Truth Judgments Research Articles

Not Circular: Hume’s “Of the Standard of Taste”

One of the gravest charges that has been brought against Hume’s essay “Of the Standard of Taste” is that of circularity. Hume is accused of defining good art in terms of “true judges,” and of defining true judges in terms of their ability to judge good art. First, I argue that Hume avoids circularity since he offers a way of identifying good art that is logically independent of the verdict of true judges. Second, I argue that this clarifies an enduring puzzle in the scholarship on Hume’s essay: why he appears to offer not one, but two standards of taste. Hume’s standard does not consist of general rules; however, Hume needs general rules to establish that some individuals’ tastes are more “delicate” than others’.

Eugene O’Neill’s Philosophy of Difficult Theatre: Pity, Fear, and Forgiveness

Eugene O’Neill’s Philosophy of Difficult Theatre: Pity, Fear, and Forgiveness

Repetition effects in memory and truth assessments through the lens of transfer-appropriate processing

ABSTRACT The Transfer-appropriate Processing (TAP) framework has demonstrated enhanced recognition memory when processing operations engaged at encoding and at test match. Our research applied TAP to study the illusory truth effect (ITE). We investigated whether the match/mismatch of evaluative goals at encoding and at test affects the ITE. At encoding, participants saw target words (Experiments 1–3; or full trivia claims Experiments 4–5) and completed an evaluative goal: imagery task or vowel-counting. At test, participants saw target words embedded in trivia claims that were old or new and completed the same (matching) or different (mismatching) evaluative goal that they completed at encoding, before making truth or memory ratings. We found a typical TAP effect for memory judgements when people saw words at encoding, but no TAP effect when people saw claims at encoding. We also found an ITE when people saw claims at encoding, but no ITE when people saw words at encoding (no evidence of TAP moderating truth judgments). Together these results extend both the TAP and ITE literatures, suggesting boundary conditions for TAP and the conditions under which the ITE emerges.

Technologies of truth on the web

The spread of misinformation on the Internet today is a serious problem due to the vast impact on society of network information. The most obvious technology aimed at combating false information is fact-checking, which allows to identify the presence of facts in the message and compare them with the base of true information. Such technologies are applicable for tracking information distortions, but do not allow evaluating a random message. An alternative approach is to identify false messages based on indirect signs: its linguistic and paralinguistic features, as well as on the communicative history (author, creation and distribution) and other features. Database-trained artificial intelligence concludes that messages are false, without resorting to comparison with true judgments and logical procedures. The ability of a person to independently evaluate the truth of messages is limited by the economy of cognitive effort, and people are even able to generate their own memories that confirm false messages.

О структуре рефлективного философского зна­ния

The author draws a distinction between the reflective (epistemic) tradition of philosophiz­ing and the value philosophy, which perceives the world correlating it with the needs and interests of people as well as viewing it through the prism of the man’s value preferences. The author derives this distinction from the difference between denotative judgments about being and prescriptive judgments about the proper. These two types of judgments are claimed to be related but not reducible to each other and not derived from one an­other. The author defends the right of a refleсtive philosophy to speak in the language of verifiable judgments of truth, while opposing the position of cognitive imperialism, which absolutizes the truth and turns it into the substance of the human spirit. The author treats the anthropological and gnoseological interpretations of the reflective philosophy, which limit its subject to the analysis of the man in his praxiological, axiological and gnoseological relation to the world, as insufficient. The article defends the now unfash­ionable substantive understanding of philosophy, according to which its object is not the man, but the world surrounding and embracing us, and its subject is the possible unity of the world considered in the aspects of its integrative wholeness and taxonomic univer­sality. An integrative approach that looks for substantive distinctions and connections be­tween the subsystems of the world, is carried out by natural philosophy, social philoso­phy, and philosophy of consciousness. Philosophical ontology has a different objective. It begins with the axiomatic problem of the existence of the world, the relation between the real and the ideal, and proceeds to verifiable judgments about the referential relations between the various "realms of being”. The world is considered by the discipline of on­tology in a conceptual projection “the separate – the singular – the particular – the univer­sal”, which is different from a conceptual projection “the whole – the part”. The author argues for the importance of the ontological problematics, which is of great methodologi­cal importance for non-philosophical (first of all, social and humanitarian) sciences.

How Affect and Repetition Influence Judgments of Truth

How Affect and Repetition Influence Judgments of Truth

How Political Identity and Misinformation Priming Affect Truth Judgments and Sharing Intention of Partisan News

The current research investigated (a) if political identity predicts perceived truthfulness of and the intention to share partisan news, and (b) if a media literacy video that warns of misinformation (priming-video) mitigates the partisan bias by enhancing truth discernment. To evaluate if heightened salience of misinformation accounts for the effects of the media literacy intervention, we also tested if recalling prior exposure to misinformation (priming-question) would yield the same results as watching the literacy video does. Two web-based experiments were conducted in South Korea. In Study 1 (N = 384), both liberals and conservatives found politically congenial information more truthful and shareworthy. Although misinformation priming lowered perceived truthfulness and sharing intention of partisan news, such effects were greater for false, rather than true information, thereby improving truth discernment. Study 2 (N = 600) replicated Study 1 findings, except that the misinformation priming lowered perceived truthfulness and the sharing intention across the board, regardless of the veracity of information. Collectively, our findings demonstrate the robust operation of partisan bias in the processing and sharing of partisan news. Misinformation priming aided in the detection of falsehood, but it also induced distrust in reliable information, posing a challenge in fighting misinformation.

Schmidgen, Wolfram. Infinite Variety: Literary Invention, Theology, and the Disorder of Kinds, 1688–1730

Schmidgen, Wolfram. <i>Infinite Variety: Literary Invention, Theology, and the Disorder of Kinds, 1688–1730</i>

There is an ‘I’ in truth: How salient identities shape dynamic perceptions of truth

AbstractThis research examined the hypothesis that people judge as true those claims aligned with the normative content of their salient social identities. In Experiment 1a, participants’ social identities were manipulated by assigning them to ‘inductive‐thinker’ and ‘intuitive‐thinker’ groups. Participants subsequently made truth judgements about aphorisms randomly associated with ‘science’ and ‘popular wisdom’. Those with salient inductive‐thinker social identities judged science‐based claims as more truthful than popular wisdom‐based claims to a greater extent than those with salient intuitive‐thinker social identities. Experiment 1b was a preregistered replication, with additional conditions eliminating an alternative semantic‐priming explanation. In Experiment 2, American Conservatives and Liberals judged as more true claims associated with the ideological content of their social identities. This difference was attenuated through a manipulation that framed participants as more moderate than they had originally indicated. Overall, these experiments suggest an identity‐truth malleability, such that making salient specific social identities can lead to related perceptions of truth normatively aligned with those identities.

Robustness Tests Replicate Corneille et al.’s (2020) Fake News by Repetition Effect

Corneille et al. (2020) found that repetition increases judgments that statements have been used as fake news on social media. They also found that repetition increases truth judgments and decreases falsehood judgments (i.e., two instantiations of the truth-by-repetition effect). These results supported an ecological explanation of the truth-by-repetition effect better than two alternative accounts. However, the first author of the present article found unsuspected programming issues in Corneille et al.’s experiments. These programming issues introduced confounds that may have been responsible for the results. To estimate whether Corneille et al.’s main findings and claims hold when correcting these issues, the current team agreed on two high-powered preregistered replications of Corneille et al.’s experiments (<em>N</em>_total = 540). The results replicate Corneille et al.’s findings, which are more consistent with an ecological account of repetition effects on judgment than the alternative accounts tested in the original publication.

A dual-context sequent calculus for the constructive modal logic S4

AbstractThe proof theory of the constructive modal logic S4 (hereafter $\mathsf{CS4}$ ) has been settled since the beginning of this century by means of either standard natural deduction and sequent calculi or by the reconstruction of modal logic through hypothetical and categorical judgments à la Martin-Löf, an approach carried out by using a special kind of sequents, which keeps two separated contexts representing ordinary and enhanced hypotheses, intuitively interpreted as true and valid assumptions. These so-called dual-context sequents, originated in linear logic, are used to define a natural deduction system handling judgments of validity, truth, and possibility, resulting in a formalism equivalent to an axiomatic system for $\mathsf{CS4}$ . However, this proof-theoretical study of $\mathsf{CS4}$ lacks, to the best of our knowledge, its third fundamental constituent, namely a sequent calculus. In this paper, we define such a dual-context formalism, called ${\bf DG_{CS4}}$ , and provide detailed proofs of the admissibility for the ordinary cut rule as well as the elimination of a second cut rule, which manipulates enhanced hypotheses. Furthermore, we make available a formal verification of the equivalence of this proposal with the previously defined axiomatic and dual-context natural deduction systems for $\mathsf{CS4}$ , using the Coq proof-assistant.

The Semi-random Likelihood of Doctrinal Paradoxes

When aggregating logically interconnected judgements from n agents, the result might be logically inconsistent. This phenomenon is known as the doctrinal paradox, which plays a central role in the field of judgement aggregation. Previous work has mostly focused on the worst-case analysis of the doctrinal paradox, leading to many impossibility results. Little is known about its likelihood of occurrence in practical settings, except for the study under certain distributions by List in 2005. In this paper, we characterize the likelihood of the doctrinal paradox under a general and realistic model called semi-random social choice framework (proposed by Xia in 2020). In the framework, agents' ground truth judgements can be arbitrarily correlated, while the noises are independent. Our main theorem states that under mild conditions, the semi-random likelihood of the doctrinal paradox is either 0, exp(-Θ(n)), Θ(n\^~(-0.5)) or Θ(1). This not only answers open questions by List in 2005, but also draws clear lines between situations with frequent paradoxes and with vanishing paradoxes.

Ethical education: Ways of moral consciousness development (understanding experience through Tyumen ethical and philosophical tradition)

Introduction. The methodology of ethical education is an ever-relevant topic of research. This is due to the fact that the person’s moral consciousness is an extremely subtle matter; the ways of its development are complex and non-linear. The question “How should the process of ethical education be organised?” is of great concern to both theorists, who construct various models of ethical education, and, practitioners, who implement these models in life.A serious source of knowledge concerning the methodology of ethical education is the concept of the individual moral consciousness development, created by well-known ethicists A. Selivanov, V. I. Bakshtanovsky, Yu. M. Fedorov, who are the representatives of Tyumen ethical and philosophical tradition. The methodological ideas and principles proposed by the Tyumen ethicists can be regarded as a significant contribution to the development of modern ethical and pedagogical thought, aimed at overcoming both total relativism and total fundamentalism, by cultivating the principle of communication as a way of the individual moral consciousness development and as a method of ethical education.Aim. The aim of the present article is to represent the concepts of ethical education, developed within the framework of the Tyumen ethical and philosophical tradition; and also to comprehend their axiological and praxeological potential in relation to modern ethical education.Methodology and research methods. The methodological apparatus of the research is a synthesis of such approaches as: qualitative content analysis, hermeneutics, comparative studies, and also the theories of cognitive constructivism by J. Piaget, L. Kohlberg and communicative rationality by J. Habermas. Thus, this study is interdisciplinary, created at the junction of ethics, sociology of morals, and pedagogy.Results. The research results can be presented as follows: the models of ethical education created within the framework of the Tyumen ethical and philosophical tradition were reconstructed, which can be designated as the model of “development of the ability of true moral judgments” (F. A. Selivanov); the model of “shaping the ability of free choice and moral creativity” (V. I. Bakshtanovsky); the model of “immersion in the universe of morality” (V. M. Fedorov). The main methodological ideas were identified: the conjugation of the processes of the development of moral consciousness and a culture of thinking (F. A. Selivanov), the formation of moral consciousness through the actualisation of the opportunity to be a co-creator of public morality (V. I. Bakshtanovsky); the co-existence of man and the Cosmos (Yu. M. Fedorov). The main methods are presented: ethical and logical exercises (F. A. Selivanov), ethical-applied (business) games, humanitarian expertise (V. I. Bakshtanovsky), dialogue education, the implementation of a creative principle, the practice of freedom (Yu. M. Fedorov), etc.The novelty and practical significance of the study lies in the fact that the methodological concepts of ethical education proposed by the Tyumen ethicists are practically not studied and there is a very real danger of losing valuable experience for the development of modern ethical education strategies.

Prior exposure increases judged truth even during periods of mind wandering.

Much of our day is spent mind-wandering-periods of inattention characterized by a lack of awareness of external stimuli and information. Whether we are paying attention or not, information surrounds us constantly-some true and some false. The proliferation of false information in news and social media highlights the critical need to understand the psychological mechanisms underlying our beliefs about what is true. People often rely on heuristics to judge the truth of information. For example, repeated information is more likely to be judged as true than new information (i.e., the illusory truth effect). However, despite the prevalence of mind wandering in our daily lives, current research on the contributing factors to the illusory truth effect have largely ignored periods of inattention as experimentally informative. Here, we aim to address this gap in our knowledge, investigating whether mind wandering during initial exposure to information has an effect on later belief in the truth of that information. That is, does the illusory truth effect occur even when people report not paying attention to the information at hand. Across three studies we demonstrate that even during periods of mind wandering, the repetition of information increases truth judgments. Further, our results suggest that the severity of mind wandering moderated truth ratings, such that greater levels of mind wandering decreased truth judgements for previously presented information.

What is required for the truth of a general conditional?

General conditionals, if p then q, can be used to make assertions about sets of objects. Previous studies have generally found that people judge the probability of one these conditionals to be the conditional probability of q given p, P(q|p). Two experiments investigated the qualitative relation between the exhaustive possibilities, p & q, p & ¬q, ¬p & q, and ¬p & ¬q, and truth and possibility judgements about general conditionals. In Experiment 1, for truth judgements, people evaluated a general conditional as "true" in sets containing p & q cases but no p & ¬q, and "true" judgements depended only on P(q|p). In Experiment 2, for possibility judgements, people's responses implied that only p & q cases have to be possible in a set for a general conditional to be true of the set. Our results add to earlier findings against representing a general conditional as the material conditional of extensional logic, and they provide novel disconfirmation of two recent proposals: the modal semantics of revised mental model theory and certain inferentialist accounts of conditionals. They supply new support for suppositional theories of conditionals.

How misinformation taints our belief system: A focus on belief updating and relational reasoning

AbstractThis commentary complements Stanley et al.'s (2022) target article by concentrating on the process of false belief construction and its associated cognitive mechanisms. It also concurs with the target article that a deeper understanding of the cognitive mechanisms by which consumers revise their truth judgments in view of new evidence is needed. Specifically, this essay develops two main dimensions: the first about what we know from the actual construction of truth judgments; the second about what we know from the cognitive mechanisms by which truth judgments are constructed. Particularly on this second dimension, I develop the idea that relational reasoning is key to understanding how individuals integrate new information within their internal belief systems. These two dimensions are both process‐minded, yet one is about how beliefs evolve over time, whereas the other is about the cognitive mechanisms that underlie belief construction. Overall, an understanding of these two elements is crucial to finding behavioral interventions that may curb the spread of misinformation.

Untangling the web of misinformation and false beliefs

AbstractStanley et al. (2022) underscore four fundamental cognitive principles that underlie the human belief system. These include the truth bias (a predisposition to believe incoming information as true), bias to extract meaning from information (use of prior expectations to make sense of new information), bias to rely on the source of information to judge truth (using judgments of source credibility to rate veracity), and bias to rely on fluency to judge truth (perceptions of ease of processing information affect truth judgments). I suggest that understanding these principles can help us defer and deflect false beliefs from becoming entrenched in consumer minds and offer ways to leverage the four principles in the service of truth. I then propose that we broaden our focus in the study of false beliefs in three ways‐‐by focusing on prevention of false beliefs rather than correction, by diversifying the dependent measures we study and by addressing the role of identity in false belief maintenance. I conclude with a discussion of some thorny issues and the need for regulation in this sphere. I seek to offer a research agenda to scholars interested in addressing the misinformation crisis that is ripping apart the fabric of our society.

Коммуникативные особенности англоязычного судебного дискурса

This article is devoted to the study of the communicative features of the English-language judicial discourse on the example of introductory statements of court speakers during court sessions. The relevance of this research is due to the need to expand knowledge in the field of judicial discourse, a deeper analysis of the functioning of language tools that contribute to the optimization of communicative interaction based on mutual understanding of the parties involved in the discourse. This work is aimed at studying, identifying and analyzing the linguistic specifics of the expression of the position of lawyers, reflecting knowledge, opinions, assessments regarding the presented facts, considered within the epistemic modality. It is revealed that a characteristic feature of the linguistic expression of the speaker’s degree of confidence in the truth of judgments in the type of discourse under study is the self-positioning of the addressees using first-person pronouns; epistemic markers emphasizing the subjectivity of statements, personal opinions, assessments, relationships; intensifiers that strengthen the approved position of the addressees, and hedging language tools represented by markers of implicitness, uncertainty, hidden communicative impact on the addressee. It is established that the most frequent linguistic means in the type of discourse under study, contributing to the demonstration of the validity of judgments, emphasizing the subjectivity of the expressed opinion, assessment, position, commitment of the speaker in relation to the utterance, are first-person pronouns. Informing the addressee using epistemic markers in the opening speech of lawyers, combining the identified linguistic means in one discursive segment, marks the speaker’s involvement in the discursive event, interest in the facts presented, contributes to the effective presentation of information, maintaining contact with the addressee during court sessions, achieving communicative goals in the professional community.

Pragmatic and knowledge range lenience towards foreigners

Foreign-accented speech categorizes the speaker as an outgroup individual with a lower linguistic competence and a different knowledge heritage from a native speaker. Here we explore whether the identification of an individual as a native or a foreign speaker has an impact on trivia statement judgments, regardless of her foreign-accented speech. Italian native participants first read a bio description of a native and of a foreign speaker and then rate to what degree a series of statements associated with each of the speakers makes sense (Studies 1 and 2) or are true (Study 3). Importantly, the fluency processing between native and foreign speakers was kept constant by using a written presentation of the materials. Under-informative statements such as ‘Some frogs are amphibians’ were tested in Study 1. The results of Study 1 show more acceptable judgments when the sentences were associated with the foreign speaker. Unknown facts about world knowledge such as ‘Butterflies do not see gray’ were tested in Studies 2 and 3. The results show more acceptable (Study 2) and more true (Study 3) judgments when the sentences were associated with the foreign speaker. In addition, in Study 3 the foreign speaker was considered more trustworthy than the native speaker in a rating test at the end of the main judgment-sentence task. Our findings show that linguistic identity per se has an impact on evaluation judgments, suggesting that message interpretation cannot be dissociated from who is communicating the message.

Philosophical and methodological strategies for language learning: formalization and contextualization

The study of language as a means of communication, storage and transmission of human experience has led to the formation of two different philosophical and methodological strategies in scientific cognition: one, based on the theory of sets, considers language from the point of view of its formal structure; the other, based on the theory of systems, interprets language as a carrier of information, as a sign information system. It is proved that these strategies of language research should be characterized not so much as competing, but as mutually complementing each other, helping to reveal the specifics of the linguistic phenomenon. The main thesis of the study is reduced to the statement that an utterance, before it becomes an integral component of social knowledge, must undergo a “filtration” procedure according to two different selection criteria. The first criterion is contextual, when understandable information is extracted from the content of the sentence. The second – logical – involves the “filtering” of true judgments based on formal requirements accepted in science. While the formal-logical strategy of language research is described in some detail in the scientific literature, a systematic approach to its study needs more thorough elaboration and practical coping. An example of the mentioned double filtering of a sentence, carried out on a logical and informational basis, can be the liar's paradox. Despite the fact that many experts perceive the liar's statement “I’m lying” as a logical paradox, however, it does not affect our understanding of natural language and its use for cognitive purposes. As a result of the conducted research, the interconnection of the processes of formalization and contextualization as two key philosophical and methodological approaches to the study of language is revealed.