In the late summer of 1998, the authors, a cognitive scientist and a logician, started talking about the relevance of modern mathematical logic to the study of human reasoning, and we have been talking ever since. This book is an interim report of that conversation. It argues that results such as those on the Wason selection task, purportedly showing the irrelevance of formal logic to actual human reasoning, have been widely misinterpreted, mainly because the picture of logic current in psychology (...) and cognitive science is completely mistaken. We aim to give the reader a more accurate picture of mathematical logic and, in doing so, hope to show that logic, properly conceived, is still a very helpful tool in cognitive science. The main thrust of the book is therefore constructive. We give a number of examples in which logical theorizing helps in understanding and modeling observed behavior in reasoning tasks, deviations of that behavior in a psychiatric disorder (autism), and even the roots of that behavior in the evolution of the brain. (shrink)

This paper concerns would-be necessary connections between doxastic attitudes about the epistemic statuses of your doxastic attitudes, or ‘higher-order epistemic attitudes’, and the epistemic statuses of those doxastic attitudes. I will argue that, in some situations, it can be reasonable for a person to believe p and to suspend judgment about whether believing p is reasonable for her. This will set the stage for an account of the virtue of intellectual humility, on which humility is a matter of your higher-order (...) epistemic attitudes. Recent discussions in the epistemology of disagreement have assumed that the question of the proper response to disagreement about p concerns whether you ought to change your doxastic attitude towards p. My conclusion here suggests an alternative approach, on which the question of the proper response to disagreement about p concerns the proper doxastic attitude to adopt concerning the epistemic status of your doxastic attitude towards p.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.HIGHER-ORDER EPISTEMIC ATTITUDES AND INTELLECTUAL HUMILITYVolume 9, Issue 3Allan HazlettDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.11Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. HIGHER-ORDER EPISTEMIC ATTITUDES AND INTELLECTUAL HUMILITYVolume 9, Issue 3Allan HazlettDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.11Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. HIGHER-ORDER EPISTEMIC ATTITUDES AND INTELLECTUAL HUMILITYVolume 9, Issue 3Allan HazlettDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.11Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

In this paper, we develop an analysis of unrealistic fiction that captures the everyday sense of ‘unrealistic’. On our view, unrealistic fictions are a species of inconsistent fictions, but fictions for which such inconsistency, given the supporting role we claim played by genre, needn’t be a critical defect. We first consider and reject an analysis of unrealistic fiction as fiction that depicts or describes unlikely events; we then develop our own account and make an initial statement of it: unrealistic fictions (...) are those that invite us to believe something false. We further develop this account and restate it in terms of the notion of “import-export inconsistency.” That is, unrealistic fictions invite us to import certain propositions true in the actual world then invite us to export propositions entailing the negation of those imported. Finally, we consider whether for fiction being unrealistic is always an aesthetic flaw. (shrink)

Counterfactual thinking involves the imagination of non-factual alternatives to reality. We investigated the spontaneous generation of both upward counterfactuals, which improve on reality, and downward counterfactuals, which worsen reality. All subjects gained $5 playing a computer-simulated blackjack game. However, this outcome was framed to be perceived as either a win, a neutral event, or a loss. "Loss" frames produced more upward and fewer downward counterfactuals than did either "win" or "neutral" frames, but the overall prevalence of counterfactual thinking did not (...) vary with outcome valence. In addition, subjects who expected to play the game again made more upward counterfactuals and were less satisfied with the outcome than were subjects who did not expect to play again. However, once subjects saw the cards from which they could have selected had they "hit" again (two winning cards and two losing cards), all subjects generated primarily upward counterfactuals and showed a corresponding decrease in satisfaction. These results implicate both cognitive and motivational factors in the generation of counterfactuals and tell us something about the functional value of counterfactual thinking: downward counterfactuals provide comfort; upward counterfactuals prepare one for the future. (shrink)

Existing analyses of disinformation tend to embrace the view that disinformation is intended or otherwise functions to mislead its audience, that is, to produce false beliefs. I argue that this view is doubly mistaken. First, while paradigmatic disinformation campaigns aim to produce false beliefs in an audience, disinformation may in some cases be intended only to prevent its audience from forming true beliefs. Second, purveyors of disinformation need not intend to have any effect at all on their audience’s beliefs, aiming (...) instead to manipulate an audience’s behavior through alteration of sub-doxastic states. Ultimately, I argue that attention to such non-paradigmatic forms of disinformation is essential to understanding the threat disinformation poses and why this threat is so difficult to counter. (shrink)

Quassim Cassam has argued that psychological and epistemological analyses of conspiracy theories threaten to overlook the political nature of such theories. According to Cassam, conspiracy theories are a form of political propaganda. I develop a limited critique of Cassam's analysis.This paper advances two core theses. First, acceptance of conspiracy theories requires a rejection of epistemic authority that renders conspiracy theorists susceptible to co-option by certain political programs while insulating such programs from criticism. I argue that the contrarian nature of conspiracy (...) theories partially accounts for the prominence of such theories in populist movements.Second, the contrarian nature of conspiracy theories partially accounts for their attractiveness, especially among those to whom populism already appeals. I argue that for those who resent what appears from their perspective as the shaping of the epistemic landscape by alien perspectives, conspiracy theorizing may facilitate the reassertion of epistemic autonomy. (shrink)

In “The Myth of Factive Verbs” (Hazlett 2010), I had four closely related goals. The first (pp. 497-99, p. 522) was to criticize appeals to ordinary language in epistemology. The second (p. 499) was to criticize the argument that truth is a necessary condition on knowledge because “knows” is factive. The third (pp. 507-19) – which was the intended means of achieving the first two – was to defend a semantics for “knows” on which <S knows p> can be true (...) even if p isn’t true. The fourth (Ibid.) – which seemed necessary for the success of the third – was to defend a pragmatic account of the fact that utterances of <S knows p> typically imply p, on which the implication in those cases is down to conversational implicature. In this paper I’ll go after these goals again, with an emphasis on the second. Our topic will be whether the factivity of “knows” (whatever this amounts to) supports the truth condition on knowledge. A new goal will be to defend my argument against some criticisms from John Turri (2011) and Savas Tsohatzidis (forthcoming). We’ll first look at the truth condition (§1) and factive presupposition (§§2 – 3), before turning to replies to Turri and Tsohatzidis (§§4 – 7). (shrink)

This article reviews research on counterfactual, social, and temporal comparisons and proposes a Reflection and Evaluation Model (REM) as an organizing framework. At the heart of the model is the assertion that 2 psychologically distinct modes of mental simulation operate during comparative thinking: reflection, an experiential (“as if”) mode of thinking characterized by vividly simulating that information about the comparison standard is true of, or part of, the self; and evaluation, an evaluative mode of thinking characterized by the use of (...) information about the standard as a reference point against which to evaluate one’s present standing. Reflection occurs when information about the standard is included in one’s self-construal, and evaluation occurs when such information is excluded. The result of reflection is that standard–consistent cognitions about the self become highly accessible, thereby yielding affective assimilation; whereas the result of evaluation is that comparison information is used as a standard against which one’s present standing is evaluated, thereby yielding affective contrast. The resulting affect leads to either an increase or decrease in behavioral persistence as a function of the type of task with which one is engaged, and a combination of comparison-derived causal inferences and regulatory focus strategies direct one toward adopting specific future action plans. (shrink)

Most people not only think that it is possible for reasonable people to disagree, but that it is possible for people to recognize that they are parties to a reasonable disagreement. The aim of this paper is to explain how such mutually recognized reasonable disagreements are possible. I appeal to an which implies a form of relativism about reasonable belief, based on the idea that whether a belief is reasonable for a person can depend on the fact that she has (...) inherited a particular worldview from her community. (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)

This paper describes the ways in which trolls and bots impede the acquisition of knowledge online. I distinguish between three ways in which trolls and bots can impede knowledge acquisition, namely, by deceiving, by encouraging misplaced skepticism, and by interfering with the acquisition of warrant concerning persons and content encountered online. I argue that these threats are difficult to resist simultaneously. I argue, further, that the threat that trolls and bots pose to knowledge acquisition goes beyond the mere threat of (...) online misinformation, or the more familiar threat posed by liars offline. Trolls and bots are, in effect, fake persons. Consequently, trolls and bots can systemically interfere with knowledge acquisition by manipulating the signals whereby individuals acquire knowledge from one another online. I conclude with a brief discussion of some possible remedies for the problem of fake persons. (shrink)

Counterfactual thinking—the capacity to reflect on what would, could, or should have been if events had transpired differently—is a pervasive, yet seemingly paradoxical human tendency. On the one hand, counterfactual thoughts can be comforting and inspiring (Carroll & Shepperd, Chapter 28), but on the other they can be anxiety provoking and depressing (Zeelenberg & Pieters, Chapter 27). Likewise, such thoughts can illuminate pathways toward better future outcomes (Wong, Galinsky, & Kray, Chapter 11), yet they can also promote confusion and lead (...) us astray (Sanna, Schwarz, & Kennedy, Chapter 13). The first part of this chapter focuses on work that supports the prevailing Zeitgeist in the counterfactual thinking literature: Counterfactual thinking is beneficial. The second part of the chapter, however, strikes a more cautionary tone by reviewing work that describes some deleterious consequences of counterfactual thinking. We conclude by offering a tentative reconciliation of these conflicting perspectives and suggesting directions for future research. (shrink)

Particularists maintain that conspiracy theories are to be assessed individually, while generalists hold that conspiracy theories may be assessed as a class. This paper seeks to clarify the nature and importance of the debate between particularism and generalism, while offering an argument for a version of generalism. I begin by considering three approaches to the definition of conspiracy theory, and offer reason to prefer an approach that defines conspiracy theories in opposition to the claims of epistemic authorities. I argue that (...) particularists rely on an untenably broad definition of conspiracy theory. Then, I argue that particularism and its counterpart are best understood as constellations of theses, rather than a pair of incompatible theses. While some particularist theses are highly plausible, I argue that one important particularist thesis is false. The argument for this conclusion draws on the history of false conspiracy theories. I then defend this conclusion against a pair of potential objections. (shrink)

there seems to be some kind of asymmetry, at least in some cases, between moral testimony and non-moral testimony, between aesthetic testimony and non-aesthetic testimony, and between religious testimony and non-religious testimony. In these domains, at least in some cases, we object to deference, and for this reason expect people to form their beliefs on non-testimonial grounds, in a way that we do not object to deference in paradigm cases of testimonial knowledge. Our philosophical puzzle is therefore: what explains these (...) (apparent) asymmetries (or are they merely apparent)? My aim here is to criticize three accounts of these testimonial asymmetries and to suggest an alternative strategy for solving our puzzle. I’ll consider the idea that testimony cannot be a source of understanding (§2), the idea that testimony cannot be a source of acquaintance (§3), and the idea that testimonial belief is not conducive to moral virtue (§4). These accounts all explain the badness of testimonial belief, in the relevant cases, by appeal to its consequences for the believer—respectively, a lack of understanding, acquaintance, or moral virtue. I’ll conclude by suggesting a way forward (§5): we should try to understand the badness of testimonial belief, in the relevant cases, as deriving from its consequences for the believer’s society. (shrink)

This article considers an interpretative model for the study of Heraclitus, which was first put forward by Alexander Mourelatos in 1973, and draws upon a related model put forward by Julius Moravcsik beginning in 1983. I further develop this combined model and provide a motivation for an interpretation of Heraclitus. This is also of interest for modern metaphysics due to the recurrence of structurally similar problems, including the ‘colour exclusion’ problem that was faced by Wittgenstein. Further, I employ the model (...) to shed new light on Heraclitus’ image of the river, while relating potential readings to various contemporary metaphysical views. (shrink)

In the present research, the authors hypothesized that additive counterfactual thinking mind-sets, activated by adding new antecedent elements to reconstruct reality, promote an expansive processing style that broadens conceptual attention and facilitates performance on creative generation tasks, whereas subtractive counterfactual thinking mind-sets, activated by removing antecedent elements to reconstruct reality, promote a relational processing style that enhances tendencies to consider relationships and associations and facilitates performance on analytical problem-solving tasks. A reanalysis of a published data set suggested that the counterfactual (...) mind-set primes previously used in the literature tend to evoke subtractive counterfactuals. Studies 1 and 2 then demonstrated that subtractive counterfactual mind-sets enhanced performance on analytical problem-solving tasks relative to additive counterfactual mind-sets, whereas Studies 3 and 4 found that additive counterfactual mind-sets enhanced performance on creative generation tasks relative to subtractive counterfactual mind-sets. (shrink)

In some lottery situations, the probability that your ticket's a loser can get very close to 1. Suppose, for instance, that yours is one of 20 million tickets, only one of which is a winner. Still, it seems that (1) You don't know yours is a loser and (2) You're in no position to flat-out assert that your ticket is a loser. "It's probably a loser," "It's all but certain that it's a loser," or even, "It's quite certain that it's (...) a loser" seem quite alright to say, but, it seems, you're in no position to declare simply, "It's a loser." (1) and (2) are closely related phenomena. In fact, I'll take it as a working hypothesis that the reason "It's a loser" is unassertable is that (a) You don't seem to know that your ticket's a loser, and (b) In flat-out asserting some proposition, you represent yourself as knowing it.1 This working hypothesis will enable me to address these two phenomena together, moving back and forth freely between them. I leave it to those who reject the hypothesis to sort out those considerations which properly apply to the issue of knowledge from those germane to that of assertability. Things are quite different when you report the results of last night's basketball game. Suppose your only source is your morning newspaper, which did not carry a story about the 1 game, but simply listed the score, "Knicks 83, at Bulls 95," under "Yesterday's Results." Now, it doesn't happen very frequently, but, as we all should suspect, newspapers do misreport scores from time to time. On several occasions, my paper has transposed a result, attributing to each team the score of its opponent. In fact, that your paper's got the present result wrong seems quite a bit more probable than that you've won the lottery of the above paragraph. Still, when asked, "Did the Bulls win yesterday?", "Probably" and "In all likelihood" seem quite unnecessary. "Yes, they did," seems just fine.. (shrink)

There is, I shall assume, such a thing as moral evil (more on which below). My question is whether is also such a thing as non-moral evil, and in particular whether there are such things as aesthetic evil and epistemic evil. More exactly, my question is whether there is such a thing as moral evil but not such a thing as non-moral evil, in some sense that reveals something special about the moral, as opposed to such would-be non-moral domains as (...) the aesthetic and the epistemic. The philosophical issue at stake here is that of the nature of these different normative domains, and the nature and extent of their difference. (shrink)

Effects of perceived control and close alternative outcomes were examined. Subjects played a computer-simulated "wheel-of-fortune" game with another player in which two wheels spun simultaneously. Subjects had either control over spinning the wheel or control over which wheel would determine their outcome and which would determine the other player's outcome. Results showed that (a) subjects generated counterfactuals about the aspect of the game that they controlled, (b) the direction of these counterfactuals corresponded to the close outcome associated with the aspect (...) they controlled, and (c) close counterfactuals predicted affective responses to the outcome of the wheel spin. Cognitive and motivational implications of the influence of perceived control on counterfactual generation are discussed. (shrink)

Deepfakes pose a multi-faceted threat to the acquisition of knowledge. It is widely hoped that technological solutions—in the form of artificially intelligent systems for detecting deepfakes—will help to address this threat. I argue that the prospects for purely technological solutions to the problem of deepfakes are dim. Especially given the evolving nature of the threat, technological solutions cannot be expected to prevent deception at the hands of deepfakes, or to preserve the authority of video footage. Moreover, the success of such (...) technologies depends on institutional trust that is in short supply. Finally, outsourcing the discrimination between the real and the fake to automated, largely opaque systems runs the risk of undermining epistemic autonomy. (shrink)

In the Phaedrus, Socreates sympathetically describes the ability “to cut up each kind according to its species along its natural joints, and to try not to splinter any part, as a bad butcher might do.” (265e) In contemporary philosophy, Ted Sider (2009, 2011) defends the same idea. As I shall put it, Plato and Sider’s idea is that limning structure is an epistemic goal. My aim in this paper is to articulate and defend this idea. First, I’ll articulate the notion (...) of a structural proposition (§1), and the notion of an epistemic goal (§2), where I’ll assume that epistemic goals are species of accuracy. Then (§3), I’ll argue against some proposals for understanding the idea that limning structure is an epistemic goal: limning structure is neither an aim of belief (§3.1), nor of inquiry (§3.2), nor of concept possession (§3.3). Importantly, non-structural belief is not thereby inaccurate; belief does not “aim” at being structural. Next (§4), I’ll propose a framework for understanding the idea that limning structure is an epistemic goal, and defend that idea. What is required, to defend the view that limning structure is an epistemic goal, is the notion of (what I call) theorizing – a propositional attitude that, unlike belief, does “aim” at being structural (§4.1). I’ll argue that structural truths constitute a species of “important” truths (§4.2), and that apt theorizing is a species of understanding (§4.3). Finally (§5), I’ll discuss the possibility that there is no structure. (shrink)

Jerrold J. Katz often explained his semantic theory by way of an analogy with physical atomism and an attendant analogy with chemistry. In this chapter, I track the origin and uses of these analogies by Katz, both in explaining and defending his decompositional semantic theory, through the various phases of his work throughout his career.

I offer an examination of a core element in the reflectiveness of Heraclitus’ thought, namely, his rebuke of polymathy . In doing so, I provide a response to a recent claim that Heraclitus should not be considered to be a philosopher, by attending to his paradigmatically philosophical traits. Regarding Heraclitus’ attitude to that naïve form of ‘wisdom’, i.e., polymathy, I argue that he does not advise avoiding experience of many things, rather, he advises rejecting experience of things as merely many (...) independent things in their manifoldness , and, instead, to understand their unity and thereby to unify our knowledge of them. (shrink)

The present research extends previous functional accounts of counterfactual thinking by incorporating the notion of reflective and evaluative processing. Participants generated counterfactuals about their anagram performance, after which their persistence and performance on a second set of anagrams was measured. Evaluative processing of upward counterfactuals elicited a larger increase in persistence and better performance than did reflective processing of upward counterfactuals, whereas reflective processing of downward counterfactuals elicited a larger increase in persistence and better performance than did evaluative processing of (...) downward counterfactuals. Moreover, path analyses indicated that whereas the relationship between counterfactual thinking and persistence was accounted for by emotional responses following upward and downward counterfactual generation, the relationship between counterfactual thinking and performance was accounted for by enhanced persistence following reflective processing of downward counterfactuals, but was accounted for by both enhanced persistence and strategic thinking following evaluative processing of upward counterfactuals. (shrink)

In this article, we develop a new approach to integrating philosophical phenomenology with qualitative research. The approach uses phenomenology’s concepts, namely existentials, rather than methods such as the epoché or reductions. We here introduce the approach to both philosophers and qualitative researchers, as we believe that these studies are best conducted through interdisciplinary collaboration. In section 1, we review the debate over phenomenology’s role in qualitative research and argue that qualitative theorists have not taken full advantage of what philosophical phenomenology (...) has to offer, thus motivating the need for new approaches. In section 2, we introduce our alternative approach, which we call Phenomenologically Grounded Qualitative Research (PGQR). Drawing parallels with phenomenology’s applications in the cognitive sciences, we explain how phenomenological grounding can be used to conceptually front-load a qualitative study, establishing an explicit focus on one or more structures of human existence, or of our being in the world. In section 3, we illustrate this approach with an example of a qualitative study carried out by one of the authors: a study of the existential impact of early parental bereavement. In section 4, we clarify the kind of knowledge that phenomenologically grounded studies generate and how it may be integrated with existing approaches. (shrink)

This chapter explores a species of false modesty, false intellectual humility, which is defined as affected or pretended intellectual humility concealing intellectual arrogance. False intellectual humility is situated in a virtue epistemological framework, where it is contrasted with intellectual humility, understood as excellence in self-attribution of intellectual weakness. False intellectual humility characteristically takes the form of insincere expressions of ignorance or uncertainty – as when dogmatically committed conspiracy theorists insist that they just want to know what’s going on – and, (...) in such cases, false intellectual humility is a kind of false skepticism or false fallibilism. In connection with this, the chapter further explores the relationship between the concepts of intellectual humility, skepticism, and fallibilism. A distinction can be drawn between the virtues of intellectual humility, skepticism, and fallibilism, but the traditional association of skepticism and fallibilism with intellectual humility is vindicated by the fact that the virtues of intellectual humility, skepticism, and fallibilism overlap. (shrink)

In the spirit of William James, we present a process view of human consciousness. Our approach, however, follows upon Charles Tart’s original systems theory analysis of states of consciousness, although it differs in its reliance on the modern sciences of complexity, especially dynamical systems theory and its emphasis on process and evolution. We argue that consciousness experience is constructive in the sense that it is the result of ongoing self-organizing and self-creating processes in the mind and body. These processes follow (...) a broad developmental agenda already described by psychologists such as Jean Piaget. Similar constructive transformations of consciousness appear to have occurred across the course of human history. In this sense, phylogeny indeed recapitulates ontogeny. Finally, modern developmental research suggests that the most advanced levels of human growth transform consciousness in the direction of increasing selflessness and spirituality, rather than simply toward greater intelligence. (shrink)

Three studies examined the motivational implications of thinking about how things could have been worse. It was hypothesized that when these downward counterfactuals yield negative affect, through consideration of the possibility of a negative outcome, motivation to change and improve would be increased (the wake-up call). When downward counterfactuals yield positive affect, through diminishing the impact of a potentially negative outcome, motivation to change and improve should be reduced (the Pangloss effect). Results from three studies supported these hypotheses. Studies 1 (...) and 2 showed that a manipulation of the counterfactual made about an investment influenced decisions toward that investment. Study 3 showed that students’ academic motivation was influenced by a manipulation of the type of downward counterfactual they made after an exam and that affect mediated the relationship between the counterfactual and motivation. (shrink)

Intellectual pride is pride about intellectual matters – for example, knowledge about what you know, about your intellectual virtues, or about your intellectual achievements. It is the opposite of intellectual humility (e.g. knowledge about what you don’t know, about your intellectual vices, or about your intellectual failures). In this paper I will advocate for intellectual pride by explaining its importance in the contexts of education (where a lack of pride threatens to undermine motivation), intellectual marginalization (where a lack of pride (...) threatens to facilitate oppression), and collective inquiry (where a lack of pride threatens to undermine public discourse). In these contexts, intellectual humility is problematic and intellectual pride is valuable. I’ll go on to offer a sketch of intellectual pride as a virtue. Just as the virtue of intellectual humility comprises excellence in negative intellectual self-evaluation, the virtue of intellectual pride comprises excellence in positive intellectual self-evaluation. (shrink)

The lunar Three-Body problem is a famously intractable problem of Newtonian mechanics. The demand for accurate predictions of lunar motion led to practical approximate solutions of great complexity, constituted by trigonometric series with hundreds of terms. Such considerations meant there was demand for high speed machine computation from astronomers during the earliest stages of computer development. One early innovator in this regard was Wallace J. Eckert, a Columbia University professor of astronomer and IBM researcher. His work illustrates some interesting features (...) of the interaction between computers and astronomy. (shrink)

This paper identifies and elucidates the underappreciated phenomenon of epistemic domination. Epistemic domination is the nonmutual capacity of one party to control the evidence available to another. Where this capacity is exercised, especially by parties that are ill-intentioned or ill-informed, the dominated party may have difficulty attaining epistemically valuable states. I begin with a discussion of epistemic domination and how it is possible. I then highlight three negative consequences that may result from epistemic domination.

A recent theory (Roese & Summerville, 2005) has suggested that regret is intensified by perceptions of future opportunity. In this work, however, it is proposed that feelings of regret are more likely elicited by perceptions of lost opportunity: People regret outcomes that could have been changed in the past but can no longer be changed and for which people experience low psychological closure. Consistent with the lost opportunity principle, Study 1 revealed that regretted experiences in the most commonly regretted life (...) domains are perceived as offering the least opportunity for improvement in the future, Study 2 indicated that people experience the most regret for outcomes that are not repeatable, and Study 3 revealed that perceptions of higher past than future opportunities and low psychological closure predict regret intensity. Discussion focuses on the hope inducing yet ephemeral nature of perceived future opportunity and on the relationship between dissonance reduction and closure. (shrink)

This paper argues that the possibility of global justice is premised on the solutions of three-fold interrelated problem: (1) problem of heterogeneity, (2) problem of inequality, (3) problem of realpolitik. The problem of heterogeneity questions the assumed globality equated as universality or commonality underpinning global justice in view of the empirical human diversity and plurality that cannot be assumed away by the desirability of the normativity of global justice. The problem of inequality highlights the ineradicability of global inequality as a (...) pervasive fact of international life. It also criticizes the fairness argument that tries to make do with the ineradicable inequalities as long as they work towards the least advantaged members of global society mainly by rendering such an attempt as futile considering the inapplicability of principles of justice, Rawls's difference principle for example, in the global context; the unwillingness of powerful states to relinquish their hierarchical positions in the global political structure that benefit them; and the difficulty of not knowing what in/equality would mean for the least well-off when the fairness argument is granted. The problem of realpolitik makes the subordination of realpolitik (power and interest) to idealpolitik (justice)unwarranted given that the global realities point to the converse of subordination, especially the realities of the hierarchical structure of global politics and its concomitant unequal power relations. (shrink)

This article explores situational determinants and psychological consequences of counterfactual excuse-making - denying responsibility by declaring `I couldn’t have known.’ Participants who were made accountable for a stock investment decision that resulted in an outcome caused by unforeseeable circumstances were particularly likely to generate counterfactual excuses and, as a result, to deny responsibility for the outcome of their choices and minimize their perceptions of control over the decision process. The article discusses the implications of these findings for structuring accountability reporting (...) relationships in business and, more generally, stresses the benefits of counterfactual denials of responsibility for maintaining self-esteem and a desired self-identity. (shrink)

For several decades, there has been a debate in the philosophical literature concerning whether those of us who live in developed countries are morally required to give some of our money to aid agencies. Many contributors to this debate have apparently taken it that one may simply assume that the effects of the work such agencies do are overwhelmingly positive. If one turns to the literature on such agencies that has emerged in recent decades, however, one finds a number of (...) concerns about such agencies and the work they do that put that assumption in serious doubt. This situation raises a number of pressing questions, many of which have received little or no attention from philosophers. After articulating a number of those questions, I focus mainly on what I call the ‘Epistemic Question (for potential contributors to aid agencies)’: How can those of us who are not experts in international aid arrive at an estimate concerning the effects of the work aid agencies do that we have at least some good reason to believe accurate? (shrink)

As part of a larger study, predictors of self-blame were investigated in a sample of 149 undergraduate sexual assault survivors. Each participant completed questionnaires regarding their preassault, peritraumatic, and post assault experiences and participated in an individual interview. Results confirmed the central hypothesis that, although several established correlates independently relate to self-blame, only cognitive content and process variables—negative self-cognitions and counterfactual-preventability cognitions—uniquely predict self-blame in a multivariate model.

The dual role of olfaction in both smelling and tasting, i.e. flavour perception, makes it an important test case for philosophical theories of sensory individuation. Indeed, the psychologist Paul Rozin claimed that olfaction is a “dual sense”, leading some scientists and philosophers to propose that we have not one, but two senses of smell: orthonasal and retronasal olfaction. In this paper I consider how best to understand Rozin’s claim, and upon what grounds one might judge there to be one or (...) two distinct olfactory modalities. I conclude that while Rozin may be right that humans have dual occurrences of an olfactory ‘sense’, the concept of a sense-modality, and hence the ‘sense’ of smell, is ambiguous between two different notions: a physiological sensory channel and an experiential modality, along the lines suggested by J. J. Gibson. Furthermore, recognising that these are complementary rather than competing conceptions of a sense-modality enables the formulation of a powerful ‘dual-concept’ framework for posing and addressing questions concerning the complex architecture of human multisensory experience. (shrink)

Encouraging people to consider multiple alternatives appears to be a useful debiasing technique for reducing many biases (explanation, hindsight, and overconfidence), if the generation of alternatives is experienced as easy. The present research tests whether these alternative generation procedures induce a mental simulation mind-set (cf. Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000), such that debiasing in one domain transfers to debias judgments in unrelated domains. The results indeed demonstrated that easy alternative generation tasks not only debiased judgments in the same domain but also (...) generalized to debias judgments in unrelated domains, provided that participants were low in the need for structure. The alternative generation tasks (even when they were easy to perform) showed no evidence of activating a mental simulation mind-set in individuals high in need for structure, as these individuals displayed no transfer effects. Implications of the results for understanding the role of the need for structure, ease of generation, and mental simulation mind-set activation for debiasing are discussed. (shrink)

The epistemic virtues and vices are typically defined in terms of effects or motivations related to the epistemic states of their possessors. However, philosophers have recently begun to consider _other-regarding_ epistemic virtues, traits oriented toward the epistemic flourishing of others. In a similar vein, this paper discusses _outward-facing_ epistemic vices, properties oriented toward the epistemic languishing of others. I argue for the existence of both reliabilist and responsibilist outward-facing vices, and illustrate how such vices negatively bear on the epistemic prospects (...) of others. I pay special attention to how outward-facing epistemic vices may manifest in online activities that promote the epistemic languishing of others by negatively influencing the online epistemic environment. (shrink)

Three studies examined the motivational implications of thinking about how things could have been worse. It was hypothesized that when these downward counterfactuals yield negative affect, through consideration of the possibility of a negative outcome, motivation to change and improve would be increased (the wake-up call). When downward counterfactuals yield positive affect, through diminishing the impact of a potentially negative outcome, motivation to change and improve should be reduced (the Pangloss effect). Results from three studies supported these hypotheses. Studies 1 (...) and 2 showed that a manipulation of the counterfactual made about an investment influenced decisions toward that investment. Study 3 showed that students’ academic motivation was influenced by a manipulation of the type of downward counterfactual they made after an exam and that affect mediated the relationship between the counterfactual and motivation. (shrink)

I present a puzzle – the “puzzle of aesthetic testimony” – along with a solution to it that appeals to the impossibility of testimonial understanding. I'll criticize this solution by defending the possibility of testimonial understanding, including testimonial aesthetic understanding.

A number of researchers have focused on the distinction between upward counterfactuals that simulate a better reality and downward counterfactuals that simulate a worse reality. In this chapter the authors will discuss the important aspects of a model (Markman and McMullen 2003) that attempts to explain how the very same counterfactual can engender dramatically different affective reactions. According to the model, the consequences of simulation direction are moderated by what we have termed simulation mode--relatively stronger tendencies to engage in reflective (...) versus evaluative processing. In turn, the authors will describe how the interaction between simulation direction and mode produces important consequences for affect, motivation, and behavior. (shrink)

The present study examined how exposure to the performance of in-group and out-group members can both exacerbate and minimize the negative effects of stereotype threat. Female participants learned that they would be taking a math test that was either diagnostic or nondiagnostic of their math ability. Prior to taking the test, participants interacted with either an in-group peer (a female college student) or an out-group peer (a male college student) who had just taken the test and learned that the student (...) had either performed well or poorly on the test. Exposure to either an in-group or an out-group peer whose performance was consistent with the negative stereotype (a poor-performing female or a strong-performing male) exacerbated stereotype threat effects. In contrast, exposure to an in-group or an out-group peer whose performance challenged the negative stereotype (a strong-performing female or a poor-performing male) eliminated stereotype threat effects. These findings demonstrate that people can look to both in-group and out-group peers as sources of inspiration in the context of a negative stereotype. (shrink)

In this chapter I sympathetically consider the idea that skepticism is an epistemic virtue. I argue that this depends on whether skepticism is admirable, and articulate three defenses of skepticism as admirable: a Pyrrhonian defense (on which skepticism leads to tranquility), a Cartesian defense (on which skepticism is prophylactic against error), and a liberal defense (on which skepticism counteracts dogmatism and closed-mindedness). I give the liberal defense the most attention: I distinguish skepticism from several species of dogmatism that are sometimes (...) called “skeptical” (e.g. that of “climate change skeptics”), and associate skepticism with political moderation and intellectual independence. (shrink)

Can understanding be transmitted by testimony, in the same sense that propositional knowledge can be transmitted by testimony? Some contemporary philosophers – call them testimonial understanding pessimists – say No, and others – call them testimonial understanding optimists – say Yes. In this chapter I will articulate testimonial understanding pessimism (§1) and consider some arguments for it (§2).

The present study examined relationships among counterfactual thinking, perceived control, and depressive symptoms. Undergraduate participants, grouped according to nondepressed, mild–to–moderately depressed, and severely depressed symptom categories, described potentially repeatable negative academic events and then made upward counterfactuals about those events. Whereas participants endorsing mild–to–moderate depressive symptom levels generated more counterfactuals about controllable than uncontrollable aspects of the events they described, participants endorsing severe levels of depressive symptoms generated counterfactuals that were less controllable, less reasonable, and more characterological in nature. Furthermore, (...) controllable (relative to uncontrollable) counterfactual thinking enhanced retrospective control perceptions for less depressed participants, but depleted control perceptions for more depressed participants. Discussion focuses on the possibility that whereas controllable counterfactual thinking may be functional for nondepressed individuals, it may be less functional, if not dysfunctional, with increasingly depressed symptoms. (shrink)