Is believing for a normative reason a composite condition?

Here is a surprisingly neglected question in contemporary epistemology: what is it for an agent to believe that p in response to a normative reason for them to believe that p? On one style of answer, believing for the normative reason that q factors into believing that p in the light of the apparent reason that q, where one can be in that kind of state even if q is false, in conjunction with further independent conditions such as q’s being a normative reason to believe that p. The primary objective of this paper is to demonstrate that that style of answer cannot be right, because we must conceive of believing for a normative reason as constitutively involving a kind of rationality-involving relation that can be instantiated at all only if there is a known fact on the scene, which the agent treats as a normative reason. A secondary objective, achieved along the way, is to demonstrate that in their Prime Time (for the Basing Relation) Errol Lord and Kurt Sylvan do not succeed in undermining the factoring picture in general, only a simple-minded version of it.

     

Is seeing believing? Expectant parents' outlooks on coparenting and later coparenting solidarity

This study examined short- and longer-term sequelae of parents' prenatal expectations of their future family process, and traced subsequent stability in coparenting solidarity from infancy through the toddler years. One hundred and ten couples expecting a first child participated in prenatal assessments of coparenting expectations and differences, and in 3-month post-partum evaluations. Forty-five couples completed subsequent assessments at 12 and 30 months. At each time point multi-method evaluations of coparental adjustment were obtained. Men's and women's expectancies during the pregnancy and the degree of difference between their self-reported beliefs about parenting predicted post-baby coparental adjustment, with latent class analyses suggesting aftereffects of prenatal expectancies up through 30 months for some couples. Coparental solidarity was also stable from 3 to 12 and from 12 to 30 months. Data indicate that the lens parents bring to bear on their emerging family system is not immaterial, and that early-emerging coparenting dynamics portend longer term coparenting adjustment.     

Do people keep believing because they want to? Preexisting attitudes and the continued influence of misinformation

Misinformation—defined as information that is initially assumed to be valid but is later corrected or retracted—often has an ongoing effect on people’s memory and reasoning. We tested the hypotheses that (a) reliance on misinformation is affected by people’s preexisting attitudes and (b) attitudes determine the effectiveness of retractions. In two experiments, participants scoring higher and lower on a racial prejudice scale read a news report regarding a robbery. In one scenario, the suspects were initially presented as being Australian Aboriginals, whereas in a second scenario, a hero preventing the robbery was introduced as an Aboriginal person. Later, these critical, race-related pieces of information were or were not retracted. We measured participants’ reliance on misinformation in response to inferential reasoning questions. The results showed that preexisting attitudes influence people’s use of attitude-related information but not the way in which a retraction of that information is processed.     

Is knowing believing? The role of event plausibility and background knowledge in planting false beliefs about the personal past

False memories are more likely to be planted for plausible than for implausible events, but does just knowing about an implausible event make individuals more likely to think that the event happened to them? Two experiments assessed the independent contributions of plausibility and background knowledge to planting false beliefs. In Experiment 1, subjects rated 20 childhood events as to the likelihood of each event having happened to them. The list included the implausible target event “received an enema,” a critical target event of Pezdek, Finger, and Hodge (1997). Two weeks later, subjects were presented with (1) information regarding the high prevalence rate of enemas; (2) background information on how to administer an enema; (3) neither type of information; or (4) both. Immediately or 2 weeks later, they rated the 20 childhood events again. Only plausibility significantly increased occurrence ratings. In Experiment 2, the target event was changed from “barium enema administered in a hospital” to “home enema for constipation”; significant effects of both plausibility and background knowledge resulted. The results suggest that providing background knowledge can increase beliefs about personal events, but that its impact is limited by the extent of the individual’s familiarity with the context of the suggested target event.     

Seeing is believing? How reinterpreting perception as dynamic engagement alters the justificatory force of religious experience

William Alston’s Theory of Appearing has attracted considerable attention in recent years, both for its elegant interpretation of direct realism in light of the presentational character of perceptual experience and for its central role in his defense of the justificatory force of Christian mystical experiences. There are different ways to account for presentational character, however, and in this article we argue that a superior interpretation of direct realism can be given by a theory of perception as dynamic engagement. The conditions for dynamic engagement are such that there can be no absolute discontinuity between individual perceptual experiences and more public forms of inquiry, and this requirement has radical consequences for the prima facie justificatory force of religious experience.