Psychologists have emphasized children's acquisition of information through firsthand observation. However, many beliefs are acquired from others' testimony. In two experiments, most 4yearolds displayed sceptical trust in testimony. Having heard informants' accurate or inaccurate testimony, they anticipated that informants would continue to display such differential accuracy and they trusted the hitherto reliable informant. Yet they ignored the testimony of the reliable informant if it conflicted with what they themselves had seen. By contrast, threeyearolds were less selective in trusting a reliable (...) informant. Thus, young children check testimony against their own experience and increasingly recognise that some informants are more trustworthy than others. (shrink)

Stereotypes shape inferences in philosophical thought, political discourse, and everyday life. These inferences are routinely made when thinkers engage in language comprehension or production: We make them whenever we hear, read, or formulate stories, reports, philosophical case-descriptions, or premises of arguments – on virtually any topic. These inferences are largely automatic: largely unconscious, non-intentional, and effortless. Accordingly, they shape our thought in ways we can properly understand only by complementing traditional forms of philosophical analysis with experimental methods from psycholinguistics. This (...) paper seeks, first, to bring out the wider philosophical relevance of stereotypical inference, well beyond familiar topics like gender and race. Second, we wish to provide philosophers with a toolkit to experimentally study these ubiquitous inferences and what intuitions they may generate. This paper explains what stereotypes are, and why they matter to current and traditional concerns in philosophy – experimental, analytic, and applied. It then assembles a psycholinguistic toolkit and demonstrates through two studies how potentially questionnaire-based measures can be combined with process measures to garner evidence for specific stereotypical inferences and study when they ‘go through’ and influence our thinking. (shrink)

Repression has become an empirical fact that is at once obvious and problematic. Fragmented clinical and laboratory traditions and disputed terminology have resulted in a Babel of misunderstandings in which false distinctions are imposed (e.g., between repression and suppression) and necessary distinctions not drawn (e.g., between the mechanism and the use to which it is put, defense being just one). “Repression” was introduced by Herbart to designate the (nondefensive) inhibition of ideas by other ideas in their struggle for consciousness. Freud (...) adapted repression to the defensive inhibition of “unbearable” mental contents. Substantial experimental literatures on attentional biases, thought avoidance, interference, and intentional forgetting exist, the oldest prototype being the work of Ebbinghaus, who showed that intentional avoidance of memories results in their progressive forgetting over time. It has now become clear, as clinicians had claimed, that the inaccessible materials are often available and emerge indirectly (e.g., procedurally, implicitly). It is also now established that the Ebbinghaus retention function can be partly reversed, with resulting increases of conscious memory over time (hypermnesia). Freud's clinical experience revealed early on that exclusion from consciousness was effected not just by simple repression (inhibition) but also by a variety of distorting techniques, some deployed to degrade latent contents (denial), all eventually subsumed under the rubric of defense mechanisms (“repression in the widest sense”). Freudian and Bartlettian distortions are essentially the same, even in name, except for motive (cognitive vs. emotional), and experimentally induced false memories and other “memory illusions” are laboratory analogs of self-induced distortions. Key Words: avoidance; Bartlett; defense; denial; distortion; Ebbinghaus; false-memories; Freud; inhibition; repression; suppression. (shrink)

Unconscious processes, by whatever name they may be known , are invariably operationalized by the dissociation paradigm, any situation involving the dissociation between two indicators , one of availability and the other, of accessibility , such that, ε>α. Subliminal perception has been traditionally defined by a special case of the dissociation paradigm in which availability exceeds accessibility when accessibility is null . Construct validity issues bedevil all dissociation paradigms since it is not clear what might constitute appropriate indicators that, moreover, (...) are pure and exhaustive. Semantic and theoretic drifts in the recent literature—e.g., the confusion of different versions of the dissociation paradigm, the equation of conscious–unconscious with direct–indirect tests, and the foisting of the criterion of qualitative differences—have tended to undermine emerging theoretic parsimony. On the other hand, a crucial factor has been left out of theory development: time. Both ε and α can rise and fall over time, often asynchronously, and so dissociations may wax and wane and, even, reverse over time. Some laboratory evidence suggests that accessibility measures , as they approach chance, may actually dip below chance . If so, d′=0 , could be an averaging artifact of positive and negative d′s. Conscious accessibility is not either–or but more or less, and variable over time. (shrink)

On many of the idealized models of human cognition and behavior in use by philosophers, agents are represented as having a single corpus of beliefs which (a) is consistent and deductively closed, and (b) guides all of their (rational, deliberate, intentional) actions all the time. In graded-belief frameworks, agents are represented as having a single, coherent distribution of credences, which guides all of their (rational, deliberate, intentional) actions all of the time. It's clear that actual human beings don't live up (...) to this idealization. The systems of belief that we in fact have are fragmented. Rather than having a single system of beliefs that guides all of our behavior all of the time, we have a number of distinct, compartmentalized systems of belief, different ones of which drive different aspects of our behavior in different contexts. It's tempting to think that, while of course people are fragmented, it would be better (from the perspective of rationality) if they weren't, and the only reason why our fragmentation is excusable is that we have limited cognitive resources, which prevents us from holding too much information before our minds at a time. Give us enough additional processing capacity, and there'd be no justification for any continued fragmentation. I argue that this is not so. There are good reasons to be fragmented rather than unified, independent of the limitations on our available processing power. In particular, there are ways our belief-forming mechanisms—including our perceptual systems—could be constructed that would make it better to be fragmented than to be unified. And there are reasons to think that some of our belief-forming mechanisms really are constructed that way. (shrink)

Social scientists and computer scientist are divided by small differences in perspective and not by any significant disciplinary divide. In the field of text analysis, several such differences are noted: social scientists often use unsupervised models to explore corpora, whereas many computer scientists employ supervised models to train data; social scientists hold to more conventional causal notions than do most computer scientists, and often favor intense exploitation of existing algorithms, whereas computer scientists focus more on developing new models; and computer (...) scientists tend to trust human judgment more than social scientists do. These differences have implications that potentially can improve the practice of social science. (shrink)

This symposium discusses J.-L. Dessalles's account of the evolution of language, which was presented in Why we Talk (OUP 2007).

I propose the notion of ‘epistemic sanity’, a property of parsimony between the holding of true but not false beliefs and the consideration of our cognitive limitations. Where ‘alethic value’ is the epistemic value of holding true but not false beliefs, the ‘alethic potential’ of an agent is the amount of extra alethic value that she is expected to achieve, given her current environment, beliefs, and reasoning skills. Epistemic sanity would be related to the holding of (true or false) beliefs (...) that increase the agent's alethic potential (relevant beliefs) but not of beliefs that decrease it (this is related to cognitive parsimony). Suspension of judgment, forgetting, and clutter avoidance are the main contributors to an agent's epistemic sanity, where this paper focuses on suspension. I argue that rational suspension favors the holding of true and relevant beliefs, which is not the case for the extremes of opinionation (no suspension) and skepticism (general suspension). In the absence of evidence, opinionated agents are often forced to rely on principles such as the principle of indifference, but suspension dominates indifference in terms of alethic value in some conditions. A rational agent would only find it beneficial to adopt skepticism if she considers herself to be an anti-expert about her entire agenda, but then ‘flipping’ beliefs maximizes expected alethic value in relation to skepticism. The study of epistemic sanity results in an ‘impure’ veritism, which can deal with some limitations of veritism (e.g., explaining the existence of false but relevant beliefs). (shrink)

As more and more instances of corporate hypocrisy become public, consumers have developed an inherent general skepticism towards firms’ corporate social responsibility claims. As CSR skepticism bears heavily on consumers’ attitudes and behavior, this paper draws from Construal Level Theory to identify how it can be pre-emptively abated. We posit that this general skepticism towards CSR leads people to adopt a low-level construal mindset when processing CSR information. Across four studies, we show that matching this low-level mindset with concrete CSR (...) messaging works to effectively mitigate the negative effects of inherent CSR skepticism on consumers’ attitudes, purchase intentions, and word of mouth. The resulting construal-mindset congruency strengthens the favorability of consumer responses through increased positive elaboration and perceptions of CSR message credibility. Furthermore, this congruency effect is shown to persist over time in skeptical domains but to dissipate in less skeptical domains. (shrink)

Philosophers agree that an important part of our knowledge is acquired via testimony. One of the main objectives of social epistemology is therefore to specify the conditions under which a hearer is justified in accepting a proposition stated by a source. Non-reductionists, who think that testimony could be considered as an a priori source of knowledge, as well as reductionists, who think that another type of justification has to be added to testimony, share a common conception about children development. Non-reductionists (...) believe that infants and children are fundamentally gullible and their gullibility could be seen as an example for justifying testimony, while reductionists believe that this gullibility is merely an exception that should be taken into account. The objective of this paper is to review contemporary literature in developmental psychology providing empirical grounds likely to clarify this philosophical debate. What emerges from current research is a more elaborated vision of children’s attitude toward testimony. Even at a very young age, children do not blindly swallow information coming from testimony; doubtful or contradictory information is automatically screened by their cognitive system. Even if they are unable to give positive reasons for the acceptance of a given testimony, young children are not gullible. Such empirical findings tend to call into question the radical opposition between reductionism and non-reductionism. (shrink)

The subjective impression that statements are true increases when statements are presented repeatedly. There are two sources for this truth effect: An increase in validity based on recollection and increase in processing fluency due to repeated exposure . Using multinomial processing trees , we present a comprehensive model of the truth effect. Furthermore, we show that whilst the increase in processing fluency is indeed automatic, the interpretation and use of that experience is not. Experiment 1 demonstrates the standard use of (...) the fluency experience and Experiment 2 demonstrates that people can change the interpretation of the experience according to its ecological validity. By implication, the truth effect represents the adaptive usage of feedback received from internal processes. (shrink)

Preston & de Waal are understandably cautious in applying their model to autism. They emphasise multiple cognitive impairments in autism, including prefrontal-executive, cerebellar-attention, and amygdala-emotion recognition deficits. Further empirical examination of imitation ability in autism may reveal deficits in the neural and cognitive basis of perception-action mapping that have a specific relation to the empathic deficit.

Naive physics beliefs can be systematically mistaken. They provide a useful test-bed because they are common, and also because their existence must rely on some adaptive advantage, within a given context. In the second part of the commentary we also ask questions about when a whole family of misbeliefs should be considered together as a single phenomenon.

Many consumers implicitly associate sustainability with lower product strength. This so-called ethical = less strong intuition (ELSI) poses a major threat for the success of sustainable products. This article explores this pervasive lay theory and examines whether it is a key barrier for sustainable consumption patterns. Even more importantly, little is known about the underlying mechanisms that might operate differently at the implicit and explicit levels of the consumer’s decision-making. To fill this gap, three studies examine how the implicit judgments (...) that consumers activate automatically shape their consumption behaviors, in concert with their more controlled explicit beliefs about sustainable products. The Main Study investigates the ELSI’s imprint on actual shopping patterns and disentangles the implicit and explicit mechanisms of the lay theory. This paper also asks how this negative influence can be attenuated by examining whether the consumer’s interest in sustainable consumption reduces reliance on the ELSI. Two follow-up studies confirm the robustness from different methodological and practical perspectives. Implications for companies and policy makers are derived. (shrink)

While the causal contributions of so-called ‘automatic’ processes to behavior are now widely acknowledged, less attention has been given to their normative role in the guidance of action. We develop an account of the normativity of automaticity that responds to and builds upon Tamar Szabó Gendler's account of ‘alief’, an associative and arational mental state more primitive than belief. Alief represents a promising tool for integrating psychological research on automaticity with philosophical work on mind and action, but Gendler errs in (...) overstating the degree to which aliefs are norm-insensitive. (shrink)

Social psychologists tell us that much of human behavior is automatic. It is natural to think that automatic behavioral dispositions are ethically desirable if and only if they are suitably governed by an agent’s reflective judgments. However, we identify a class of automatic dispositions that make normatively self-standing contributions to praiseworthy action and a well-lived life, independently of, or even in spite of, an agent’s reflective judgments about what to do. We argue that the fundamental questions for the "ethics of (...) automaticity" are what automatic dispositions are (and are not) good for and when they can (and cannot) be trusted. (shrink)

We consider a range of cases—both hypothetical and actual—in which agents apparently know how to \ but fail to believe that the way in which they in fact \ is a way for them to \. These “no-belief” cases present a prima facie problem for Intellectualism about knowledge-how. The problem is this: if knowledge-that entails belief, and if knowing how to \ just is knowing that some w is a way for one to \, then an agent cannot both know (...) how to \ and fail to believe that w, the way that she \s, is a way for her to \. We discuss a variety of ways in which Intellectualists might respond to this challenge and argue that, ultimately, this debate converges with another, seemingly distinct debate in contemporary epistemology: how to attribute belief in cases of conflict between an agent’s avowals and her behavior. No-belief cases, we argue, reveal how Intellectualism depends on the plausibility of positing something like “implicit beliefs”—which conflict with an agent’s avowed beliefs—in many cases of apparent knowledge-how. While there may be good reason to posit implicit beliefs elsewhere, we suggest that there are at least some grounds for thinking that these reasons fail to carry over to no-belief cases, thus applying new pressure to Intellectualism. (shrink)

A provocative case for the inherently political nature of language In The Politics of Language, David Beaver and Jason Stanley present a radical new approach to the theory of meaning, offering an account of communication in which political and social identity, affect, and shared practices play as important a role as information. This new view of language, they argue, has dramatic consequences for free speech, democracy, and a range of other areas in which speech plays a central role. Drawing on (...) a wealth of disciplines, The Politics of Language argues that the function of speech—whether in dialogue, larger group interactions, or mass communication—is to attune people to something, be it a shared reality, emotion, or identity. Reconceptualizing the central ideas of pragmatics and semantics, Beaver and Stanley apply their account to a range of phenomena that defy standard frameworks in linguistics and philosophy of language—from dog whistles and covert persuasion to echo chambers and genocidal speech. The authors use their framework to show that speech is inevitably political because all communication is imbued with the resonances of particular ideologies and their normative perspectives on reality. At a time when democracy is under attack, authoritarianism is on the rise, and diversity and equality are being demanded, The Politics of Language offers a powerful new vision of the language of politics, ideology, and protest. (shrink)

Some common explanations of issue polarization and echo chambers rely on social or cognitive mechanisms of exclusion. Accordingly, suggested interventions like “be more open-minded” target these mechanisms: avoid epistemic bubbles and don’t discount contrary information. Contrary to such explanations, we show how a much weaker mechanism—the preference for belief—can produce issue polarization in epistemic communities with little to no mechanisms of exclusion. We present a network model that demonstrates how a dynamic interaction between the preference for belief and common structures (...) of epistemic communities can turn very small unequal distributions of initial beliefs into full-blown polarization. This points to a different class of explanations, one that emphasizes the importance of the initial spread of information. We also show how our model complements extant explanations by including a version of biased assimilation and motivated reasoning—cognitive mechanisms of exclusion. We find that mechanisms of exclusion can exacerbate issue polarization, but may not be the ultimate root of it. Hence, the recommended interventions suggested by extant literature is expected to be limited and the problem of issue polarization to be even more intractable. (shrink)

Prior to the twentieth century, theories of knowledge were inherently perceptual. Since then, developments in logic, statis- tics, and programming languages have inspired amodal theories that rest on principles fundamentally different from those underlying perception. In addition, perceptual approaches have become widely viewed as untenable because they are assumed to implement record- ing systems, not conceptual systems. A perceptual theory of knowledge is developed here in the context of current cognitive science and neuroscience. During perceptual experience, association areas in the (...) brain capture bottom-up patterns of activation in sensory-motor areas. Later, in a top-down manner, association areas partially reactivate sensory-motor areas to implement perceptual symbols. The stor- age and reactivation of perceptual symbols operates at the level of perceptual components – not at the level of holistic perceptual expe- riences. Through the use of selective attention, schematic representations of perceptual components are extracted from experience and stored in memory (e.g., individual memories of green, purr, hot). As memories of the same component become organized around a com- mon frame, they implement a simulator that produces limitless simulations of the component (e.g., simulations of purr). Not only do such simulators develop for aspects of sensory experience, they also develop for aspects of proprioception (e.g., lift, run) and introspec- tion (e.g., compare, memory, happy, hungry). Once established, these simulators implement a basic conceptual system that represents types, supports categorization, and produces categorical inferences. These simulators further support productivity, propositions, and ab- stract concepts, thereby implementing a fully functional conceptual system. Productivity results from integrating simulators combinato- rially and recursively to produce complex simulations. Propositions result from binding simulators to perceived individuals to represent type-token relations. Abstract concepts are grounded in complex simulations of combined physical and introspective events. Thus, a per- ceptual theory of knowledge can implement a fully functional conceptual system while avoiding problems associated with amodal sym- bol systems. Implications for cognition, neuroscience, evolution, development, and artificial intelligence are explored. (shrink)

Various defenses of amodal symbol systems are addressed, including amodal symbols in sensory-motor areas, the causal theory of concepts, supramodal concepts, latent semantic analysis, and abstracted amodal symbols. Various aspects of perceptual symbol systems are clarified and developed, including perception, features, simulators, category structure, frames, analogy, introspection, situated action, and development. Particular attention is given to abstract concepts, language, and computational mechanisms.

This paper argues that habits, just like beliefs, can guide intentional action. To do this, a variety of real-life cases where a person acts habitually but contrary to her beliefs are discussed. The cases serve as dissociations showing that intentional agency is possible without doxastic guidance. The upshot is a model for thinking about the rationality of habitual action and the rationalizing role that habits can play in it. The model highlights the role that our history and institutions play in (...) shaping what actions become habitual for us. (shrink)

Affects are intentional structures of beliefs and desires. Many philosophers have plausibly argued that Spinoza’s theory of ideas is a kind of theory of belief. Yet this claim has rarely been taken into account when it comes to Spinoza’s theory of affects, which is actually a part of his theory of ideas. This paper shows that if this point is taken seriously when regarding Spinoza’s theory of affects we reach significant results about the fifth part of Ethics. To show this, (...) I shall strive to show that all affects depend on some sort of beliefs by analyzing Spinoza’s theory of affects in terms of his theory of ideas, and in particular an affirmation which an idea naturally involves. From this revelation, we will be able to see that Spinoza’s theory of affects presented in the third and fourth parts of Ethics is inconsistent with the fifth part of Ethics in so far as the three therapy methods he describes at the beginning of the fifth part of Ethics are considered. I will also show that arguments by which the soundness of these therapy methods is guaranteed seem actually logically invalid. Finally, I will try to revise Spinoza’s therapy methods by taking all errors and core ideas in Spinoza’s theory of affects into consideration. (shrink)

This paper argues for the importance of the distinction between internal and external negation over expressions for belief. The common fallacy is to confuse statement like (1) and (2): (1) John believes that the school is not closed on Tuesday; (2) John does not believe that the school is closed on Tuesday. The fallacy has ramifications in teaching, reasoning, and argumentation. Analysis of the fallacy and suggestions for teaching are offered.

The empirical study of belief is emerging at a rapid clip, uniting work from all corners of cognitive science. Reliance on belief in understanding and predicting behavior is widespread. Examples can be found, inter alia, in the placebo, attribution theory, theory of mind, and comparative psychological literatures. Research on belief also provides evidence for robust generalizations, including about how we fix, store, and change our beliefs. Evidence supports the existence of a Spinozan system of belief fixation: one that is automatic (...) and independent of belief rejection. Independent research supports the existence of a system of fragmented belief storage: one that relies on large numbers of causally isolated, context-sensitive stores of belief in memory. Finally, empirical and observational data support at least two systems of belief change. One system adheres, mostly, to epistemological norms of updating; the other, the psychological immune system, functions to guard our most centrally held beliefs from potential inconsistency with newly formed beliefs. Refining our under- standing of these systems can shed light on pressing real-world issues, such as how fake news, propaganda, and brainwashing exploit our psychology of belief, and how best to construct our modern informational world. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers have appealed to empirical studies to argue that whenever we think that p, we automatically believe that p (Millikan 2004; Mandelbaum 2014; Levy and Mandelbaum 2014). Levy and Mandelbaum (2014) have gone further and claimed that the automaticity of believing has implications for the ethics of belief in that it creates epistemic obligations for those who know about their automatic belief acquisition. I use theoretical considerations and psychological findings to raise doubts about the empirical case for the view (...) that we automatically believe what we think. Furthermore, I contend that even if we set these doubts aside, Levy and Mandelbaum’s argument to the effect that the automaticity of believing creates epistemic obligations is not fully convincing. (shrink)

This chapter states the contrast between presumptivism about testimonial warrant (often called anti-reductionism) and strict reductionism (associated with Hume) about testimonial warrant. Presumptivism sees an analogy with modest foundationalism about perceptual warrant. Strict reductionism denies this analogy. Two theoretical frameworks for these positions are introduced to better formulate the most popular version of persumptivism, a competence reliabilist account. Seven arguments against presumptivism are then stated and critiqued: (1) The argument from reliability; (2) The argument from reasons; (3) the argument from (...) positive reasons; (4) the argument from negative reasons; (5) the argument from agency; (6) the argument from psychological force; and (7) the argument from gullibility. If presumptivm is false, it is not for any of these arguments. (shrink)

In this chapter we argue that some beliefs present a problem for the truth-aim teleological account of belief, according to which it is constitutive of belief that it is aimed at truth. We draw on empirical literature which shows that subjects form beliefs about the real world when they read fictional narratives, even when those narratives are presented as fiction, and subjects are warned that the narratives may contain falsehoods. We consider Nishi Shah’s teleologist’s dilemma and a response to it (...) from Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen which appeals to weak truth regulation as a feature common to all belief. We argue that beliefs from fiction indicate that there is not a basic level of truth regulation common to all beliefs, and thus the teleologist’s dilemma remains. We consider two objections to our argument. First, that the attitudes gained through reading fiction are not beliefs, and thus teleologists are not required to account for them in their theory. We respond to this concern by defending a doxastic account of the attitudes gained from fiction. Second, that these beliefs are in fact appropriately truth-aimed, insofar as readers form beliefs upon what they take to be author testimony. We respond to this concern by suggesting that the conditions under which one can form justified beliefs upon testimony are not met in the cases we discuss. Lastly, we gesture towards a teleological account grounded in biological function, which is not vulnerable to our argument. We conclude that beliefs from fiction present a problem for the truth-aim teleological account of belief. (shrink)

Previous research has suggested that an effective strategy for debiasing judgments is to have participants "consider the opposite." The present research proposes that considering any plausible alternative outcome for an event, not just the opposite outcome, leads participants to simulate multiple alternatives, resulting in debiased judgments. Three experiments tested this hypothesis using an explanation task paradigm. Participants in all studies were asked to explain either 1 hypothetical outcome (single explanation conditions) or 2 hypothetical outcomes (multiple explanation conditions) to an event; (...) after the explanation task, participants made likelihood judgments. The results of Studies 1 and 2 indicated that debiasing occurred in all multiple explanation conditions, including those that did not involve the opposite outcome. Furthermore, the findings indicated that debiased judgments resulted from participants' spontaneous consideration of additional alternatives in making their likelihood judgments. The results of Study 3 also identified the perceived plausibility of the explained alternative as an important moderating variable in debiasing. (shrink)

Mental imagery (varieties of which are sometimes colloquially refered to as “visualizing,” “seeing in the mind's eye,” “hearing in the head,” “imagining the feel of,” etc.) is quasi-perceptual experience; it resembles perceptual experience, but occurs in the absence of the appropriate external stimuli. It is also generally understood to bear intentionality (i.e., mental images are always images of something or other), and thereby to function as a form of mental representation. Traditionally, visual mental imagery, the most discussed variety, was thought (...) to be caused by the presence of picturelike representations (mental images) in the mind, soul, or brain, but this is no longer universally accepted. (shrink)

In this paper I maintain that Spinoza systematizes independently credible accounts of belief-formation, affect, and desire into an intriguing general theory of how the mind works. His account also explains disparate downstream psychological phenomena, including: (1) emotional responses to fiction; (2) belief perseverance; (3) the reduction of cognitive dissonance; (4) epistemic conservativism that opens us up to confirmation bias, identity protection, and intolerance. Given the promise of Spinoza’s program, I conclude with a plea for further philosophical engagement.

“Implicit bias” is a term of art referring to relatively unconscious and relatively automatic features of prejudiced judgment and social behavior. While psychologists in the field of “implicit social cognition” study “implicit attitudes” toward consumer products, self-esteem, food, alcohol, political values, and more, the most striking and well-known research has focused on implicit attitudes toward members of socially stigmatized groups, such as African-Americans, women, and the LGBTQ community.[1] For example, imagine Frank, who explicitly believes that women and men are equally (...) suited for careers outside the home. Despite his explicitly egalitarian belief, Frank might nevertheless implicitly associate women with the home, and this implicit association might lead him to behave in any number of biased ways, from trusting feedback from female co-workers less to hiring equally qualified men over women. Psychological research on implicit bias is relatively recent (§1), but a host of metaphysical (§2), epistemological (§3), and ethical questions (§4) about implicit bias are pressing.[2]. (shrink)

People cannot contemplate a proposition without believing that proposition. A model of belief fixation is sketched and used to explain hitherto disparate, recalcitrant, and somewhat mysterious psychological phenomena and philosophical paradoxes. Toward this end I also contend that our intuitive understanding of the workings of introspection is mistaken. In particular, I argue that propositional attitudes are beyond the grasp of our introspective capacities. We learn about our beliefs from observing our behavior, not from introspecting our stock beliefs. -/- The model (...) of belief fixation offered in the dissertation poses a novel dilemma for theories of rationality. One might have thought that the ability to contemplate ideas while withholding assent is a necessary condition on rationality. In short, it seems that rational creatures shouldn‘t just form their beliefs based on whatever they happen to think. However, it seems that we are creatures that automatically and reflexively form our beliefs based on whatever propositions we happen to consider. Thus, either the rational requirement that states that we must have evidence for our beliefs must be jettisoned or we must accept the conclusion that we are necessarily irrational. (shrink)

It is often claimed that epistemic bubbles and echo chambers foster post-truth by filtering our access to information and manipulating our epistemic attitude. In this paper, I try to add a further level of analysis by adding the issue of belief formation. Building on cognitive psychology work, I argue for a dual-system theory according to which beliefs derive from a default system and a critical system. One produces beliefs in a quasi-automatic, effortless way, the other in a slow, effortful way. (...) I also argue that digital socio-epistemic environments tend to inculcate disvalues in their agent's epistemic identity, a process that causes the cognitive shortcircuits typical of conspiracy theories. (shrink)

This thesis is set out as a collection of self-standing essays. Throughout these essays, I try to illuminate a number of controversies surrounding the way in which delusions are formed, and relatedly, their nature and epistemic standing. In Chapter 2, after an introductory chapter, I flesh out a new ‘endorsement’ approach to the Capgras delusion, the main idea being that the delusion is formed by endorsing the content of a metaphorical-perceptual state in which a loved one is represented metaphorically as (...) an imposter. In Chapter 3, I take issue with the idea, prevalent in the literature, that Bayesian accounts of inference in delusions are best characterised as versions of ‘explanationism’. Taking one such influential account as a test case, I argue that it is no more or less compatible with the endorsement alternative, which says delusions are acquired non-inferentially from experience. In Chapter 4, I examine a recent critique of predictive processing theories of delusions, according to which such theories suffer two limitations: they fail to explain why an agent believes something delusional as opposed to nothing at all or something else; they fail to explain how delusional hypotheses are generated in the first place. I suggest ways in which these concerns might be addressed. In Chapter 5, I consider how the Spinozan theory of belief fixation can improve the prospects of doxasticism about delusions. Doxasticism has been criticised on the grounds that delusions typically do not abide by rational standards which we expect beliefs to conform to. If belief fixation is Spinozan, I argue, these deviations from rationality are not just compatible with, but supportive of, their status as beliefs. In Chapter 6, I ask whether misidentification delusions formed via endorsement processes have any measure of perceptual justification. To give the best chance of getting a ‘yes’ answer, I address the question from the perspective of perceptual dogmatism, as this appears the best option if we are to grant at least defeasible justifiedness to MDs. I argue that, even so, MDs are completely unjustified. (shrink)

When we think about what others believe and want, we are usually affected by what we know about their attitudes. If I’m aware that another person believes something, I have an opportunity to agree or disagree with it. If I think that another person wants something, I can endorse or disapprove of her desire. The importance of such reactions to attributed beliefs and desires has thus far been overlooked in philosophy of mind where the focus has been on explanatory and (...) predictive roles of attitude attribution. The primary goal of this thesis is to fill this lacuna and to articulate the indispensability of such reactions – agreement/disagreement and endorsement/disapproval – for social cognition. In the process of doing it I also show how these initial reactions ground certain further possible responses in intersubjective communication: manipulation, negotiation or adoption of attributed attitudes. The second aim of this thesis is to explicate what is it about belief and desire attributions that makes the responses I’ve described possible. Because one can agree or disagree both with beliefs and assertions and endorse or disapprove both desires and requests, I argue that we should understand belief attributions in terms of assertions and desire attributions in terms of requests. When we think what someone believes and wants, we treat her as a conversation partner because her attitudes call for the same responses as speech acts do, even if she hasn’t made any explicit assertion or request herself. In short, beliefs and desires have communicative significance. Given such significance, we can also see what one needs to take into consideration when attributing these attitudes to another. My answer in the thesis is that belief and desire attributions have to be grounded in facts about the behaviour and well-being of attributees and that these facts also constitute the nature of beliefs and desires. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy of mind tends to theorize about the propositional attitudes primarily in terms of belief and desire. But there is a propositional attitude, sometimes called ‘entertaining,’ that seems to resist analysis in terms of belief and desire, and has been thought at other times and places (notably, in late nineteenth-century Austrian philosophy) to be more fundamental than belief and desire. Whether or not we accept the fundamentality of entertaining, it certainly seems to be an attitude ill understood in contemporary (...) philosophy of mind. The purpose of this paper is to make first steps – very first steps – toward a more mature understanding of entertaining. (shrink)

Proceeding from serendipitous observations, three studies and two pilot experiments examined how the way mental representations are conceived varies as the subjective status of the representations is manifest or otherwise. Participants were found to produce simple line drawings differently when the drawings were assumed to represent mental contents (beliefs, imaginations, percepts). The results challenged particular lay epistemological concepts. They were partly accounted for by Gricean conversational rules, but a "subjective status bias" was postulated to have them fully explained. The discussion (...) and recommendations for research--completed with two pilot studies--center on the nature of this bias relating it either to a tendency to conceive subjective representations as vague "shadows of reality", or to a tendency to have an increased impact of the law of pregnance. The empirical outcomes of the pilot studies argue for the latter tendency. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that by attributing beliefs the attributer is pushed toward taking a stand on the content of those beliefs and that what stand they take partially depends on the relationship between the attributer and the attributee. In particular, if the attributee enjoys a higher social standing than the attributer, the latter is disposed to adopt the attributed belief, as long as certain other conditions are met. I will call this view the Adoption-by-Attribution model. Because of the (...) non-epistemic influence that derives from the relation of inequality, belief attribution can reinforce the existing unequal power relations and contribute to epistemic injustice. (shrink)

Note posted 9 Jun 08 : Modifications made today include a new section on predictive validity, and addition of recently published article and in in-press article, both by Nosek & Hansen, under the "CULTURE VS. PERSON" heading, which replaces a previously listed unpublished ms. of theirs. I continue to encourage all interested to send material that they are willing to be included on this page. Please also to let me know about errors, including faulty links.

In the origin of syntax, primitive, holophrastic signs had to be weakened and to lose their previous status of whole message. The original syntax was probably thema/rhema syntax. The earliest themas repeat the hearer’s message: the speaker embeds the hearer’s message in his own message. In this way a holophrase could be weakened, and turn into a part of a syntactic combination. This pregrammatical, interpersonal ‘recursive embedding’ is embodied in sensorimotor processes. The upper level is embodied in the intonation; the (...) lower level, in the articulatory-phonetic word. This decoupling of intonation and articulatory pattern—i.e. the emergence of intonation capable of comprising more than one word—facilitated the weakening of previous holophrases and the genesis of syntax. In time, that facilitation determined the preeminence of voice over gesture, regardless of whether or not that preeminence existed before syntax. (shrink)