Collective Epistemic Luck

A platitude in epistemology is that an individual’s belief does not qualify as knowledge if it is true by luck. Individuals, however, are not the only bearers of knowledge. Many epistemologists agree that groups can also possess knowledge in a way that is genuinely collective. If groups can know, it is natural to think that, just as true individual beliefs fall short of knowledge due to individual epistemic luck, true collective beliefs may fall short of knowledge because of collective epistemic luck. This paper argues, first, that the dominant view of epistemic luck in the literature, the modal view, does not yield a satisfactory account of lucky collective beliefs. Second, it argues that collective epistemic luck is better explained in terms of groups lacking (suitably defined) forms of control over collective belief formation that are specific to the different procedures for forming collective beliefs. One of the main implications of this, we will argue, is that groups whose beliefs are formed via internal deliberation are more vulnerable to knowledge-undermining collective luck than groups that form their beliefs via non-deliberative methods, such as non-deliberative anonymous voting. The bottom line is that the greater exposure to knowledge-undermining luck that deliberation gives rise to provides a reason (not a conclusive one) for thinking that non-deliberative methods of group belief formation have greater epistemic value.

Leistung, Ritual und Optimierung

Performance, Ritual and Optimization The phenomenon of optimization indicates an ongoing change in the performance principle. For a deeper understanding of this process, we analyze aspects that underlie the daily practices of performance: We pursue the open question of the contradictory conditions of the modern performance principle and its subjectivizing effects, present the concept of ritual as a way of dealing with this contradictoriness and show how rituals maintain the collective belief in performance.

Learning China’s History Lessons

This chapter draws upon extensive Chinese-language scholarship to explain how China’s experience as a target and practitioner of economic statecraft forged a distinctive strategic culture regarding economic statecraft. Chinese experts and policymakers express confidence that economic resources can be deployed for both strategic leverage and reassurance, faith that economic statecraft can be deployed in ways that advantage both China and the recipient country, and a belief that the Party-state can and should mobilize commercial actors to advance Beijing’s foreign policy goals. They justify China’s ambitious approach by skepticism toward Western claims of morality, identification of China as a developing country, and faith in the overriding benefits of economic growth. The chapter concludes by describing how this collective belief system influences experts’ views on policy challenges and their proposed solutions.

Reflections on the Ontology of Money

The suggestions outlined here include the following. Money is a bundle of institutionally sustained causal powers. Money is an institutional universal instantiated in generic currencies and particular money tokens. John Searle’s account of institutional facts is not helpful for understanding the nature of money as an institution (while it may help to illuminate aspects of the nature of currencies and money particulars). The money universal is not a social convention in David Lewis’s sense (while currencies and money particulars are characterized by high degrees of conventionality). The existence of the money universal is dependent on a larger institutional structure and cannot be understood in terms of collective belief or acceptance or agreement separately focusing on money. These claims have important implications for realism about money.

Music, Selves and Societies: Respondent Paper

Researchers working within the field of music and society often comment that they wish to use their research for the betterment of society and individuals, wherever possible. In many cases, this process of betterment requires some sort of behavioral change—whether this is changing poor habits to promote healthy living and thinking or changing destructive behavior in order to lead more productive and connected lives. It can increasingly be seen in the world today that social behavior has a complex array of influences and motivations and rarely is empirical evidence one of them. No amount of thoroughly researched evidence or logically developed arguments influences this behavior. Brexit and the Trump administration are two examples of this phenomenon. What seems to influence this seemingly bizarre social behavior is a collective belief in a narrative. The narrative needs to speak to common emotions, senses of identities and memories, but it does not need to necessarily be supported by empirical evidence to be effective. There is a need to understand this power of narrative in the public discourse if we are to truly influence how public policy engages with music.

Cumulation Across Attitudes and Plural Projection

This paper investigates cumulative readings of sentences in which some, but not all of the plural expressions have a de dicto reading, i.e. sentences where the lower plural is interpreted in the scope of an attitude verb like believe. I argue that such cases represent a problem for existing accounts of cumulativity, because the required cumulative relation cannot be formed. I then motivate and propose an alternative analysis where all plural expressions are interpreted in situ: I expand the ‘plural projection’ framework put forth by Haslinger & Schmitt (2018, 2019), Schmitt (2019), where embedded pluralities ‘project’ to the denotations of higher nodes in the sense that the latter reflect the part-structure of the former and where cumulativity is derived via a compositional rule in a step-by-step fashion. I show that if the denotations of the plurals with the de dicto construal are analyzed as pluralities of individual concepts, which project in the afore-mentioned sense to pluralities of propositions, the data can be explained straightforwardly. This proposal differs from treatments in terms of collective belief that don’t appeal to pluralities of propositions ( Pasternak 2018a, b), in that it (i) arguably generalizes to a larger number of examples and (ii) links grammatical plurality in the embedded clause to the availability of cumulative readings.

Hope in the Lives of Low-Income Students of Color: A Qualitative Study of Experiences in a Work-Based Learning Program

This study explored the experiences of low-income students of color who participated in a work-based learning (WBL) program while attending a Catholic high school. Historically, research on student outcomes in WBL programs has been mixed, and few studies have provided insights into how low-income youth of color can benefit. This study utilized a phenomenological methodology to capture hope among these youth and to delineate these students’ lived experiences within their relational, organizational, and sociocultural contexts. The results showed participants’ goal setting and motivation were fostered by a sense of connection to others at school and a collective belief that success was possible for all students despite whatever challenges they faced. The participants also discussed hopes for the future within the context of workplace support, religious faith, and past hopelessness. The results provide avenues to design WBL programs that consider students’ supports and barriers and further contextualize hope theory.

Collective Belief and the Intentional Strategy

What do we mean when we say that some group believes something? Do we simply mean that all the members of the group believe it, or are we acknowledging the existence of some kind of group agent? According to Margaret Gilbert, talk about group mental states refers to the specific kind of agreements she calls joint commitments — that is, to collectively believe something means to be committed with others to believe it. In my article, I will first present Gilbert’s approach in more detail but will ultimately show that this approach is problematic and will refute it. I will briefly consider the most common solution to the problems Gilbert’s account faces, which lies in replacing collective beliefs with acceptances, but I will show that this solution will not do either. The solution I will then present will be based on Daniel Dennett’s intentional strategy, which is a method of interpreting the things around us and predicting their behaviour by treating them as rational agents with relevant intentions. I will try to show that all the problematic cases of collective belief can be explained by applying the intentional strategy to the groups in question.

Divination and the ‘Real Presence’ of the Divine in Ancient Greece

This chapter applies Robert Orsi’s concepts of ‘real presence’ and ‘abundant history’ to the study of ancient Greek religion, using divination as a case study. It proposes that we should take real presence seriously as something that most Greeks took for granted. Although investigating religious experience is extraordinarily difficult, one of the best places to look is in the ubiquitous practice of divination. For it is in the context of the divinatory ritual that the real presence of the divine was commonly to be experienced. Case studies include the epiphany of Asklepios to Isyllos of Epidauros, the lead oracular tablets from Dodona, and the role of divination in the Athenian expedition to Sicily in 415 BCE. The latter event is compared to the belief of the Lakota Sioux that their ghost shirts would protect them from bullets at the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890. In both cases, a collective belief in prophecy and in the real presence of supernatural forces instilled an assurance of victory, and this assurance was then followed by a rejection of the religious specialists who had promoted a positive interpretation of the message and the outcome.