The
Aronsonian re-interpretation of cognitive dissonance as
caused by ideas in conflict with self-image forestalled some obvious
applications to philosophical issues lying at the border with psychology. As the
action-oriented approach suggests, when Festinger's theory is deepened to
pertain to the relations between far-mode and near-mode representations, the
similarity between cognitive dissonance and theoretical plausibility becomes
almost obvious. Implausibility has the same properties and role as cognitive
dissonance. It is an aversive state that can motivate a change in far-mode
beliefs, and the change is toward a form of coherence among beliefs. Rival
theories can be rated on a single dimension of plausibility in the same way
that they evoke different degrees of dissonance.
The
reduction of implausibility to cognitive dissonance bears significant
philosophical weight. It denies both Bayesian and coherentist theories of
knowledge. The fashionable Bayesian interpretation of implausibility is in
terms of degrees of rational belief. A theory is implausible according to the
Bayesian School when it possesses a low a priori probability. But we don't
thereby scale our beliefs for rationality if we scale beliefs by how much
dissonance they cause. Moreover, to scale them by rationality would require
that we have some independent reason for thinking, apart from the comparative cognitive
dissonance they arouse, that one theory is more rational than is the other.
Scaling our beliefs by the cognitive dissonance they arouse cannot itself be
justified on a priori grounds, since dissonance reduction often takes us
systematically away from the truth, as in fact is the case in most experimental
studies of dissonance. (This helps explain why the identity of dissonance and
implausibility hasn't previously been noted.)
Regarding
the other negative implication of the dissonance account of implausibility - coherentist
theories of knowledge haven't arrived at a clear meaning of
"coherence," but coherentist theories emphasize logical and
explanatory relations among far-mode ideas (although recent versions have included
the role of ideas derived directly from perception). The dissonance theory of
implausibility holds that dissonance is aroused by pragmatic incompatibility
between near-mode and far-mode cognition. However, we don't seem to be immune
to conflicts between our far-mode ideas, although the extent to which we are -
the extent of the immunity to far-mode hypocrisy - tends to surprise many of
us. The resolution of this problem is that the logical
analysis of the relations between far-mode ideas is itself a near-mode
activity. (Consider that the practice of mathematics is near-mode, as much as
its content is abstract.) We are sensitive to inconsistencies in far-mode ideas
only to the extent that we draw upon them in our analytical practices - and to
the extent that our own activity involves such practices. Those involved in
expounding a doctrine or acting in its terms will be subject to dissonance to
the extent that far-mode ideas pragmatically conflict with the performance of their
analytical performances.
The
dissonance theory of plausibility also bears on the mystery of the conjuring up
of theoretical terms. We know that scientific theories go beyond the empirical
evidence, as in principle there are infinitely many theories consistent with
any set of empirical facts. On the dissonance account of plausibility, theory
creation and acceptance is driven by dissonance reduction. Far-mode theories
promote scientific practices by energizing them. They do this by providing the
framework in which scientists work. If work is to be systematic, a framework is
necessary, but are the declarative propositions the framework expresses true?
Do they have a probability of truth?
Scientific
Realist philosophers of science have argued convincingly that theoretical
propositions in science often purport to be true, but nobody has come close to
providing an account of what it means for an abstract theory to be probable, such
that we can inquire regarding the epistemic probability that Newtonian physics
was true. The notion that we have rational degrees of belief in theories does
accord with some intuitions. Plausibility must allow at least ordinal ranking,
since dissonance involves choice between different cognitive states according
to their plausibility. This in turn means that the laws of probability apply to
ordinal relations. For example, the plausibility of Theory A and Theory B will
never be greater than the plausibility of Theory A. But let me suggest that
even this is a product of dissonance as shaped by theoretical development, as
is shown in studies showing that in many situations we empirically find the
conjunction fallacy compelling - that is, plausible.
Sometimes the search for dissonance reduction leads to truth, and sometimes it leads away from truth. Rationality is a limiting case of dissonance reduction, but it's one impossible to specify except from within a psyche subject to the laws of cognitive dissonance. Then this problem: how do we even express the expectation that scientific theories get closer to the truth and religious theories do not? We can say that scientific theories depend on experimental and observational practices and therefore have at least the possibility of resting on actual evidence. We can say scientific theories have greater plausibility than religious theories, these both being judgments that are a product of the law of dissonance. But, counter-intuitively (at least for me), we can't say that scientific theories are more probable than religious theories. It isn't, it's important to notice, that we don't know which is more probable. Rather, the whole notion of probability as applied to theories is misbegotten. That a theory is implausible or plausible is a far-mode conclusion, and far-mode doesn't deal in the relative frequencies modeled by the probability calculus.
A
simple example might be clarifying in showing the limits of the concept of
probability and its closeness to near-mode experience. During the last
presidential election, pollsters arrived at estimates of the probability of
winning for each candidate. Pollsters use mainly near-mode reasoning to
engineer the best predictive formulas. The pollsters substantially agreed, as
you would expect when they each applied similar methodologies, all based on
simple extrapolation of the near-mode process of sampling and generalizing to a
defined population.
The accuracy of these conclusions, however, depended on
certain far-mode assumptions, such as that people taking polls respond
honestly. What if this assumption didn't hold? Well, it didn't; Trump won and
the main reason the polls got it wrong was (or might have been, if you prefer)
that voters polled weren't honest about their preferences. We might ask, what
should have been the true probability estimate, given that the pollsters didn't
take into account the probability that their model was based on false
assumptions. How should they have taken this into account? Probability estimates
result from the near-mode operation of fitting observation to a relative
frequency model. We can complicate the model to take account of more
information, but what we can't do is adjust the probability estimate to take
account of the model's own fallibility. (At a deeper level, Bayesian estimates
can’t adjust for the probability that the Bayesian methodology itself is
invalid—as I contend it is in fact.) If it makes sense to assign a probability
to a theory being true, how much belief should be accorded in some idealized
rational world, then it should be possible to approximate that probability.
Someone can adjust it "intuitively," but my point is that there is
nothing appropriate for an intuition to be about. Theoretical plausibility is
not probability.
At
this point arises a skeptical temptation, for not only is our knowledge not
absolute, it isn't even probable.
Plausibility can systematically take us away from knowledge. We seem to long
for a rationale for doing the rational thing, and such a rationale is supplied
when knowledge and rational conduct is represented by Bayesian and
decision-theoretic formulas. We see ourselves as free and availed of (mentally)
unlimited choice. We are rational because we choose to be, and that entails
that the choice itself be rational. But our possibilities aren't unlimited,
freely chosen. Our ideas will evolve in
accordance with the demands of cognitive dissonance or else moved
by receptivity to suggestion. There's no "free will" to seize the initiative, and no direct access to rationality to guide us.
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Usage note: Far-mode and near-mode are alternative terms (contributed by Robin Hanson) for the abstracting and concretizing mindset of Trope and Liberman's Construal Level Theory. I use them interchangeably.
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Usage note: Far-mode and near-mode are alternative terms (contributed by Robin Hanson) for the abstracting and concretizing mindset of Trope and Liberman's Construal Level Theory. I use them interchangeably.