The Unthinkable and the Unthought

Bibliographic Data

ID5917231
AuthorsTimur Kuran (0000-0002-3006-4983, University of Southern California, corresponding author)
Year1993
Volume5
Issue4
Pages473-505
Publication date1993-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueRationality and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1043-4631 • E-ISSN: 1461-7358
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1043463193005004005
OpenAlexW2265616592
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited34

When people misrepresent their beliefs in response to social pressures, public discourse gets impoverished. Because public discourse is a basic determinant of individual perceptions and understandings, a by-product is the distortion of private knowledge. This article highlights a tendency for beliefs treated as unthinkable to disappear from society's repertoire of ideas, that is, to become unthought. Two mechanisms are identified as the vehicles of this destructive evolutionary process. The first is intragenerational: As individuals we base many of our judgments on social proof. The second is intergenerational: We tend not to think about matters our forebears have treated as settled. The argument distinguishes between hard beliefs, which are based on direct observation, inference, and analysis, and soft beliefs, which are based exclusively on social proof

Economics · Epistemology · Inference · Perception · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Public discourse · Repertoire · Sociology · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · Economic Theory and Institutions · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology