System‐justifying behaviors: When feeling dependent on a system triggers gender stereotype‐consistent academic performance

Based on system‐justification theory, we hypothesized that men and women would perform in accordance with gender stereotypes mainly when justification of the system is necessary. In this research, system‐justification motivation was triggered using a system‐dependency manipulation. Study 1 shows that when feeling highly (vs. less) dependent on the system, people endorsed system‐justifying beliefs more. In Study 2, men performed better in math than in verbal domains, while women showed the reverse pattern, but only when they felt highly dependent on the system. Similar results were obtained on performance self‐evaluation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

知识验证信念对于多文本阅读理解的影响机制:阅读策略的中介效应和主题知识的调节效应

为厘清知识验证信念对于多文本阅读理解的影响机制,本研究构建了有调节的中介模型。采用知识验证信念量表、主题知识问卷和阅读策略量表,对于173名大学生进行调查,并要求其在多文本阅读理解之后进行开放问题回答。结果显示：精致化策略和信息收集策略在知识验证信念对于多文本阅读理解的影响中起部分中介作用;知识验证信念对于精致化策略的预测作用受到主题知识的调节。该结果不但展示了知识验证信念对于多文本阅读理解的间接影响机制,也提示了主题知识的作用在于提供了选择复杂策略的自由。     

Distributed Knowability and Fitch’s Paradox

Recently predominant forms of anti-realism claim that all truths are knowable. We argue that in a logical explanation of the notion of knowability more attention should be paid to its epistemic part. Especially very useful in such explanation are notions of group knowledge. In this paper we examine mainly the notion of distributed knowability and show its effectiveness in the case of Fitch’s paradox. Proposed approach raised some philosophical questions to which we try to find responses. We also show how we can combine our point of view on Fitch’s paradox with the others. Next we give an answer to the question: is distributed knowability factive? At the end, we present some details concerning a construction of anti-realist modal epistemic logic.     

My beliefs about your beliefs: a case study in theory of mind and epistemic logic

We model three examples of beliefs that agents may have about other agents’ beliefs, and provide motivation for this conceptualization from the theory of mind literature. We assume a modal logical framework for modelling degrees of belief by partially ordered preference relations. In this setting, we describe that agents believe that other agents do not distinguish among their beliefs (‘no preferences’), that agents believe that the beliefs of other agents are in part as their own (‘my preferences’), and the special case that agents believe that the beliefs of other agents are exactly as their own (‘preference refinement’). This multi-agent belief interaction is frame characterizable. We provide examples for introspective agents. We investigate which of these forms of belief interaction are preserved under three common forms of belief revision.     

Paul and the Revisionists: Did Luther Really Get it All Wrong?

Abstract : After the advent of the “new perspective” on Paul as explicated in E. P. Sanders, Krister Stendahl, and N.T. Wright, we need to ask: did Luther get Paul right? In this essay, Donfried analyzes N.T. Wright along with David Brondos on whether Paul—and Luther—properly interpreted concepts such as “law” or “justification” in light of ancient Judaism(s). In contrast to the “new perspective,” Donfried argues that Paul got the Judaisms of his own era right and Luther got Paul right: we are justified or rightwised before God because of the presence of Jesus Christ in the faith of the one who believes.     

SOSA ON EPISTEMIC CIRCULARITY AND REFLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE

Abstract: Ernest Sosa has done important work on epistemic circularity, epistemic virtue, and reflective knowledge. He holds that epistemic circularity need not be vicious and need not prevent us from knowing that our ways of forming beliefs are reliable. In this article, I briefly explore Sosa's defense of this view and raise some questions about what is required for reflective knowledge.     

Sceptical possibilities? No worries

This paper undermines a paradigmatic form of sceptical reasoning. It does this by describing, and then dialectically dissolving, the sceptical-independence presumption, upon which that form of sceptical reasoning relies.     

Dynamic epistemic logic with branching temporal structures

van Bentham et al. (Merging frameworks for interaction: DEL and ETL, 2007) provides a framework for generating the models of Epistemic Temporal Logic (ETL: Fagin et al., Reasoning about knowledge, 1995; Parikh and Ramanujam, Journal of Logic, Language, and Information, 2003) from the models of Dynamic Epistemic Logic (DEL: Baltag et al., in: Gilboa (ed.) Tark 1998, 1998; Gerbrandy, Bisimulations on Planet Kripke, 1999). We consider the logic TDEL on the merged semantic framework, and its extension with the labeled past-operator “P _ϵ” (“The event ϵ has happened before which. . .”). To axiomatize the extension, we introduce a method for transforming a given model into a normal form in a suitable sense. These logics suggest further applications of DEL in the theory of agency, the theory of learning, etc.     

Bridging learning theory and dynamic epistemic logic

This paper discusses the possibility of modelling inductive inference (Gold 1967) in dynamic epistemic logic (see e.g. van Ditmarsch et al. 2007). The general purpose is to propose a semantic basis for designing a modal logic for learning in the limit. First, we analyze a variety of epistemological notions involved in identification in the limit and match it with traditional epistemic and doxastic logic approaches. Then, we provide a comparison of learning by erasing (Lange et al. 1996) and iterated epistemic update (Baltag and Moss 2004) as analyzed in dynamic epistemic logic. We show that finite identification can be modelled in dynamic epistemic logic, and that the elimination process of learning by erasing can be seen as iterated belief-revision modelled in dynamic doxastic logic. Finally, we propose viewing hypothesis spaces as temporal frames and discuss possible advantages of that perspective.     

When aggression seems justified: Judging intergroup conflict from a distance

This research delineates several factors that may affect how likely observers are to view intergroup aggression as justified. Subjects who favored one side or the other, as well as nominally neutral subjects, rated fictional scenarios depicting an aggressive action by either Israeli or Palestinian armed forces. As hypothesized, rated justification varied with the interaction of an observer's perspective and the relative power of the aggressor and the target, and with the interaction of perspective and the outcome of an action. Also as predicted, power and outcome were found to have no effects on judgments for observers having a neutral perspective. Based on these findings, the extent to which intergroup aggression is perceived as justified is explained in terms of motivational biases theorized to maintain positive social identity.