Jonathan St B T Evans and David E Over
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- April 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198525134
- eISBN:
- 9780191728174
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198525134.003.05
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology
This chapter summarizes and discusses the massive investigation of conditional thinking that has been conducted by psychologists using the Wason four card selection task. It argues that although the ...
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This chapter summarizes and discusses the massive investigation of conditional thinking that has been conducted by psychologists using the Wason four card selection task. It argues that although the selection task is not a good way of measuring deductive reasoning processes, if correctly interpreted, psychological research on this task has proved very informative about how people understand and use ‘if’, and the nature of hypothetical thinking in general. Hence, understanding research on this task is most certainly relevant to the objectives of this book. The chapter begins with a discussion of the indicative selection task and then considers the deontic selection task later in the chapter.Less
This chapter summarizes and discusses the massive investigation of conditional thinking that has been conducted by psychologists using the Wason four card selection task. It argues that although the selection task is not a good way of measuring deductive reasoning processes, if correctly interpreted, psychological research on this task has proved very informative about how people understand and use ‘if’, and the nature of hypothetical thinking in general. Hence, understanding research on this task is most certainly relevant to the objectives of this book. The chapter begins with a discussion of the indicative selection task and then considers the deontic selection task later in the chapter.
Mike Oaksford and Nick Chater
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- April 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198524496
- eISBN:
- 9780191584923
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198524496.003.0006
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
This chapter shows how the probabilistic treatment of the conditional, introduced in Chapter 5, can be used to explain people’s behaviour on the Wason selection task. This task, the most discussed ...
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This chapter shows how the probabilistic treatment of the conditional, introduced in Chapter 5, can be used to explain people’s behaviour on the Wason selection task. This task, the most discussed task in philosophical debates about rationality, is a laboratory version of the problem of choosing the best experiments to test scientific laws. Popper’s (1959) method of falsification suggested that, logically, experiments can only falsify general laws. Accordingly, the rational strategy is to seek counter-examples to our hypotheses. On finding such a counter-example, or falsifying instance, then we at least know that our putative rule is false.Less
This chapter shows how the probabilistic treatment of the conditional, introduced in Chapter 5, can be used to explain people’s behaviour on the Wason selection task. This task, the most discussed task in philosophical debates about rationality, is a laboratory version of the problem of choosing the best experiments to test scientific laws. Popper’s (1959) method of falsification suggested that, logically, experiments can only falsify general laws. Accordingly, the rational strategy is to seek counter-examples to our hypotheses. On finding such a counter-example, or falsifying instance, then we at least know that our putative rule is false.
Robert Barnard, Joseph Ulatowski, Jonathan M. Weinberg, and Bradley Armour-Garb
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- August 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199896042
- eISBN:
- 9780190672287
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199896042.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Language
In the past, experimental philosophers have explored the psychological underpinning of a number of notions in philosophy, including free will, moral responsibility, and more. But prior to this ...
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In the past, experimental philosophers have explored the psychological underpinning of a number of notions in philosophy, including free will, moral responsibility, and more. But prior to this chapter, although a number of philosophers have speculated on how ordinary folks might, or should, think about the liar paradox, no one had systematically explored the psychological underpinnings of the Liar itself. The authors take on this task. In particular, the chapter investigates the status of a liar sentence, L = ‘Sentence L is false’. The thesis, arrived at by interpreting the data the authors have accrued, is that reflective thinkers (some of whom possess a modicum of philosophical expertise) judge L to be neither true nor false (as opposed to false or true), and the authors see this as some evidence for the claim that L is neither true nor false.Less
In the past, experimental philosophers have explored the psychological underpinning of a number of notions in philosophy, including free will, moral responsibility, and more. But prior to this chapter, although a number of philosophers have speculated on how ordinary folks might, or should, think about the liar paradox, no one had systematically explored the psychological underpinnings of the Liar itself. The authors take on this task. In particular, the chapter investigates the status of a liar sentence, L = ‘Sentence L is false’. The thesis, arrived at by interpreting the data the authors have accrued, is that reflective thinkers (some of whom possess a modicum of philosophical expertise) judge L to be neither true nor false (as opposed to false or true), and the authors see this as some evidence for the claim that L is neither true nor false.
