Giving the Benefit of the Doubt

Abstract

Faced with evidence that what a person said is false, we can nevertheless trust them and so believe what they say – choosing to give them the benefit of the doubt. This is particularly notable when the person is a friend, or someone we are close to. Towards such persons, we demonstrate a remarkable epistemic partiality. We can trust, and so believe, our friends even when the balance of the evidence suggests that what they tell us is false. And insofar as belief is possible, it is also possible to acquire testimonial knowledge on those occasions when the friends know what they tell us. This paper seeks to explain these psychological and epistemological possibilities.     

Pushing Back the Boundaries of Doubt

Studies in Philosophy and Education -     

Religious Doubt and Mental Health Across the Lifespan

The current study examined the connections among religious doubt, mental health, and aging in a nationwide sample of individuals 18 years and older (N = 1629). Findings indicate that that religious doubt emerging from the recognition of suffering and evil in the world has a deleterious impact on mental health. Results also show that as people grow older, religious doubts continue to be associated with psychopathology, but the magnitude of this association becomes weaker across age categories. In other words, the impact of doubt on mental distress declines as one ages. These effects were found across various measures of mental distress, including depression, general anxiety, interpersonal sensitivity, paranoia, hostility, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Findings are explored within the context of psychosocial development and the experiential trajectory of religious maturity.     

Doubt in the psychoanalysis of a paedophile

In this single case study, I will address the question of how incestuous sexual abuse causes doubt of three distinct types: (1) honest doubt that is essential to the pursuit of knowledge; (2) inherent doubt that can result from a trauma that leaves the victim's mind fragmented and confused; and (3) the sadistic imposition of doubt intended to deceive, disorient and attack unbearable knowledge in the victim or another person familiar with the abuse (in this case, the analyst and the victim's later victims). During the course of my psychoanalysis of a paedophile, it became clear that this third form of doubt played an integral role in the patient's sexual abuse of children, a role I will link to the nature and function of paedophilia and to the experience of working psychoanalytically with a paedophile.     

Between Wonder and Doubt: Psychoanalysis in the Goal-Free Zone

This paper examines the experiential dimensions of wonder and doubt as one way to articulate the creative and growth-promoting tensions between the medical/scientific model and the spiritual/mystical model. Both forms of experience, it is argued, function as necessary elements in a psychotherapy that integrates psychoanalysis and spiritual praxes. Fundamental differences between the medical/scientific model and the spiritual/mystical models are examined. The notion of the gap serves to illustrate these diametrically opposed, albeit compatible and necessary, points of view. The multifaceted layers of movement between Buddhism and psychoanalysis typify interacting dynamics between the two disciplines and provide a focal point for discussion. The paper then explores parallels between the Zen Buddhist notion of Satori as explicated in the writings of D. T. Suzuki and Wilfred Bion's notion of O. Theoretical aspects of the discussion provide a backdrop for exploring clinical experience regarding the relationship between acceptance and change, the clinical relevance of the Buddhist notions of gaining idea and basic goodness. The author also explores relationships between presence as actuality and ideal; knowing and not knowing; wonder and doubt. Clinical material supports the theoretical aspects of the discussion.     

论作为现象学“意向性”概念之起源的笛卡尔式“夸张的怀疑”

"夸张的怀疑"是笛卡尔得出其形而上学第一命题的方法,亦被胡塞尔认为在现代哲学中首次揭示了"意向性"概念的内涵。依据它的机制,"我思"的确定性意味着"自由意志的确定存在"与"持续现前于精神的清楚分明的知觉的不可怀疑"。以此为基础,笛卡尔不仅可以完成观念论式的二元论证,而且也认识到人是"灵魂与肉体的紧密结合体",由此指明了建立在二元论基础上的"笛卡尔科学"独特的伦理内涵。     

Teaching Religious Doubt with Toulmin's Model of Reasoning

Abstract. Teaching students to doubt, that is, to “test,” theological arguments as one might test any other kind of knowledge is challenging in that the warrant for such testing is not immediately clear. Stephen Toulmin, Richard Rieke, and Allan Janik's model of reasoning provides a conceptual framework that demonstrates the logical relationships between a claim, its grounds, warrants, and backing for warrants. Against such a model, the instructor and students may study religious claims, both biblical and theological, with the aim of analyzing the ways such claims find support or a lack of support depending upon the particular ways that claims and evidence have competing warrants. Several pedagogical benefits ensue. First, students see that the validity for theological claims rests as much upon warrants as it does upon grounding. Second, searching for ancient warrants privileges historical‐critical investigation. Third, competing warrants for contradictory theological claims summon pedagogical metaphors of process and development.     

Not Giving the Skeptic a Hearing: Pragmatism and Radical Doubt

Pragmatist responses to radical skepticism do not receive much attention in contemporary analytic epistemology. This observation is my motivation for undertaking a search for a coherent pragmatist reply to radical doubt, one that can compete, in terms of clarity and sophistication, with the currently most popular approaches, such as contextualism and relevant alternatives theory. As my point of departure I take the texts of C. S. Peirce and William James. The Jamesian response is seen to consist in the application of a wager argument to the skeptical issue in analogy with Pascal's wager. The Peircean strategy, on the other hand, is to attempt a direct rejection of one of the skeptic's main premises: that we do not know we are not deceived. I argue that while the Jamesian attempt is ultimately incoherent, Peirce's argument contains the core of a detailed and characteristically "pragmatic" rebuttal of skepticism, one that deserves to be taken seriously in the contemporary debate.     

Faith, Doubt, and Well-Being in Later Life

This paper examines doubt-within-faith or quest religiosity in relation to religious commitment in later life. Although quest religiosity has been labeled by some as religious negativism, we examine the validity of quest as a measure of religious doubt in later life and respond to such criticisms. In addition, we attempt to determine the relationship between religious doubt, measures of religious commitment and involvement, and mental health. An association between quest religiosity, religious involvement, and mental health has not been empirically demonstrated in later life.     

单个概率事件形式表述的MHD问题新质疑

以单个概率事件形式表述的“超级思维黑洞”MHD问题的学术价值在文章中遭到具体的质疑.文章首先介绍了Baumann基于一个以单个概率事件形式表述的“两嘉宾一轿车”版本的MHD问题对上述问题所展开的讨论、所引起的争论及其探讨所存在的缺陷;然后重点阐述了笔者以MHD问题中嘉宾最后选择策略的意义为基点所展开的新质疑.根据笔者的推导,在单个概率事件形式表述的MHD问题中将得出一个极端荒谬的结论:嘉宾获车的概率决定于嘉宾的主观意念.这一结论的出现显示出该形式的MHD问题应该遭受质疑.