Reconceptualising the human body: Heaven's Gate and the quest for divine transformation

The mass suicide of the members of Heaven's Gate in 1997 stimulated much debate about the causes of so extreme an end to a new religious movement. Using primary source materials in conjunction with existing research, I present in this article an in-depth analysis of both the belief system and the behaviours of the members of the group. By using the sociology of the body and a psychobiography of the group leader, Marshall Applewhite, I show how ideas about the human body derived from individual psychopathology were translated into group belief and action. I argue that the relationship among these variables created the circumstances that led thirty-nine persons to believe that they were leaving this planet for a better existence in a parallel dimension.     

Inquiry and Belief

In this paper I look at belief and degrees of belief through the lens of inquiry. I argue that belief and degrees of belief play different roles in inquiry. In particular I argue that belief is a “settling” attitude in a way that degrees of belief are not. Along the way I say more about what inquiring amounts to, argue for a central norm of inquiry connecting inquiry and belief and say more about just what it means to have an inquiry or question settled.     

Group Composition,Creative Synergy,and Group Performance

Organizations use groups to improve performance on tasks that require problem solving. Is this belief in the problem solving benefits of groups misplaced given the process-losses often experienced by brainstorming groups? This study of 94 intact autonomous work groups performing multi-part tasks revealed that group creative performance increased multiplicatively (exponentially) with the number of highly creative group members composing the group. However, this occurred only when Team Creativity-Relevant Processes (TCRP) within the group were relatively high. When TCRP were relatively low, group creative performance decreased multiplicatively with the number of highly creative group members within it. When TCRP were about average for the sample, group performance increased only linearly with the number of highly creative members within a group.     

Realism,inferential semantics,and the truth norm

Characteristic of neo-pragmatism is a commitment to deflationism about semantic properties, and inferentialism about conceptual content. It is usually thought that deflationism undermines the distinction between realistic discourses and others, and that the neo-pragmatists, unlike the classical pragmatists, cannot recognize that truth is a norm of belief and inquiry. I argue, however, that (1) the distinction between realistic discourses and others can be maintained even in the face of a commitment to deflationism, and (2) that deflationists can recognize that truth is a norm of belief and inquiry. If deflationism is true, realistic discourses, it turns out, are those that are inferentially integrated with a large body of other commitments, whereas those that call for an anti-realist treatment are inferentially isolated. Now, Grimm has persuasively argued that inquiry aims at achieving understanding, and that to understand something is, roughly, to grasp a large body of inferential connections in which it features. So, if he is right, realistic discourses are those in which the aim of inquiry can be achieved. This fact, together with an inferential theory of conceptual content, will, I argue, allow neo-pragmatists to recognize truth as a norm of belief and inquiry, despite their commitment to deflationism.

     

Belief and Self‐consciousness

Abstract

This paper is about what is distinctive about first‐person beliefs. I discuss several sets of puzzling cases of first‐person belief. The first focus on the relation between belief and action, while the second focus on the relation of belief to subjectivity. I argue that in the absence of an explanation of the dispositional difference, individuating such beliefs more finely than truth conditions merely marks the difference. I argue that the puzzles reveal a difference in the ways that I am disposed to revise my beliefs about myself. This point develops the insight that Anscombe and others had that those of an agent’s beliefs about himself that manifest that special self‐consciousness are not based on observation, testimony or inference. The puzzles show that this kind of self‐consciousness involves, not a special kind of belief or even a special kind of self‐reference, but a special kind of belief revision policy.     

Belief,Apparitions, and Rationality: The Social Scientific Study of Religion after Wittgenstein<Subscript>1</Subscript>

The goal I pursue is to redefine the study of religious epistemology on the basis of an ethnomethodological extension of Wittgenstein. This approach shows that the nature of religious belief and its relation to facts, proofs, and empirical reality are matters that are dealt with by ordinary members of society. The examination of this lay epistemology reveals that – far from being a settled and established entity – religious belief is a polymorphous phenomenon. Religious belief is a pragmatic resource whose configuration is shaped to allow the accomplishment of interactional moves within specific contexts. I defend this thesis by analyzing accounts pertaining to a contemporary religious apparition claim.     

Social Identity versus Reference Frame Comparisons: The Moderating Role of Stereotype Endorsement

Two studies tested the prediction that belief in a negative stereotype about an in-group will cause members to shift from viewing their in-group as a social identity to viewing it as a frame of reference. The stereotype that was the focus of inquiry was the belief that women have less aptitude at math and spatial tasks than do men. In both studies, female participants took a test of math and spatial ability and then received social comparison information about their abilities relative to a male and a female confederate. In Study 1, participants felt enhanced when the two women outperformed the male confederate, even when this meant that the participants themselves performed worse than the other woman. If participants were first reminded of the negative stereotype, however, they felt best when they outperformed the other woman, even if this meant that the two women performed worse than the man. Study 2 showed that the effects of stereotype activation were especially pronounced among female participants who showed moderate to high levels of stereotype endorsement. These findings suggest that belief in stereotypes about the in-group can lead to in-group comparison and contrast, even in contexts in which a group member's ability level challenges the validity of the stereotype.     

Do corporations have minds of their own?

Corporations have often been taken to be the paradigm of an organization whose agency is autonomous from that of the successive waves of people who occupy the pattern of roles that define its structure, which licenses saying that the corporation has attitudes, interests, goals, and beliefs which are not those of the role occupants. In this essay, I sketch a deflationary account of agency-discourse about corporations. I identify institutional roles with a special type of status function, a status role, in which the collectively accepted function is expressed in part through its occupier’s intentional expression of her agency in that role (where the occupier is part of the group whose collective acceptance underwrites her having the relevant function in social transactions). I identify institutions as systems of status roles and show how this is compatible with seeing the agency of institutions generally, even over time periods in which there is complete change in role occupiers, as a matter of the contributions only of individual agents. I explain how the reduction of the institution to its members is compatible with its potentially having had a completely different membership. I show in the case of the corporation in particular that, once we see its origins and function, the surface features of legal discourse about corporate agency are misleading and are compatible with a deflationary account of corporate agency. I show in connection with this that the corporation is to be identified with its shareholders, and that where a corporation separates ownership and control, its managers and employees are proxy agents of the shareholders doing business under the corporate form. Finally, I canvass the legitimate ways of construing ordinary talk about corporate intention, belief, and so on, in light of this, none of which support the attribution of genuine agency or intentionality to any group per se associated with the corporation.     

Intergroup competition for the provision of step-level public goods: Effects of preplay communication

Thirty-two groups of three subjects each participated once in an intergroup public goods game (IPG) in which two groups compete for the provision of step-level public goods. Half of the groups were allowed to discuss the conflict before their members decided privately and anonymously whether to contribute their endowments to their group benefit, and half were not given this opportunity. The results show that preplay group discussion enhances the percentage of contributors and changes the players' estimates about the decisions of the other players. The theoretical implications of the results are examined within the framework of a new model which relates the individual decision to contribute or not to the reward structure, altruism, and the individual's belief structure.     

How to be a Normativist about the Nature of Belief

According to the normativist, it is built into the nature of belief itself that beliefs are subject to a certain set of norms. I argue here that only a normativist account can explain certain non‐normative facts about what it takes to have the capacity for belief. But this way of defending normativism places an explanatory burden on any normativist account that an account on which a truth norm is explanatorily fundamental simply cannot discharge. I develop an alternative account that can achieve explanatory adequacy where this sort of truth privileging account falls short.     

The context of intergroup belief cross wherein minority members maintain consistency: Belief minority and majority in a categorical in‐group and out‐group1

Abstract: The present study investigated the social conditions required for minority members to preserve their attitudinal and behavioral consistency in an intergroup context. In the experiment, intergroup belief crosses wherein a belief minority (or majority) in a categorical in‐group was reversed as a majority (or minority) in an out‐group were manipulated. It was hypothesized that individuals supported by the majority in the categorical in‐group would preserve their attitudes and behavioral intentions even though they were a minority in the categorical out‐group. The results supported the hypothesis. Specifically, members of a majority in the categorical in‐group had more consistent behavioral intentions and less attitude changes although they were located as a minority in the out‐group. In contrast, members of a minority within the in‐group preserved consistency on the basis of support from the majority in the out‐group. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed with reference to future research.     

Functionalism and propositions

Conclusion Some have argued, following Stalnaker, that a plausible functionalist account of belief requires coarse-grained propositions. I have explored a class of functionalist accounts, and my argument has been that, in this class, there is no account which meetsall of the following conditions: it is plausible, noncircular, and allows for the validity of the argument to coarse-grained propositions. In producing this argument, I believe that I have shown that it might be open to a functionalist to adopt fine-grained propositions; thus, one might be a functionalist without holding that all mathematical beliefs are about strings of symbols (and that the belief that all bachelors are unmarried men is a belief about words).My project in this paper has been minimal in the following sense. I havenot argued thatno functionalist account of belief which meets the three conditions can be produced; rather, I have simply explored the inadequacies of certain sorts of accounts. I think that this is useful insofar as it makes clear the challenges to be met by an account of belief which can play the required role in the argument to coarse-grained propositions. It is compatible with my position that such an account is forthcoming, insofar as I have not produced a functionalist theory of belief which is clearly non-circular, plausible, and which yields fine-grained propositions. Of course, it is also compatible with my position that no plausible, non-circular functionalist account of belief of any sort can be produced. My argument has been that,if one construes such mental states as belief as functional states, no convincing argument has yet been produced that they require coarse-grained objects.     

Great Expectations: The Negative Consequences of Falling Short1

The present study shows conditions under which a positive stereotypic belief–Asians are good in mathematics–can have negative consequences. Participants graded a poorly performed mathematical assignment that they believed was the work of an Asian or a White target person. Under no accuracy instructions, participants who spent less time grading (unmotivated participants) assigned fewer points to the Asian than the White target. There was no difference in assignment of points to the Asian or the White target when participants were given accuracy instructions or spent more time grading (motivated participants). The findings suggest that group members may experience negative consequences when they fall short of “great expectations” stemming from a positive stereotypic belief about their group.     

Intuitive knowledge

In this paper I assume that we have some intuitive knowledge—i.e. beliefs that amount to knowledge because they are based on intuitions. The question I take up is this: given that some intuition makes a belief based on it amount to knowledge, in virtue of what does it do so? We can ask a similar question about perception. That is: given that some perception makes a belief based on it amount to knowledge, in virtue of what does it do so? A natural idea about perception is that a perception makes a belief amount to knowledge in part by making you sensorily aware of the concrete objects it is about. The analogous idea about intuition is that an intuition makes a belief amount to knowledge in part by making you intellectually aware of the abstract objects it is about. I expand both ideas into fuller accounts of perceptual and intuitive knowledge, explain the main challenge to this sort of account of intuitive knowledge (i.e. the challenge of making sense of intellectual awareness), and develop a response to it.     

DEFEATERS AND HIGHER-LEVEL REQUIREMENTS

Internalists tend to impose on justification higher-level requirements, according to which a belief is justified only if the subject has a higher-level belief (i.e., a belief about the epistemic credentials of a belief). I offer an error theory that explains the appeal of this requirement: analytically, a belief is not justified if we have a defeater for it, but contingently, it is often the case that to avoid having defeaters, our belief must satisfy a higher-level requirement. I respond to the objection that externalists who endorse this error theory will be forced to accept a radical form of scepticism.     

Upping the Ex Ante Problem for Reliabilism

Process reliabilism is a theory about ex post justification, the justification of a doxastic attitude one has, such as belief. It says roughly that a justified belief is a belief formed by a reliable process. It is not a theory about ex ante justification, one's justification for having a particular attitude toward a proposition, an attitude one might lack. But many reliabilists supplement their theory such that it explains ex ante justification in terms of reliable processes. In this paper, I argue that the main way reliabilists supplement their theory fails. In the absence of an alternative, reliabilism does not account for ex ante justification.     

Examining Conspiracist Beliefs About the Disappearance of Amelia Earhart

Previous studies have suggested that conspiracist ideation forms part of a monological belief system in which one conspiracist idea acts as evidence for new conspiracist ideas. Here, we examined this possibility in relation to an event lacking reliable or conclusive evidence, namely the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. A total of 914 members of the British general public completed scales measuring their beliefs about the disappearance of Earhart and Noonan, belief in conspiracy theories, the Big Five personality factors, support for democratic principles, political cynicism, self-esteem, and self-assessed intelligence. Results showed that belief in conspiracy theories was associated with the endorsement of less plausible explanations for the disappearance of Earhart and Noonan. In addition, belief in less plausible explanations was also significantly associated with lower self-assessed intelligence, greater political cynicism, lower self-esteem, and higher Agreeableness scores. These results are discussed in relation to monological belief systems.     

How Norms (Might) Guide Belief

Abstract

Belief normativism is roughly the view that judgments about beliefs are normative judgments. Kathrin Glüer and Åsa Wikforss (G&W) suggest that there are two ways one could defend this view: by appeal to what might be called ‘truth-norms’, or by appeal to what might be called ‘norms of rationality’ or ‘epistemic norms’. According to G&W, whichever way the normativist takes, she ends up being unable to account for the idea that the norms in question would guide belief formation. Plausibly, if belief normativism were true, the relevant norms would have to offer such guidance. I argue that G&W’s case against belief normativism is not successful. In section 1, I defend the idea that truth-norms can guide belief formation indirectly via epistemic norms. In section 2, I outline an account of how the epistemic norms might guide belief. Interestingly, this account may involve a commitment to a certain kind of expressivist view concerning judgments about epistemic norms.     

CAN GROUPS HAVE CONCEPTS? SEMANTICS FOR COLLECTIVE INTENTIONS

A substantial literature supports the attribution of intentional states such as beliefs and desires to groups. But within this literature, there is no substantial account of group concepts. Since on many views, one cannot have an intentional state without having concepts, such a gap undermines the cogency of accounts of group intentionality. In this paper I aim to provide an account of group concepts. First I argue that to fix the semantics of the sentences groups use to make their decisions or express their beliefs, we need to appeal to a conventional semantics like that of Lewis. I then argue that the same reasons we have for taking group intentional states to be irreducible to the intentional states of their members apply also to the terms fixed by a conventional semantics. It follows that the meanings of terms in the sentences expressing a group's intentional states are also fixed by facts about the group, not its members. And recognizing this, I argue, amounts to attributing concepts to groups. Finally, I discuss a real‐life example of a group concept—the meaning of ‘meter’ as fixed by the International Bureau of Weights and Measurements—and I discuss the upshot of these considerations for the question of social externalism about concepts.