Imperfect Cognitions

On 17 June at the University of Birmingham, Kathleen Murphy-Hollies organised a workshop on conspiracy theories and storytelling with a stellar line-up. This post is a report of the event. The workshop is part of a project called "Film, Storytelling and Conspiracies" funded by a University of Birmingham Research Incubator Hub. Conspiracy theories online First talk was by Catarina Dutilh Novaes (VU Amsterdam) and was entitled "Conspiratorial Beliefs and Conspiracy Fantasies: Engaging with Wu Ming 1". The premise for the talk was that many think that conspiracy beliefs are on the rise and affect our political choices ("vibes-based politics"). One idea by Napolitano (2021) is that attempts to debunk conspiratorial beliefs with facts, evidence, and rational arguments do not work. Catarina aimed to respond to Napolitano. Catarina Dutilh Novaes Wu Ming (in Mandarin, "No Name") is a collective originating in Bologna, a group of writers active in liter...

Katherine Puddifoot has recently edited a special issue of  Philosophical Psychology  on bias . In last week's post  Katherine considered new ways of conceptualising bias. In this post, Katherine introduces some of the methods for understanding and mitigating bias discussed by the contributors. James Chamberlain, Jules Holroyd, Ben Jenkins and Robin Scaife  examine empirical work that they argue fails to distinguish intersectional bias from non-binary categories, does not reflect the heterogeneity of bias, and assumes that when people harbor intersectional biases (e.g., the intersectional implicit bias associating traits with Black Women), these will be a complex compound of simple concepts associated with both of the intersecting identities (e.g., White women and Black men).  For Chamberlain and colleagues, it is crucial to do justice to the varying different experiences that members of a social group may have, and how these may change qualitatively based on th...

Katherine Puddifoot has recently edited a special issue of Philosophical Psychology on bias . In this post, she introduces some of the conceptions of bias and discrimination discussed by the contributors. In next week's post Katherine will summarise the authors' ideas about how to mitigate bias. Katherine Puddifoot Ema Sullivan-Bissett provides a defence of her view that implicit biases are unconscious imaginings, by drawing on studies of the impact of the use of virtual reality on people’s biases. Sullivan-Bissett argues that implicit biases are not necessarily propositional, but may instead be characterized by being imagistic, explaining how sometimes, but not always, immersion in an imagistic virtual reality is effective in shifting bias. Felipe de Carvalho and Joel Krueger adopt a conception of implicit bias as embodied perceptual habits. They argue that conceived in this way implicit bias can explain certain injustices experienced by children with Down syndrome and auti...

This post is by Endre Begby (Simon Fraser University). Here Begby presents his new book, Prejudice: A Study in Non-Ideal Epistemology (OUP 2021). Are prejudiced beliefs “imperfect cognitions”? In several ways, it would seem natural to classify them as such. After all, they tend to be false, they are formed in light of incomplete information, and they can cause significant harm at both social and individual levels. Accordingly, it is common to think about prejudiced belief as a problem to be overcome, and, in particular, as a manifestation of epistemic irrationality. To overcome the problem, we must presumably become better, more rational, cognizers. But we could also start by critically probing what an ideal of “perfect cognition” might look like here. That prejudiced beliefs tend to be false and are formed in light of incomplete information does not, for instance, obviously distinguish them from most scientific theories throughout history. That they are peculiarly harmful certainly ...

Alessandra Tanesini is a Professor in Philosophy at Cardiff University (UK). She is the author of An Introduction to Feminist Epistemologies (Blackwell, 1999), of Wittgenstein: A Feminist Interpretation (Polity, 2004), and of several articles in epistemology, feminist philosophy, the philosophy of mind and language, and on Nietzsche.  Her recent work lies at the intersection of ethics, the philosophy of language, and epistemology with a focus on epistemic vice, silencing, prejudice and ignorance. She is currently a co-PI on a two-year multidisciplinary research project Changing Attitudes in Public Discourse which is dedicated to reducing arrogance in debate. Open access copies of recent publications and work in progress can be found here . Those who face discrimination, humiliation and intimidation on a daily basis suffer many harms as a result of these wrongful treatments. In my paper “ Intellectual Servility and Timidity ” I explore how subordination and discrimin...

Today Michael Brownstein and Jennifer Saul introduce Implicit Bias and Philosophy, Volumes 1&2 . We’re Michael Brownstein and Jennifer Saul .    Michael is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at John Jay College/City University of New York.   He works in philosophy of psychology, with emphasis on the nature of the implicit mind, and on related topics in the philosophy of action and ethics.    Jenny is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield and Director of the Society for Women in Philosophy UK.   Her research is primarily in philosophy of language, feminist philosophy, and philosophy of race. Back in 2009, very few philosophers were working on implicit bias. (You could probably count them on the fingers of one hand, perhaps two.) Jenny thought there was a lot of potential for philosophical work on the topic, and decided to apply for a research network grant to bring philosophers and psychologists toget...

This post is by Boudewijn de Bruin (pictured above), Professor of Financial Ethics in the faculties of Economics and Business, and Philosophy, at the University of Groningen. In this post he writes about gender disparity and epistemic self-trust.  Women pay about half a percentage point higher interest rates on comparable mortgages than men. Why is that? Is it discrimination? And are the countless similar disparities among many other different social groups discrimination? Research is still going on, but the received opinion among economists writing on what they call gender disparity seems to be that, no, there is no discrimination. (And they are the ones informing policymakers.) Their argument is that the disparity can be attributed to differences in tastes or preferences among men and women have about ‘search behaviour’ rather than on the mortgage lender actively discriminating against women. Men, according to this explanation, have a preference for searching the w...