scholarly journals Understanding, Truth, and Epistemic Goals

2020 ◽  
Vol 87 (5) ◽  
pp. 944-956
Author(s):  
Kareem Khalifa
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Goals

scholarly journals Verification and Strategy Synthesis for Coalition Announcement Logic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha Alechina ◽  
Hans van Ditmarsch ◽  
Rustam Galimullin ◽  
Tuo Wang
Keyword(s):  
Model Checking ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Model Checker ◽  
Complete Model ◽  
Concept Model ◽  
The Family ◽  
Winning Strategies ◽  
Epistemic Goals

AbstractCoalition announcement logic (CAL) is one of the family of the logics of quantified announcements. It allows us to reason about what a coalition of agents can achieve by making announcements in the setting where the anti-coalition may have an announcement of their own to preclude the former from reaching its epistemic goals. In this paper, we describe a PSPACE-complete model checking algorithm for CAL that produces winning strategies for coalitions. The algorithm is implemented in a proof-of-concept model checker.

scholarly journals THE NONRANDOM WALK OF KNOWLEDGE

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-264
Author(s):  
Jane R. Bambauer ◽  
Saura Masconale ◽  
Simone M. Sepe
Keyword(s):  
Expert Testimony ◽  
Selection Effect ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Wide Scale ◽  
Evidence Gathering ◽  
Epistemic Goals ◽  
Epistemic Process

AbstractA person’s epistemic goals sometimes clash with pragmatic ones. At times, rational agents will degrade the quality of their epistemic process in order to satisfy a goal that is knowledge-independent (for example, to gain status or at least keep the peace with friends.) This is particularly so when the epistemic quest concerns an abstract political or economic theory, where evidence is likely to be softer and open to interpretation. Before wide-scale adoption of the Internet, people sought out or stumbled upon evidence related to a proposition in a more random way. And it was difficult to aggregate the evidence of friends and other similar people to the exclusion of others, even if one had wanted to. Today, by contrast, the searchable Internet allows people to simultaneously pursue social and epistemic goals.This essay shows that the selection effect caused by a merging of social and epistemic activities will cause both polarization in beliefs and devaluation of expert testimony. This will occur even if agents are rational Bayesians and have moderate credences before talking to their peers. What appears to be rampant dogmatism could be just as well explained by the nonrandom walk in evidence-gathering. This explanation better matches the empirical evidence on how people behave on social media platforms. It also helps clarify why media outlets (not just the Internet platforms) might have their own pragmatic reasons to compromise their epistemic goals in today’s competitive and polarized information market. Yet, it also makes policy intervention much more difficult, since we are unlikely to neatly separate individuals’ epistemic goals from their social ones.

Where Ethical and Epistemic Demands Meet

2021 ◽  
pp. 93-116
Author(s):  
Katherine Puddifoot
Keyword(s):  
Social Reality ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Ethical Perspective ◽  
Practical Difficulty ◽  
Epistemic Goals ◽  
Social Domains ◽  
Epistemic Perspective

Chapter 5 explores the idea that we face a dilemma with respect to stereotyping: that when stereotypes reflect social reality, people can either do what is best from an epistemic perspective, and allow the stereotypes to influence their judgements, or they can do what is best from an ethical perspective and avoid stereotyping. This chapter shows that although ethical and epistemic demands sometimes conflict in this way, sometimes they can both be met through stereotyping, and at other times they can both be met by not stereotyping. Rather than facing a relatively straightforward dilemma, we face a serious practical difficulty of discerning, in any specific context, whether the application of a stereotype will facilitate the achievement of either or both ethical and epistemic goals. The argument in this chapter is primarily focused on the case study of stereotyping in medicine but applies broadly to stereotyping across various social domains.

Do You Want to Learn Physics? Please PlayAngry Birds(But With Epistemic Goals)

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Carlos de Aldama ◽  
Juan-Ignacio Pozo
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Object Motion ◽  
Learning Tools ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The World ◽  
Epistemic Goals ◽  
Learn Physics ◽  
The Relationship

For some years now, the scientific community has been studying how videogames foster acquisition of mental representations of the world around us. Research to date suggests that the efficiency of videogames as learning tools largely depends on the instructional design in which they are included. This article provides empirical evidence related to the use of the videogame Angry Birds and how it can modify students’ conceptions regarding object motion. We selected a sample of 110 16- to 17-year-old students in postcompulsory secondary school. Both quantitative and qualitative data are provided. Our results show that (a) merely playing Angry Birds does not produce significant learning, (b) learning occurs when Angry Birds is guided by epistemic goals. Students who used the videogame in this way were able to recognize more variables, provide better explanations, and understand more fully the relationship between angle and distance, (c) naïf belief regarding the effect of mass on falling objects (“mass-speed belief”) remained unchanged after using Angry Birds guided either pragmatic or epistemic goals, and (d) there was no significant difference between students who worked collaboratively in pairs and those who worked individually. In the light of these results, we discuss potential implications for the future.

Engineering Model Independence

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-229
Author(s):  
Zachary Pirtle ◽  
Jay Odenbaugh ◽  
Andrew Hamilton ◽  
Zoe Szajnfarber ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Model Development ◽  
Levels Of Detail ◽  
Levee Failure ◽  
Model Complex ◽  
Richard Levins ◽  
Model Independence ◽  
Epistemic Goals ◽  
Modeling Strategy

According to population biologist Richard Levins, every discipline has a “strategy of model building,” which involves implicit assumptions about epistemic goals and the types of abstractions and modeling approaches used. We will offer suggestions about how to model complex systems based upon a strategy focusing on independence in modeling. While there are many possible and desirable modeling strategies, we will contrast a model-independence-focused strategy with the more common modeling strategy of adding increasing levels of detail to a model. Levins calls the latter approach a ‘brute force’ strategy of modeling, which can encounter problems as it attempts to add increasing details and predictive precision. In contrast, a model-independence-focused strategy, which we call a ‘pluralistic strategy,’ draws off of Levins’s use of an assemblage of multiple, simple and—critically—independent models of ecological systems in order to do predictive and explanatory analysis. We use the example of model analysis of levee failure during Hurricane Katrina to show what a pluralistic strategy looks like in engineering. Depending on one’s strategy, one can deliberately engineer the set of available models in order to have more independent and complementary models that will be more likely to be accurate. We offer advice on ways of making models independent as well as a set of epistemic goals for model development that different models can emphasize.

scholarly journals Collective Epistemic Goals

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Fallis
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Goals

The Epistemic Cultures of Science andWikipedia: A Comparison

Episteme ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Brad Wray
Keyword(s):  
Collaborative Research ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Epistemic Culture ◽  
Culture Of Science ◽  
Epistemic Goals ◽  
Epistemic Cultures ◽  
The Way

ABSTRACTI compare the epistemic culture ofWikipediawith the epistemic culture of science, with special attention to the culture of collaborative research in science. The two cultures differ markedly with respect to (1) the knowledge produced, (2) who produces the knowledge, and (3) the processes by which knowledge is produced.Wikipediahas created a community of inquirers that are governed by norms very different from those that govern scientists. Those who contribute toWikipediado not ground their claims on their reputations as knowers, for they stand to lose nothing if and when their contributions are found to be misleading or false. And the immediacy of the medium encourages gossip and jokes. Hence, though we have some reason to believe that an invisible hand aids scientists in realizing their epistemic goals, we cannot ground our confidence in what is reported onWikipediaon the fact that an invisible hand ensures quality. Nor is the information onWikipediaaptly justified in a manner similar to the way testimony can be justified.

When and Why Do Liberals and Conservatives Think Alike?

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 360-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conrad Baldner ◽  
Antonio Pierro ◽  
Marina Chernikova ◽  
Arie W. Kruglanski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Cognitive Closure ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Need For Cognitive Closure ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Epistemic Goals ◽  
The Individual

Abstract. Research on moral foundations theory has found that liberals typically favor the individualizing foundations (i.e., concern for the individual) but typically oppose the binding foundations (i.e., concern for the group). We propose that need for cognitive closure (NFC) can explain when liberals will favor the binding foundations. In two studies, we found that liberals in Italy and the United States were more likely to endorse the binding foundations when they had high NFC. Overall, these results suggest that researchers should strive to understand the interaction between individuals’ epistemic goals and their political orientations in order to accurately predict how they will perceive political issues.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document