J.D. Trout

"This is a brilliant and useful essay integrating theoretical philosophy and empirical psychology to the benefit of both disciplines. The essay is a paradigm example of how a philosophical perspective can bring order and new insights into scientific practice."

-- Reid Hastie, Professor of Behavioral Science, University of Chicago

In this book, Michael Bishop and I call for Epistemology to take its rightful place alongside Ethics as a discipline that offers practical, real-world recommendations for living. To achieve this goal, we maintain that Epistemology should aim to uncover the normative principles that guide the prescriptions of (what we call) Ameliorative Psychology – those branches of psychology that show how people can improve their reasoning. These improvements are within reach, as demonstrated by the dramatic successes of linear predictive models, among other findings.

We argue that Strategic Reliabilism guides the prescriptions of Ameliorative Psychology. Strategic Reliabilism holds that epistemic excellence involves the efficient allocation of cognitive resources to robustly reliable reasoning strategies applied to significant problems. This theory is unique in Epistemology: it takes Ameliorative Psychology as its descriptive core; it is not a theory of knowledge or justification; and it takes significance and cost-benefit considerations to be ineliminable features of epistemic evaluation. Strategic Reliabilism moves Epistemology away from abstract theorizing about knowledge and toward a useful, empirically-informed guide to reasoning.

We demonstrate the practical power of our views by offering what we hope are fresh insights on a wide range of issues in Psychology and Philosophy. Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment contains a novel critique of analytic epistemology and responses to standard arguments against naturalistic epistemology. And it forges an original cost-benefit framework for thinking practically about reasoning excellence, a framework we employ to suggest some simple strategies that can make people better reasoners.

From the back cover of Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment:

"Bishop and Trout have written a wonderful book. Their goal is nothing less than a radical reorientation of contemporary epistemology. Rejecting the analytic enterprise of explicating our concepts of justification and knowledge, they instead seek a return to an epistemology which would provide rules for the direction of the mind. Empirically informed and philosophically sophisticated, this is a lively and challenging book."
Hilary Kornblith, Professor of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

"Professors Bishop and Trout consider normative and experimental evidence, as well as philosophical debate and many good examples, in making a compelling case that epistemology ought to concern itself with people's limited cognitive resources and reasoning strategies, as these are likely to impinge on problems of great social significance. This book should be read by anyone interested in the foibles and fallibility of human reasoning, and in how an empirically informed view of human knowledge and understanding may help yield not only good philosophy, but also improved policy, better thinking and greater well being."
Eldar Shafir, Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs, Princeton University

"One of the surprising critiques Bishop and Trout offer of analytic epistemology is that it is not normative enough. They argue that their thoroughly naturalistic approach to epistemology does significantly better on this score. All of this material is fresh, original and exciting. It might even be right! But right or wrong, I think it is a safe bet that it will attract a great deal of attention, and that Bishop & Trout will be recognized as two of the most interesting and innovative people working in the area where philosophy of science, epistemology and empirical psychology come together."
Stephen Stich, Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University