Reasonably Polarized: A Bayesian Theory of Bias
Fall 2025, 24.805 Topics in Epistemology
Syllabus is available here. [Note: the schedule on the syllabus is dated. The up-to-date schedule is the one below.]
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Current full draft of the book available here.
[Warning: future chapters are drafty and subject to change. Read ahead at your own risk. I'll post updated drafts of chapters below, at least a before the class session devoted to them. I'll update the full draft as we go.]
Readings:
Sep 3: Reasonable Convergence? [Handout]
Chapter 1 and Mandelbaum 2019.
Optional: Fine 2005
Sep 10: Cognitive Noise [Handout]
Chapter 2
Optional: Icard 2016
Sep 17: Primer, and Probability-Weighting [Handout]
Chapter 3 and Enke and Graeber 2023 (just try to understand the idea / basic results. Don't worry about the math.)
Sep 24: Hindsight Bias [Handout]
Hedden 2019 and Chapter 7
Optional: Gerken 2024
Oct 1: Hindsight Bias, and Standard Bayesianism [Handout]
Chapter 7 (again) and Chapter 4
Optional: Isaacs and Russell 2022 and Zhang and Meehan 2025
Tool for finding probability models (no coding, in browser): PrSat
Oct 8: Tutorial on running experiments [Handout]
No reading
For more info: Sytsma and Livengood 2015 or Kornmesser 2024 (available online thru MIT libraries)
Oct 15: Ambiguous Bayesianism [Handout]
Elga 2013 and Chapter 5
Optional: Greaves and Wallace 2006
Oct 22: Confirmation Bias [Handout; Lord1979 plot; Taber and Lodge 2006 plot]
Kelly 2008 and Williams 2023
Optional: McWilliams's 2021 reply to Kelly
Oct 29: Confirmation Bias [Handout; plots]
Chapter 8
Optional: Salow 2018
Nov 5: Value of Information [Handout]
Das 2023
Optional: Dorst et al. 2021
Nov 12: Polarization [Handout] [Slides]
Chapter 9
Optional: Assaad and Hahn 2024 and/or Lederman 2015
Nov 19: Mechanistic vs. Rational Psychology [Handout]
Chater et al. 2024 and Chapter 11
Optional: Williams 2021
Nov 26: No class (Thanksgiving)
Dec 3: Politics
Floweree 2023 and Chapter 12 [Handout]
Dec 10: Student Presentations