The notion of bullshit has quite recently acquired a theoretical and philosophical dignity. Described as the careless attitude that an agent has towards the truth-value of what he believes in, bullshitting is a valuable candidate for shedding light on those situations in which a chance should be turned down inasmuch as it is a fake chance. By contrasting the idea of bullshitting with that of scientific rationality, we will contend that the former favors what we call cognitive baroquism. That is, bullshitting has the major effect of unnecessarily complicating things and so intoxicating our cognitive niches with fake chances. In order to capture this feature of bullshitting as chance-faking, we will develop an argument from simplicity. Coming from the tradition of philosophy of science, the notion of simplicity might be of great help in spelling out the main effects of chance-faking and, at the same time, it gives us a valuable heuristic to understand when a chance should be rather turned down than actively pursued and implemented.
Turning Down a Chance: An Argument From Simplicity
MAGNANI, LORENZO;
2012-01-01
Abstract
The notion of bullshit has quite recently acquired a theoretical and philosophical dignity. Described as the careless attitude that an agent has towards the truth-value of what he believes in, bullshitting is a valuable candidate for shedding light on those situations in which a chance should be turned down inasmuch as it is a fake chance. By contrasting the idea of bullshitting with that of scientific rationality, we will contend that the former favors what we call cognitive baroquism. That is, bullshitting has the major effect of unnecessarily complicating things and so intoxicating our cognitive niches with fake chances. In order to capture this feature of bullshitting as chance-faking, we will develop an argument from simplicity. Coming from the tradition of philosophy of science, the notion of simplicity might be of great help in spelling out the main effects of chance-faking and, at the same time, it gives us a valuable heuristic to understand when a chance should be rather turned down than actively pursued and implemented.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
