argue that Euthymia avoids Lewis’ objection and vindicates the possibility of improving evaluative outlooks through rational revision. The upshot is a refined model of rational desire that reconciles a broadly Humean view of motivation with normative appraisal at the second-order level.

Two norms of epistemic humility
Our fallibility calls for epistemic humility: the available evidence is often difficult to evaluate so we should be open to the possibility of error. Here I argue that Bayesian models of higher-order uncertainty can capture rational epistemic humility by imposing two norms on credences. Total Calibration requires lower-order credences to match higher-order expectations of the rational credence. The principle avoids epistemic akrasia without requiring higher-order certainty while explaining why the humble decrease their confidence. Proportional Resilience requires higher-order uncertainty to constrain how much to expect credences to change in the face of new evidence. The principle thereby links higher-order uncertainty to open-mindedness, explaining why the humble expect new evidence to be counterevidence.

In preparation

Beware, some of my beliefs are false! (with Jens Christian Bjerring)

The value of inquiry under credal instability

A Bayesian account of suspension

When irrelevant influences are defeating