KEVIN DORST
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I'm an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Pittsburgh. Before that, I received my PhD from MIT, and spent a year as a Junior Research Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford.

My projects center around a simple question: What should we think about how people think? A standard answer from psychology is that people's thinking is riddled with irrationality. But, it turns out that these irrationalist interpretations of the empirical data are often questionable, relying on overly simplistic models of what rational people would think or do.  My aim is to bring philosophically sophisticated models of rationality to bear on the interpretation of these empirical results, and––ultimately––to help assess how (ir)rational we truly are.

​For a summary of the big-picture project and its connection to polarization in politics, see my initial blog post: "A Plea for Political Empathy". For an extended argument that polarization has its roots in rational causes, see the series Reasonably Polarized: Why politics is more rational than you think.  For the latest, see the blog's feed. 

Follow me on Twitter to get updates about new blog posts, as well as occasional thoughts on polarization, politics, meta-philosophy, etc.
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  • Bio
  • Research
  • Resources
  • CV / Contact
  • Stranger Apologies