I joined project PERFECT in October
2016 as a postdoctoral researcher. In this post, I summarise what I’ve been up to in my first year on the
project what I have planned for the year ahead.
Research
Over the
past year, I’ve continued looking into the nature of the distinction between
implicit and explicit attitudes. The main output of this aspect of my research
this year is a paper on content-responsiveness as a means of distinguishing
implicit attitudes from explicit attitudes – I’m skeptical that this
characteristic alone will do the required work! I also have a paper in
preparation addressing whether awareness might do the required work.
I was
fortunate to have been invited to share some aspects of this project on a BBC Analysis special about implicit bias, as well as in a BBC News article. Recent controversy surrounding one of the popular methods for testing aspects of
implicit cognition demonstrates why the metaphysical project – clarity on the
precise nature of these attitudes – is so important. Lived experience,
testimony, and myriad results gleaned via alternative methods show us that bias
in society is alive and well. Attention to the metaphysics will help us pick
apart what is implicit, what is explicit, and ultimately what we should do
about it to improve the situation.
My new
research focus this year has been an investigation into the phenomenon of
confabulation, and its potential psychological, social and epistemic benefits.
Whilst exploration of the former two benefits are out there, the latter is largely
underexplored beyond PERFECT. I’ve found that looking at the social context of
confabulation has been crucial to beginning to understand some of its potential
epistemic benefits. I have a paper in preparation on how existing empirical
work on collective cognition illuminates why confabulation may deliver
epistemic benefits (succinctly, we rely on other people for much of our
knowledge, and so some level of confabulation helps us preserve those fruitful
epistemic partnerships).
This year,
I’m turning my attention to whether confabulation originates from a more
general faculty for organizing information into a narrative, and being a good
story-teller. I think there could be interesting insights from empirical
literature on narrative skill in general that could be illuminating for our philosophical
analysis of confabulation.
On this
note, I’m excited to be organizing PERFECT 2018, our confabulation workshop,
taking place on 23rd May 2018 in Oxford. We have a great programme of current
research on the philosophical aspects of confabulation, find out more and
register here.
Other work
I’ve done this year includes a paper on whether we can – and should – use
technological enhancement to get rid of our cognitive biases, and a joint paper
on doxastic irrationality with colleagues Andrea Polonioli and Lisa Bortolotti.
I look forward to how my projects will develop over the year to come!
Commencing
in late October, I will be leading a series of Philosophy of Mind workshops for
people with unusual experiences and beliefs, mental health service users and
service providers, in collaboration with Mind in Camden.
Much of the
traditional philosophical canon, and the psychiatric practices inspired by it,
proceeds in a way that assumes that people with unusual experiences and beliefs
are irrational, and cannot be understood or participate in reasoned debate. As a result, those who may
have dipped into philosophy of their own accord can be made to feel unwelcome. Our
research at PERFECT directly challenges this assumption: whilst unusual
cognitions are often distressing and can be associated with a psychiatric
diagnosis, the project aims to demonstrate that cognitions with similar
features are also found in the non-clinical population, and so these should not
be a barrier to participation in philosophy. Furthermore, philosophical
theorising is most effective when done from a variety of perspectives, and so
unusual experiences and beliefs provide a valuable grounding for philosophical
participation.
I hope that
the workshop series will equip participants with shared epistemic resources to
understand their unusual experiences as not radically discontinuous with
perceived “normal” cognition; as well as facilitating participants' understanding of how such experiences might play a positive role in supporting a unified and
coherent sense of agency. Early next year, we’ll host a final workshop to which
we’ll invite a number of researchers, policy makers and mental health
advocates, with the aim that experiences from the workshop series might inform mental
health practice and policy.
The workshop series is supported by project PERFECT, Mind in Camden, and a University of Birmingham College of Arts and Law Impact Acceleration Fund. I talk a little about the project (as well as some previous experience I had applying my research outside academia) in this video lecture.
The workshop series is supported by project PERFECT, Mind in Camden, and a University of Birmingham College of Arts and Law Impact Acceleration Fund. I talk a little about the project (as well as some previous experience I had applying my research outside academia) in this video lecture.