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In this post,  Anna Ichino ,  Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Milan, working primarily in the philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology , continues our series of research posts on the special issue in Topoi, introducing her paper " Superstitious confabulations ".  Confabulation is a heterogenous phenomenon, which varies across a number of dimensions – including content, mode of elicitation, aetiology, and more. While acknowledging this heterogeneity, recent philosophical discussions have focussed mostly on some particular kinds of confabulation: notably, confabulations that are about the self, and externally elicited – classic examples being cases of memory distortions and of ‘ choice blindness ’. With a few exceptions, such discussions highlight the epistemic faults of these confabulations, especially in relation to self-knowledge. In my paper, I draw the attention to a different sort of confabulations, which are typically about the world (as op...

Our series of posts on confabulation continues, featuring papers that appear in a special issue of Topoi on the topic, guest edited by Sophie Stammers and Lisa Bortolotti. Today's post, on gaslighting, confabulation, and epistemic innocence, is by Andrew Spear , Philosophy Faculty at Grand Valley State University near Grand Rapids, Michigan. In Gaslighting, Confabulation, and Epistemic Innocence , I suggest that confabulation plays a central role in many paradigm examples of gaslighting, and that appreciating this sheds some light on what it takes for a defective cognition (such as confabulation) to be epistemically innocent. The central feature of gaslighting is the attempt by one agent to undermine another’s epistemic self-trust, her conception of herself as an independent locus of experience, thought, and judgment. I model gaslighting on the phenomenon of epistemic peer-disagreement (the gaslighter and his victim disagree specifically about whether or not the victim’s cognitive...

Have you ever explained something that you believe or that you've done in a way that felt appropriate and meaningful at the time, but which, on reflection, you might have realized was a little…well… made up ? You’re not alone! 'Confabulation', first studied in the context of psychiatric disorders featuring severe memory impairments (known as narrow confabulation) can also be seen as a more general tendency people have to provide explanations for their choices and attitudes ( broad confabulation). Common to the two notions of confabulation is that whilst the teller does not intend to deceive their audience, the explanation given is not grounded in reality, and is usually false. This week marks the first in a series of Tuesday research posts covering our forthcoming special issue “Philosophical Perspectives on Confabulation” in the journal Topoi . Last year, we had the pleasure of hosting and co-organising a series of workshops dedicated to the topic, its relation to the no...

In this post, Katherine Puddifoot , Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Durham University, discusses her paper “ Re-evaluating the credibility of eyewitness testimony: the misinformation effect and the overcritical juror ,” recently published in Episteme. Should we trust eyewitnesses of crimes? Are jurors inclined to trust eyewitnesses more than they should? People tend to adopt a default position of trust towards eyewitness testimony, finding it highly convincing. However, as has now been widely acknowledged, eyewitnesses are subject to memory errors, which make them susceptible to error. These two observations have pointed many researchers towards the conclusion that jurors do trust eyewitnesses more than they should. However, in a recent paper, I argue that jurors are susceptible to being over critical, assigning too little credence to eyewitness testimony, due to the presence of memory errors. How can this be so? Jurors might adopt a default position of trust to...