Suppose you glance at a clock that, unbeknownst to you, is broken, showing the same time all day. Nonetheless, you happened to look at the clock precisely when it showed the correct time. So your belief about the time is correct. My question is this: did you know what time it is?
Perhaps you think that you did. After all, you formed a belief on the basis of a device that most people trust and the belief was true! What else would it mean to know something? Well, in academic philosophy, the orthodox answer to this kind of thought experiment is “no”.
People who perform better on tests of reflective thinking tend to report philosophers’ orthodox answer to this kind of thought experiment. And, if you’ve been following my research, you know that philosophers are particularly reflective thinkers. These correlations may make you wonder about causation. Does thinking reflectively cause people to accept philosophers’ orthodoxy? Or is it the other way around: does studying thought experiments like the broken clock case somehow result in people performing better on reflection tests?
In this episode, I’ll tell you about the experiment I ran to find out. The paper is titled “Reflection-Philosophy Order Effects and Correlations Across Samples” and has been accepted for publication in Analysis. The paper will also mention a bunch of other thought experiments, tests of reflective thinking, and measures of research participants’ data quality.
As always, free preprints of my papers are available on my CV at byrdnick.com/cv under “Publications”.
This episode’s affiliate partner is Spark Education, who is offering free 30-minute class demo for your child. You can read about the testimonials, stats, and all the activities included in their latest offer at SparkMath.pxf.io/PObNOR.
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Related posts
- Upon Reflection, Ep. 10: Great Minds Do Not Think Alike
- Upon Reflection, Ep. 8: Reflective Reasoning & Philosophy
- Upon Reflection, Ep. 6: Your Health vs. My Liberty (COVID-19 Research Paper)
- Upon Reflection, Ep. 2: Not All Who Ponder Count Costs (Reflection & Moral Dilemmas)
- Oppenheimer: ‘Philosopher-Scientist-Statesman’
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Hi, Nick.It has been awhile. I have been commenting on several blogs for a few years. Maybe you have heard—maybe not. Guessing on the way my mind works, coincidence of same time, on the same clock, around the same perceived time, for more than, say, two days, would arouse MY suspicion. Not so oddly enough, it did, when an electric clock on my living room wall stopped emitting its’ quiet buzz.After the second day, I actually looked at that clock, confirmed it was not running, and, changed the battery. So, I get that this would escape notice from others. I just try to pay attention. Thanks for thinking of me.
I tried to think more deeply about your question(s) on critical thinking and philosophy. I think the ambiguous answer is: it can go either way. As my attorney friends say about law: It depends. This response is non-commital, because circumstances of law are non-commital. The average person does not trust attorneys, because he/she is looking for an answer, and believes it depends is a dodge. So, whether critical thinking enables foundation(s) for philosophy, or, it is the other way ’round depends on circumstance. Politics and law are closely related. This is why attorneys become politicians. I think that more rarely goes the other way ’round… Thanks, Nick.