Download or read book Implausible Beliefs written by Allan Mazur and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do people accept ideas that are contradicted by science or logic? In Implausible Beliefs, Allan Mazur offers a comparative look at the nature of irrational belief systems, their social roots, and their cultural and political impact. He begins by providing standards for judging beliefs implausible and assessing the impact of such belief systems onpolitics and social policy in the US. Mazur describes and defends commonsense criteria for establishing that certain views should not be sustained in the face of present-day understanding. He presents a statistical portrait of implausible beliefs rampant in the US, and who tends to accept them.Mazur applies criteria for implausibility to the Bible, astrology, and visitation to Earth of intelligent beings from other worlds. Pointing out that everyone "knows" the Bible but few actually read it, the author scrolls through the first five books of the text, noting points that undermine the scripture's natural history and moral guidance. Working on the assumption that implausible religious views are fundamentally no different from implausible secular views, he critiques secular beliefs in astrology and UFOs. Mazur concludes the volume with an attempt to explain why most people accept implausibility?some more than others?despite evidence and logic that refute them.Looking to mainstream sociology and psychology, Mazur shows how children are socialized into such beliefs, and how adults are influenced by spouses and friends. Personality is also a factor, sometimes abetted by stressful or lonely life situations. Lucidly written, this is a provocative and informative contribution to social psychology, sociology, religion, political science, and American studies.

Download or read book Implausible Beliefs written by Allan Mazur and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2012 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do people accept ideas that are contradicted by science or logic? In Implausible Beliefs, Allan Mazur offers a comparative look at the nature of irrational belief systems, their social roots, and their cultural and political impact. He begins by providing standards for judging beliefs implausible and assessing the impact of such belief systems onpolitics and social policy in the US. Mazur describes and defends commonsense criteria for establishing that certain views should not be sustained in the face of present-day understanding. He presents a statistical portrait of implausible beliefs rampant in the US, and who tends to accept them. Mazur applies criteria for implausibility to the Bible, astrology, and visitation to Earth of intelligent beings from other worlds. Pointing out that everyone "knows" the Bible but few actually read it, the author scrolls through the first five books of the text, noting points that undermine the scripture's natural history and moral guidance. Working on the assumption that implausible religious views are fundamentally no different from implausible secular views, he critiques secular beliefs in astrology and UFOs. Mazur concludes the volume with an attempt to explain why most people accept implausibility—some more than others—despite evidence and logic that refute them. Looking to mainstream sociology and psychology, Mazur shows how children are socialized into such beliefs, and how adults are influenced by spouses and friends. Personality is also a factor, sometimes abetted by stressful or lonely life situations. Lucidly written, this is a provocative and informative contribution to social psychology, sociology, religion, political science, and American studies.

Download or read book Psychopathology and Philosophy of Mind written by Valentina Cardella and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how the human mind works through the lens of psychological disorders, challenging many existing theoretical constructs, especially in the fields of psychology, psychiatry and philosophy of mind. Drawing on the expertise of leading academics, the book discusses how psychopathology can be used to inform our understanding of the human mind. The book argues that studying mental disorders can deepen the understanding of psychological mechanisms such as reasoning, emotions, and beliefs alongside fundamental philosophical questions, including the nature of the self, the universal aspects of morality, and the role of rationality and normativity in human nature. By crossing different domains, this book offers a fresh perspective on the human mind based on the dialogue between philosophy, cognitive science and clinical psychology. Mental disorders discussed include schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoia. This book caters to the increasing interest in interdisciplinary approach to solving some of the problems in psychopathology. Since this book treats psychological engagement with empirically informed philosophy of mind, this book is essential reading for students and researchers of cognitive psychology, clinical psychology, and philosophy, as well as being of interest to clinicians and psychiatrists.

Download or read book Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs written by Lisa Bortolotti and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-11-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Delusions are a common symptom of schizophrenia, dementia and other psychiatric disorders. Though delusion is commonly defined as a false and irrational belief, there is currently a lively debate about whether delusions are really beliefs and indeed, whether they are even irrational. The book is an interdisciplinary exploration of the nature of delusions. It brings together the psychological literature on the aetiology and the behavioural manifestations of delusions, and the philosophical literature on belief ascription and rationality. The thesis of the book is that delusions are continuous with ordinary beliefs, a thesis that could have not only significant theoretical implications for debates in the philosophy of mind and psychology, but also practical implications for psychiatric classification and the clinical treatment of subjects with delusions. Based on recent work in philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology and psychiatry, the book offers a comprehensive review of the philosophical issues raised by the psychology of normal and abnormal cognition, defends the doxastic conception of delusions, and develops a theory about the role of judgements of rationality and self-knowledge in belief ascription.

Download or read book Recent Themes in the Philosophy of Science written by S. Clarke and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Australia and New Zealand boast an active community of scholars working in the field of history, philosophy and social studies of science. Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science aims to provide a distinctive publication outlet for their work. Each volume comprises a group of thematically-connected essays edited by scholars based in Australia or New Zealand with special expertise in that particular area. In each volume, a majority ofthe contributors are from Australia or New Zealand. Contributions from elsewhere are by no means ruled out, however, and are actively encouraged wherever appropriate to the balance of the volume in question. Earlier volumes in the series have been welcomed for significantly advancing the discussion of the topics they have dealt with. I believe that the present volume will be greeted equally enthusiastically by readers in many parts of the world. R. W. Home General Editor Australasian Studies in History And Philosophy of Science viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The majority of the papers in this collection had their origin in the 2001 Australasian Association for History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science annual conference, held at the University of Melbourne, where streams of papers on the themes of scientific realism and commonsense were organised.

Download or read book Behavioural Aspects of Auditors Evidence Evaluation written by Magda Abou-Seada and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title was first published in 2003. Based on psychological research, auditing studies have focused on 'belief revision' as a way of understanding how auditors evaluate evidence. Moreover a belief revision process is consistent with US auditing standards. UK standards on the other hand do not appear to give guidance on the process to follow when evaluating evidence. Research in the US indicates that auditors do in fact follow a belief revision process in accordance with US standards. Employing survey research (based on personal interviews with a number of experienced UK auditors) this book demonstrates how auditors prefer to be described as following the open mind approach. Building on the findings of the interviews the book then describes an experimental study to investigate the differences between the belief revision and open mind approaches in terms of their effect on the efficiency and effectiveness of the audit process. The book concludes that the belief revision approach would improve the efficiency of the audit process without affecting its effectiveness or outcomes.

Download or read book Talk about Beliefs written by Mark Crimmins and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Talk About Beliefs presents a new account of beliefs and of practices of reporting them that yields solutions to foundational problems in the philosophies of language and mind. Crimmins connects issues in mental representation with semantic issues in language for talking about cognition to provide a theoretically fruitful account of belief and belief reports that is logically consistent with intuitive judgments of such notorious problems as Frege's puzzles about substitution and cognitive significance, Quine's puzzle about de re, Castaneda and Perry's puzzle about indexical beliefs, and other more complicated variations. Crimmins's account relies on, and to some extent vindicates, the traditions of representationalism in the philosophy of mind and of structured propositional semantics. In reporting a person's beliefs, Crimmins argues, we systematically make claims not only about the propositional content of the beliefs but also about cognitive representations. He elaborates and defends this proposal by providing a careful assessment of pragmatic and semantic contributions to the claims expressed in belief reports. Crimmins's thesis forms a promising framework within which to approach issues in the philosophy of mind such as tacit belief (do you believe that pencils do not eat?), criteria for having concepts (do blind persons have the concept of red?), and restrictions of acquaintance on objects of thought (can you believe something about the first person born in the next century?).

Download or read book Why Delusions Matter written by Lisa Bortolotti and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-07-13 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When we talk about delusions we may refer to symptoms of mental health problems, such as clinical delusions in schizophrenia, or simply the beliefs that people cling to which are implausible and resistant to counterevidence; these can include anything from beliefs about the benefits of homeopathy to concerns about the threat of alien abduction. Why do people adopt delusional beliefs and why are they so reluctant to part with them? In Why Delusions Matter, Lisa Bortolotti explains what delusions really are and argues that, despite their negative reputation, they can also play a positive role in people's lives, imposing some meaning on adverse experiences and strengthening personal or social identities. In a clear and accessible style, Bortolotti contributes to the growing research on the philosophy of the cognitive sciences, offering a novel and nuanced view of delusions.

Download or read book Alien Landscapes written by Jonathan Glover and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do people with mental disorders share enough psychology with other people to make human interpretation possible? Jonathan Glover tackles the hard cases—violent criminals, people with delusions, autism, schizophrenia—to answer affirmatively. He offers values linked with agency and identity to guide how the boundaries of psychiatry should be drawn.

Download or read book Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview written by James Porter Moreland and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2003-03-31 with total page 673 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguments are clearly presented, and rival theories are presented with fairness and accuracy."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Freud written by Jerome Neu and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1991-11-29 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does Freud still have something to teach us? The premise of this volume is that he most certainly does. Approaching Freud from not only the philosophical but also historical, psychoanalytical, anthropological, and sociological perspectives, the contributors show us how Freud gave us a new and powerful way to think about human thought and action. They consider the context of Freud's thought and the structure of his arguments to reveal how he made sense of ranges of experience generally neglected or misunderstood. All the central topics of Freud's work, from sexuality and neurosis to morality, art, and culture are covered.

Download or read book Schizophrenia written by Mary Boyle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Download or read book To Light the Flame of Reason written by Christer Sturmark and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-05-01 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To Light the Flame of Reason is all about the art of clear thinking, an art that is needed now more than ever in the world we now live in. Written for anyone who wants to navigate better in this world filled with populist dogmas, anti-science attitudes, and pseudo-philosophy, authors Christer Sturmark and Douglas Hofstadter provide a set of simple tools for clear thinking, as well as a deeper understanding of science, truth, naturalism, and morality. It also offers insights into the rampant problems of extremism and fundamentalism – and suggestions for how the world can move towards a new enlightenment. The book argues that we need to reawaken the basic values and ideals that defined the original age of enlightenment. We need to accept the idea that the world we inhabit is part of nature, and that it has no trace of supernatural or magical forces. Ethical questions should be detached from religion. This doesn’t mean that the questions become any easier — just that ideas are tested and judged without being profoundly tainted and constrained by religious dogmas. Such a form of secular humanism builds on the power of free thought — the power to investigate and understand the natural world. Although not everything can be investigated or understood, the sincere quest for knowledge and understanding establishes a flexible, nondogmatic attitude toward the world. Curiosity and openness lie at the core of such an attitude. The scientific method of careful and open- minded testing, as well as science’s creative and reflective ways of thinking, provides key tools. What clear, science-inspired thinking helps us to understand, among many other things, is that a person can be good and can be motivated to carry out morally good actions without ever bowing to, or being limited by, supposedly divine forces. To Light the Flame of Reason will appeal to adults who are trying to figure out how to deal with the ever-increasing daily bombardment of conflicting messages about what is right, true, sensible, or good, and it should appeal even more to teenagers and university students who are struggling to find a believable and reliable philosophy of life that can help guide them in their choices of what and whom to trust, and how to act, both on the personal and the social level. Today, more people have greater access to information and knowledge than ever was dreamt of before, and more people are concerned about the world situation. More people have the chance, through their own actions, to make a difference. Each one of us, as an individual, matters. It is thus vitally important that each of us should choose, in a conscious and reflective manner, our own views of reality, of the world, and of humanity. And this means that it is crucial for us all to train ourselves in the art of thinking clearly. Christer Sturmark along with Pulizer Prize winning author Douglas Hofstdter argue that we must refocus our efforts on cultivting a secular society, and in doing so, we will rediscover the values and ethics that are so foreign in today’s society.

Download or read book Moral Error Theory written by Jonas Olson and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-01-23 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonas Olson presents a critical survey of moral error theory, the view that there are no moral facts and so all moral claims are false. In Part I (History), he explores the historical context of the debate, and discusses the moral error theories of David Hume and of some more or less influential twentieth century philosophers, including Axel Hägerström, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Richard Robinson. He argues that the early cases for moral error theory are suggestive but that they would have been stronger had they included something like J. L. Mackie's arguments that moral properties and facts are metaphysically queer. Part II (Critique) focuses on these arguments. Olson identifies four queerness arguments, concerning supervenience, knowledge, motivation, and irreducible normativity, and goes on to establish that while the first three are not compelling, the fourth has considerable force, especially when combined with debunking explanations of why we tend to believe that there are moral properties and facts when in fact there are none. One conclusion of Part II is that a plausible error theory takes the form of an error theory about irreducible normativity. In Part III (Defence), Olson considers challenges according to which that kind of error theory has problematic ramifications regarding hypothetical reasons, epistemic reasons, and deliberation. He ends his discussion with a consideration of the implications of moral error theory for ordinary moral thought and talk, and for normative theorizing.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology written by Paul K. Moser and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains nineteen newly commissioned articles by top philosophers on various aspects of the theory of knowledge. The articles survey the field as well as make original contributions to contemporary debates.

Download or read book Belief and Probability written by J.M. Vickers and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1. A WORD ABOUT PRESUPPOSITIONS This book is addressed to philosophers, and not necessarily to those philosophers whose interests and competence are largely mathematical or logical in the formal sense. It deals for the most part with problems in the theory of partial judgment. These problems are naturally formulated in numerical and logical terms, and it is often not easy to formulate them precisely otherwise. Indeed, the involvement of arithmetical and logical concepts seems essential to the philosophies of mind and action at just the point where they become concerned with partial judgment and" belief. I have tried throughout to use no mathematics that is not quite elementary, for the most part no more than ordinary arithmetic and algebra. There is some rudimentary and philosophically important employment of limits, but no use is made of integrals or differentials. Mathematical induction is rarely and inessentially employed in the text, but is more frequent and important in the apP'endix on set theory and Boolean algebra. • As far as logic is concerned, the book assumes a fair acquaintance with predicate logic and its techniques. The concepts of compactness and maximal consistency turn out to have important employment, which I have tried to keep self-contained, so that extensive knowledge of meta logical topics is not assumed. In a word, the book presupposes no more logical facility than is customary among working philosophers and graduate students, though it may call for unaccustomed vigor in its application.

Download or read book New Issues in Epistemological Disjunctivism written by Casey Doyle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-04-29 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first volume dedicated solely to the topic of epistemological disjunctivism. The original essays in this volume, written by leading and up-and-coming scholars on the topic, are divided into three thematic sections. The first set of chapters addresses the historical background of epistemological disjunctivism. It features essays on ancient epistemology, Immanuel Kant, J.L. Austin, Edmund Husserl, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The second section tackles a number contemporary issues related to epistemological disjunctivism, including its relationship with perceptual disjunctivism, radical skepticism, and reasons for belief. Finally, the third group of essays extends the framework of epistemological disjunctivism to other forms of knowledge, such as testimonial knowledge, knowledge of other minds, and self-knowledge. Epistemological Disjunctivism is a timely collection that engages with an increasingly important topic in philosophy. It will appeal to researches and graduate students working in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of perception.