Imperfect Cognitions

On 17 June at the University of Birmingham, Kathleen Murphy-Hollies organised a workshop on conspiracy theories and storytelling with a stellar line-up. This post is a report of the event. The workshop is part of a project called "Film, Storytelling and Conspiracies" funded by a University of Birmingham Research Incubator Hub. Conspiracy theories online First talk was by Catarina Dutilh Novaes (VU Amsterdam) and was entitled "Conspiratorial Beliefs and Conspiracy Fantasies: Engaging with Wu Ming 1". The premise for the talk was that many think that conspiracy beliefs are on the rise and affect our political choices ("vibes-based politics"). One idea by Napolitano (2021) is that attempts to debunk conspiratorial beliefs with facts, evidence, and rational arguments do not work. Catarina aimed to respond to Napolitano. Catarina Dutilh Novaes Wu Ming (in Mandarin, "No Name") is a collective originating in Bologna, a group of writers active in liter...

This post is by Endre Begby (Simon Fraser University). Here Begby presents his new book, Prejudice: A Study in Non-Ideal Epistemology (OUP 2021). Are prejudiced beliefs “imperfect cognitions”? In several ways, it would seem natural to classify them as such. After all, they tend to be false, they are formed in light of incomplete information, and they can cause significant harm at both social and individual levels. Accordingly, it is common to think about prejudiced belief as a problem to be overcome, and, in particular, as a manifestation of epistemic irrationality. To overcome the problem, we must presumably become better, more rational, cognizers. But we could also start by critically probing what an ideal of “perfect cognition” might look like here. That prejudiced beliefs tend to be false and are formed in light of incomplete information does not, for instance, obviously distinguish them from most scientific theories throughout history. That they are peculiarly harmful certainly ...

Today's post is by Matteo Colombo, Kevin Strangmann, Lieke Houkes, Zhasmina Kostadinova and Mark J. Brandt. Matteo How does intellectual humility relate to prejudice? If I am more intellectually humble than you are, will I also be less prejudiced? Some would say yes. In much of the early monastic Christian tradition, for example, humility is understood as a virtuous form of abasement grounded in self-knowledge and self-appraisal. In his Demonstrations , Aphrahat the Persian Sage —a Syriac Christian author of the third-fourth century—writes that “humility is the dwelling place of righteousness. Instruction is found with the humble, and their lips pour forth knowledge. Humility brings forth wisdom and understanding.” Aphrahat’s suggestion that intellectual humility is the antidote to vanity, pride, and prejudice, is representative of one traditional way of understanding this character trait. Mark Some would say no. The idea is that the self-abnegation and abasement constituting humil...

Ditte Marie Munch-Jurisic  (Photo ©Dorte_Jelstrup) Today's post is by Ditte Marie Munch-Jurisic, who is a postdoc at the Section for Philosophy and Science Studies at Roskilde University, Denmark. It has become quite trendy to argue that that it is okay (or maybe even required) to make people feel uncomfortable because of their biases or prejudices. In my new paper in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, The Right to Feel Comfortable: Implicit Bias and the Moral Potential of Discomfort , I discuss this new trend by arguing that there are good reasons (from affective neuroscience) for why we should curb our enthusiasm when it comes to the moral potential of discomfort. It certainly can be justified to call people out for their biased behavior and we need not comfort every display of what I call “awareness discomfort”. But in such situations we shouldn’t expect to be changing the receiver’s moral mindset.  This is the first out of two papers on the feelings of disc...

In this post, Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Gettysburg College , Daniel DeNicola, introduces his just-released book, Understanding Ignorance: The Surprising Impact of What We Do Not Know (MIT, August 2017). He writes on a range of ethical and epistemic issues, usually related to education. His new book grew from an earlier work, Learning to Flourish: A Philosophical Exploration of Liberal Education (Continuum/Bloomsbury, 2012). Ignorance, it seems, is trending. Political ignorance has become some so severe that the democratic ideal of an informed citizenry seems quaint. Willful ignorance is the social diagnosis of the moment: critics found to be implicated in prejudice, privilege, ideology, and information cocoons. Ignorance is used both as accusation and excuse. In the broadest sense, it is a ineluctable feature of the human condition. And yet, philosophers have ignored ignorance. While occupied with the sources and structure of knowledge, epistemologists for ce...

My name is Matthew Hammond , and I research social cognition, romantic relationships, and stereotyping in the School of Psychology at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand). A recent project with Andrei Cimpian (New York University) investigated the cognitive structure of social stereotypes. We aimed to refine the current psychological definition of stereotypes—which is simply that stereotypes are “beliefs about groups.” This definition underspecifies the kind of beliefs that make up stereotypes. Our research question involved distinguishing between statistical beliefs and generic beliefs as elements of stereotypes, drawing upon research in philosophy, cognitive science, and linguistics. Statistical beliefs are about the prevalence of features within groups, such as believing that 1 in 3 humans have brown eyes. Generic beliefs, such as the belief expressed by the statement “sharks attack swimmers,” are not about any specific quantities or frequencies but rather consi...

Today Michael Brownstein and Jennifer Saul introduce Implicit Bias and Philosophy, Volumes 1&2 . We’re Michael Brownstein and Jennifer Saul .    Michael is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at John Jay College/City University of New York.   He works in philosophy of psychology, with emphasis on the nature of the implicit mind, and on related topics in the philosophy of action and ethics.    Jenny is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield and Director of the Society for Women in Philosophy UK.   Her research is primarily in philosophy of language, feminist philosophy, and philosophy of race. Back in 2009, very few philosophers were working on implicit bias. (You could probably count them on the fingers of one hand, perhaps two.) Jenny thought there was a lot of potential for philosophical work on the topic, and decided to apply for a research network grant to bring philosophers and psychologists toget...

The Epistemic Vices Conference , held in Durham in September 2015, put epistemic vices in the spotlight, with a series of talks on both what makes something an epistemic vice and the nature of specific epistemic vices. On day one Heather Battaly argued that virtues and vices are traits that express who someone is as a person, even if the person is not responsible for the possession or exercise of the traits. She argued that this view—personalism—is better equipped than existing forms of virtue epistemology to tackle some examples where people display intellectual vice, e.g. where a person is prejudiced due to their upbringing in a racist society. Quassim Cassam argued that intellectual vices are traits that impede effective and responsible inquiry. He described how intellectual vices perform a significant role in explaining poor epistemic conduct. Responding to the situationist challenge, he claimed that virtues are often local rather than global traits. I highlighted a fa...