Imperfect Cognitions

Today's post is by Jan-Paul Sandmann (Harvard University), on his recent paper " Irrationality and Indecision " ( Synthese,  2023). Jan-Paul Sandmann What is wrong with preferring some option a to option b , b to c , but c again to a ? Why shouldn’t one cling on to such cyclical preferences? The standard response is that one ought not hold on to cyclical preferences because one could be money pumped as a result. By focusing on the binary comparisons alone, it would seem reasonable to pay some amount of money for b rather than c , a rather than b , as well as c rather than a .  If the agent however takes these actions, she ends up with the option she started with, c , while having paid some money. And that clearly does not seem sensible: acting upon a preference cycle would not be in the agent’s interest. The money pump argument thus draws one to conclude that the agent should get rid of her cyclical preferences.  The argument is powerful, but it also makes som...

Today's post is by Christina Moutsiana  (pictured above), who is Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Westminster. Her research focuses on perceptual and cognitive biases which she investigates using a variety of neuroscience tools, behavioural paradigms, and psychophysics. In this post she discusses some of her recent research on belief updating and brain architecture (see Moutsiana et al. 2015 for more details). We make decisions every day, some of which are critical to our health and wellbeing. These decisions are driven by the beliefs we hold. But do we form beliefs in an accurate manner that allow us to avoid harm and maximize reward? Cognition is not impervious to error, especially when emotion comes into play. One of the most robust cognitive biases is asymmetric belief updating; the tendency for healthy individuals to alter beliefs about their future to a greater extent in response to good information compared with bad information. Decision ...

Hello, readers! I’m Patricia Rich , and I’m currently a philosophy postdoc on the new Knowledge and Decision project at the University of Hamburg . This post is about a paper stemming from my dissertation, entitled Axiomatic and Ecological Rationality: Choosing Costs and Benefits . It appeared in the Autumn issue of the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics . My paper defends a specific method of evaluating rationality. The method is general and can be applied to choices, inferences, probabilistic estimates, argumentation, etc., but I’ll explain it here through one example. Suppose I’m worried about my friend Alex’s beliefs regarding current affairs. Her claims often seem far-fetched and poorly supported by evidence. As rationality experts who want to help, how should we evaluate Alex? I embrace several components of the “ ecological rationality ” research program, which many readers will know from other posts . First, it’s important to move beyond particular belief...