The Illusion-of-Transparency and Episodic Memory: Are People Egocentric or Do People Think that Lies are Easy to Detect?

The illusion-of-transparency seems like an egocentric bias, in which people believe that their inner feelings, thoughts and perspectives are more apparent to others than they actually are. In Experiment 1, participants read out true and false episodic memories to an audience. Participants over-estimated the number of people who would think that they were the liar, and they overestimated how many would correctly identify the liar. Experiment 2 found that with lessened task demands, and by using a scale of doubt, participants distinguished lies from truthful statements (albeit with a degree of error). Over the two experiments, results indicated that people have some ability to distinguish lies from truth (in illusion-of-transparency tasks), although people often overestimate this ability, and participants sometimes think their own lies are easier to detect than is really the case.     

A realist partner for Linda: confirming a theoretical hypothesis more than its observational sub-hypothesis

It is argued that the conjunction effect has a disjunctive analog of strong interest for the realism–antirealism debate. It is possible that a proper theory is more confirmed than its (more probable) observational sub-theory and hence than the latter’s disjunctive equivalent, i.e., the disjunction of all proper theories that are empirically equivalent to the given one. This is illustrated by a toy model.     

A computer simulation of the argument from disagreement

In this paper we shed new light on the Argument from Disagreement by putting it to test in a computer simulation. According to this argument widespread and persistent disagreement on ethical issues indicates that our moral opinions are not influenced by any moral facts, either because no such facts exist or because they are epistemically inaccessible or inefficacious for some other reason. Our simulation shows that if our moral opinions were influenced at least a little bit by moral facts, we would quickly have reached consensus, even if our moral opinions were affected by factors such as false authorities, external political shifts, and random processes. Therefore, since no such consensus has been reached, the simulation gives us increased reason to take seriously the Argument from Disagreement. Our conclusion is however not conclusive; the simulation also indicates what assumptions one has to make in order to reject the Argument from Disagreement. The simulation algorithm we use builds on the work of Hegselmann and Krause (J Artif Soc Social Simul 5(3); 2002, J Artif Soc Social Simul 9(3), 2006).     

Experiment and theory building

I examine the role of inference from experiment in theory building. What are the options open to the scientific community when faced with an experimental result that appears to be in conflict with accepted theory? I distinguish, in Laudan’s (1977), Nickels’s (1981), and Franklin’s (1993) sense, between the context of pursuit and the context of justification of a scientific theory. Making this distinction allows for a productive middle position between epistemic realism and constructivism. The decision to pursue a new or a revised theory in response to the new evidence may not be fully rationally determined. Nonetheless, it is possible to distinguish the question of whether there is reason to pursue a theory from the question of whether that theory, once it has been pursued over time, solves a problem of interest to science. I argue that, in this context, there is a solid way to distinguish between the contexts of pursuit and of justification, on the basis of a theory’s evidential support and problem-solving ability.     

A functional account of degrees of minimal chemical life

This paper describes and defends the view that minimal chemical life essentially involves the chemical integration of three chemical functionalities: containment, metabolism, and program (Rasmussen et al. in Protocells: bridging nonliving and living matter, 2009a). This view is illustrated and explained with the help of CMP and Rasmussen diagrams (Rasmussen et al. In: Rasmussen et al. (eds.) in Protocells: bridging nonliving and living matter, 71–100, 2009b), both of which represent the key chemical functional dependencies among containment, metabolism, and program. The CMP model of minimal chemical life gains some support from the broad view of life as open-ended evolution, which I have defended elsewhere (Bedau in The philosophy of artificial life, 1996; Bedau in Artificial Life, 4:125–140, 1998). Further support comes from the natural way the CMP model resolves the puzzle about whether life is a matter of degree.     

Confirmation and justification. A commentary on Shogenji’s measure

So far no known measure of confirmation of a hypothesis by evidence has satisfied a minimal requirement concerning thresholds of acceptance. In contrast, Shogenji’s new measure of justification (Shogenji, Synthese, this number 2009) does the trick. As we show, it is ordinally equivalent to the most general measure which satisfies this requirement. We further demonstrate that this general measure resolves the problem of the irrelevant conjunction. Finally, we spell out some implications of the general measure for the Conjunction Effect; in particular we give an example in which the effect occurs in a larger domain, according to Shogenji justification, than Carnap’s measure of confirmation would have led one to expect.     

Confusion and dependence in uses of history

Many people argue that history makes a special difference to the subjects of biology and psychology, and that history does not make this special difference to other parts of the world. This paper will show that historical properties make no more or less of a difference to biology or psychology than to chemistry, physics, or other sciences. Although historical properties indeed make a certain kind of difference to biology and psychology, this paper will show that historical properties make the same kind of difference to geology, sociology, astronomy, and other sciences. Similarly, many people argue that nonhistorical properties make a special difference to the nonbiological and the nonpsychological world. This paper will show that nonhistorical properties make the same difference to all things in the world when it comes to their causal behavior and that historical properties make the same difference to all things in the world when it comes to their distributions. Although history is special, it is special in the same way to all parts of the world.     

Is knowledge justified true belief?

Is knowledge justified true belief? Most philosophers believe that the answer is clearly ‘no’, as demonstrated by Gettier cases. But Gettier cases don’t obviously refute the traditional view that knowledge is justified true belief (JTB). There are ways of resisting Gettier cases, at least one of which is partly successful. Nevertheless, when properly understood, Gettier cases point to a flaw in JTB, though it takes some work to appreciate just what it is. The nature of the flaw helps us better understand the nature of knowledge and epistemic justification. I propose a crucial improvement to the traditional view, relying on an intuitive and independently plausible metaphysical distinction pertaining to the manifestation of intellectual powers, which supplements the traditional components of justification, truth and belief.     

A case of confusing probability and confirmation

Tom Stoneham put forward an argument purporting to show that coherentists are, under certain conditions, committed to the conjunction fallacy. Stoneham considers this argument a reductio ad absurdum of any coherence theory of justification. I argue that Stoneham neglects the distinction between degrees of confirmation and degrees of probability. Once the distinction is in place, it becomes clear that no conjunction fallacy has been committed.     

Crossing the Divide Within Continental Philosophy: Reconstruction, Deconstruction, Dialogue and Education

In this article I explore some points of convergence between Habermas and Derrida that revolve around the intersection of ethical and epistemological issues in dialogue. After some preliminary remarks on how dialogue and language are viewed by Habermas and Derrida as standpoints for departing from the philosophy of consciousness and from logocentric metaphysics, I cite the main points of a classroom dialogue in order to illustrate the way in which the ideas of Habermas and Derrida are sometimes received as well as the actual relevance of ethical and epistemic concerns within educational settings. I claim that such concerns cannot be sidestepped without cost and that they can be approached by combining rather than rigidly separating Habermas and Derrida. Beyond the consolidated polemics, emancipatory politics and Enlightenment priorities of truth and justice bring Habermasian reconstruction and Derridean deconstruction closer than it is typically assumed. Attention to such a convergence can enrich the teaching material of higher education courses which usually comprises either Habermasian or Derridean texts but rarely both. It can also stave off some of the risks involved in some versions of constructivism as they occur in school practice.