How To Think Real Good | Meta-rationality

Reconciling truthfulness and relevance as epistemic and decision-theoretic utility.

Believing what we do not believe: Acquiescence to superstitious beliefs and other powerful intuitions.

fenc.es — be wrong on the internet, productively

Trace the map of reasonable disagreement. Break arguments into statements, rate confidence and importance, and find the crux.

Opinion | Can You Get Smarter? (Published 2015)

There is much that you can do to keep cognitively sharp.

Reversing Assumptions Technique — Think Jar Collective

Think Jar Collective contributor and creativity expert Michael Michalko shares a technique to challenge our own assumptions and in the process spark new thinking.

The Irrational Decision

How the computer revolution shaped our conception of rationality—and why human problems require solutions rooted in human intuition, morality, and judgment

Epistemic courage

"'Epistemic Courage' is a timely and thought-provoking exploration of the ethics of belief. Drawing on a wide range of examples, from conspiracy theories to medical misinformation, Ichikawa shows why epistemology is no mere academic abstraction - the question of what to believe couldn't be more urgent. And, he argues, many mainstream ideas about what to believe - those emphasizing the importance of ensuring that one doesn't believe with insufficient evidence - are incomplete and distorting in important and harmful ways. A skeptical, negative bias about belief is connected to a conservative bias that reinforces the status quo. Throughout the book, Ichikawa argues that we need to shift our focus from avoiding false beliefs to actively seeking out true ones. Throughout the book, Ichikawa uses engaging and timely examples to illustrate his points. He tackles important questions, such as how moral considerations interact with evidential ones in deciding what to believe, and how to navigate the complex ethical issues around testimony, rape culture, and epistemic injustice. Accessible and rigorous, 'Epistemic Courage' invites readers to consider the importance of belief, and how it shapes our lives and the world around us. With its insightful analysis and compelling case studies, this book is an essential read for philosophers and anyone else interested in belief, social justice, and the pursuit of truth."--

Explorable - Think Outside The Box - Research, Experiments, Psychology, Self-Help

"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default." - J.K. Rowling

What Makes a Good Theory, and How Do We Make a Theory Good?

I present an ontology of criteria for evaluating theory to answer the titular question from the perspective of a scientist practitioner. Set inside a formal account of our adjudication over theories, a metatheoretical calculus, this ontology comprises the following: (a) metaphysical commitment, the need to highlight what parts of theory are not under investigation, but are assumed, asserted, or essential; (b) discursive survival, the ability to be understood by interested non-bad actors, to withstand scrutiny within the intended (sub)field(s), and to negotiate the dialectical landscape thereof; (c) empirical interface, the potential to explicate the relationship between theory and observation, i.e., how observations relate to, and affect, theory and vice versa; (d) minimising harm, the reckoning with how theory is forged in a fire of historical, if not ongoing, abuses—from past crimes against humanity, to current exploitation, turbocharged or hyped by machine learning, to historical and present internal academic marginalisation. This work hopes to serve as a possible beginning for scientists who want to examine the properties and characteristics of theories, to propose additional virtues and vices, and to engage in further dialogue. Finally, I appeal to practitioners to iterate frequently over such criteria, by building and sharing the metatheoretical calculi used to adjudicate over theories.

Re-Engineering Wimsatt for Limited Beings

Science is the best way to produce facts about reality. The best, at least, that limited human beings have devised so far. Yet, not even scientists quite seem to understand how scientific knowledge is generated. This is not only a philosophical but also a practical problem, as our misunderstandings affect the quality of our research and limit the directions it can take. In light of this, it may be good if we reflected a bit more on how we do science — to become better researchers through philosophy. Here, I provide an accessible introduction to a philosophical approach that achieves precisely this: William Wimsatt’s multi-perspectival realism. It disabuses us of widespread but misleading myths and idealizations about science, such as the idea that everything in the world can be reduced to a fundamental level, or that we can approach a “view from nowhere” — complete and objectively detached knowledge of the world. Wismatt proposes an alternative view based on his thorough studies of actual research practice. It cuts deeply into the layered yet messy structure of reality, and the improvised but potent tools we have available, as limited and evolved beings, to explore it. Wimsatt reframes science as an irregular yet adaptive process rather than a cumulative repository of unalterable facts. His philosophy provides a workable and grounded middle way between radical skepticism and naïve belief in the objective truth of science. It explains how knowledge is conceptually constructed by humans, but still connects us to reality in a trustworthy way. We need such a new view of science, not only to improve our research practices and outcomes but, more generally, to gain a more realistic understanding of ourselves, the world, and our place and role within it.

God Help Us, Let’s Try To Learn About Mechanistic Interpretability Techniques

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Michael Baym on Twitter / X

Remember that you, by definition, cannot distinguish between a good idea and a failure of your own knowledge, judgement, or taste. This is why external (ideally expert) feedback is crucial— Michael Baym (@baym) March 25, 2026

Epistemic Courage and Open-Mindedness

Epistemic courage requires me to sometimes adopt a belief even in the face of doubts. Open-mindedness requires me to be able to reconsider my beliefs. It is generally assumed that we should have bo...

Metacognitive experiences as information: Processing fluency in consumer judgment and decision making

Abstract Thinking is accompanied by metacognitive experiences of ease or difficulty. People draw on these experiences as a source of information that can complement or challenge the implications of declarative information. We conceptualize the operation of metacognitive experiences within the framework of feelings‐as‐information theory and review their implications for judgments relevant to consumer behavior, including popularity, trust, risk, truth, and beauty.

Metacognitive experiences as information: Processing fluency in consumer judgment and decision making

Abstract Thinking is accompanied by metacognitive experiences of ease or difficulty. People draw on these experiences as a source of information that can complement or challenge the implications of declarative information. We conceptualize the operation of metacognitive experiences within the framework of feelings‐as‐information theory and review their implications for judgments relevant to consumer behavior, including popularity, trust, risk, truth, and beauty.

Why major life decisions should be approached with ‘epistemic humility’ | Psyche Videos

At a crossroads in life? No matter how much you deliberate, one unknowable remains: the person you will be on the other side