Maarten Boudry
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 1192473 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Maarten Boudry |
| NOMBRES | Maarten |
| APELLIDO | Boudry |
| FIRMA | BOUDRY M |
| AFILIACIONES | Ghent University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0932-3394 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 23 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 38 |
| OBRAS COMO AUTOR | 23 |
| OBRAS COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2011 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
Why Liberalism Might Last
In ‘Can Liberalism Last?’ Anomaly and Faria (2023) argue that liberal societies tend to undermine their own long‐term survival, chiefly by fostering conditions—urbanization, mass migration from culturally distant regions and sub‐replacement fertility—that erode social trust and grant a demographic advantage to illiberal groups, whereas liberalism's philosophical commitments bar the corrective measures (immigration restriction, pronatalism, nation…
Between listening and refusal
In 2002, Belgium enacted three laws that significantly shaped the organisation of end-of-life care: the Patients’ Rights Act, the Euthanasia Act, and the Palliative Care Act. A shared emphasis across these laws is the promotion of patient autonomy. The Euthanasia Act, among the most liberal in the world, does not exclude euthanasia for individuals with psychiatric disorders, provided all legal criteria are met. While the Act enjoys broad public a…
Is religion just make-believe, or only for some Weird people
The selfish machine? On the power and limitation of natural selection to understand the development of advanced AI
On epistemic black holes
Many pseudosciences, conspiracy theories and other unfounded belief systems have a self‐sealing nature, being equipped with defence mechanisms and immunizing strategies that protect them against counterevidence and criticism. In this article, we discuss the existence of ‘epistemic black holes’, belief systems which posit intelligent agents that are deliberately evading detection and thus sabotaging any investigation into their existence. These be…
Is onze klimaatcrisis de schuld van het christendom? Over achterafgoderij en menselijke vooruitgang
“Trust Me, I’m a Scientist”
Modern democratic societies tend to appeal to the authority of science when dealing with important challenges and solving their problems. Nevertheless, distrust in science remains widespread among the public, and, as a result, scientific voices are often ignored or discarded in favour of other perspectives. Though superficially “democratic”, such a demotion of science in fact hinders democratic societies in effectively tackling their problems. Wo…
Diagnosing Pseudoscience – by Getting Rid of the Demarcation Problem
Ethics of Nuclear Energy in Times of Climate Change
In recent years, there has been an intense public debate about whether and, if so, to what extent investments in nuclear energy should be part of strategies to mitigate climate change. Here, we address this question from an ethical perspective, evaluating different strategies of energy system development in terms of three ethical criteria, which will differentially appeal to proponents of different normative ethical frameworks. Starting from a st…
The cultural buck stops somewhere
When I was a kid I used to pray in front of a glow-in-the-dark statue of the Virgin Mary. To “enhance” my telepathic connection with the Mother of God, I would rapidly flick the light switch in my
Reasonable Irrationality
Pseudoscience spreads through communicative and inferential processes that make people vulnerable to weird beliefs. However, the fact that pseudoscientific beliefs are unsubstantiated and have no basis in reality does not mean that the people who hold them have no reasons for doing so. We propose that, reasons play a central role in the diffusion of pseudoscience. On the basis of cultural epidemiology and the interactionist theory of reasoning, w…
Truth and Consequences
Judgments of the rationality of beliefs must take the costs of acquiring and possessing beliefs into consideration. In that case, certain false beliefs, especially those that are associated with the benefits of a cohesive community, can be seen to be useful for an agent and perhaps instrumentally rational to hold. A distinction should be made between excusable misbeliefs, which a rational agent should tolerate, and misbeliefs that are defensible …
Why Do Irrational Beliefs Mimic Science? The Cultural Evolution of Pseudoscience
Why do irrational beliefs adopt the trappings of science, to become what is known as “pseudoscience”? Here, we develop and extend an epidemiological framework to map the factors that explain the form and the popularity of irrational beliefs in scientific garb. These factors include the exploitation of epistemic vigilance, the misunderstanding of the authority of science, the use of the honorific title of “science” as an explicit argument for beli…
Can evolution get us off the hook? Evaluating the ecological defence of human rationality
This paper discusses the ecological case for epistemic innocence: does biased cognition have evolutionary benefits, and if so, does that exculpate human reasoners from irrationality? Proponents of 'ecological rationality' have challenged the bleak view of human reasoning emerging from research on biases and fallacies. If we approach the human mind as an adaptive toolbox, tailored to the structure of the environment, many alleged biases and fallac…
The Dark Side of the Loon. Explaining the Temptations of Obscurantism
After contrasting obscurantism with bullshit, we explore some ways in which obscurantism is typically justified by investigating a notorious test‐case: defences of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Obscurantism abuses the reader's natural sense of curiosity and interpretive charity with the promise of deep and profound insights about a designated subject matter that is often vague or elusive. When the attempt to understand what the speaker means requires …
Philosophy of Pseudoscience
What sets practice of rigorously tested, sound science apart from pseudoscience? In this volume, contributors seek to answer this question, known to philosophers of science as the demarcation problem. This issue has a long history in philosophy, stretching as far back as early twentieth century and work of Karl Popper. But by late 1980s, scholars in field began to treat demarcation problem as impossible to solve and futile to ponder. However, ess…
The mismeasure of machine
Psychoanalytic Facts as Unintended Institutional Facts
We present an inference to the best explanation of the immense cultural success of Freudian psychoanalysis as a hermeneutic method. We argue that an account of psychoanalytic facts as products of unintended declarative speech acts explains this phenomenon. Our argument connects diverse, seemingly independent characteristics of psychoanalysis that have been independently confirmed, and applies key features of John Searle’s and Eerik Lagerspetz’s t…
The Epistemic Predicament of a Pseudoscience
Social constructivist approaches to science have often been dismissed as inaccurate accounts of scientific knowledge. In this article, we take the claims of robust social constructivism (SC) seriously and attempt to find a theory which does instantiate the epistemic predicament as described by SC. We argue that Freudian psychoanalysis, in virtue of some of its well‐known epistemic complications and conceptual confusions, provides a perfect illust…
Where the Design Argument Goes Wrong
Sober has reconstructed the biological design argument in the framework of likelihoodism, purporting to demonstrate that it is defective for intrinsic reasons. We argue that Sober’s restriction on the introduction of auxiliary hypotheses is too restrictive, as it commits him to rejecting types of everyday reasoning that are clearly valid. Our account shows that the design argument fails, not because it is intrinsically untestable but because it c…
How convenient! The epistemic rationale of self-validating belief systems
This paper offers an epistemological discussion of self-validating belief systems and the recurrence of "epistemic defense mechanisms" and "immunizing strategies" across widely different domains of knowledge. We challenge the idea that typical "weird" belief systems are inherently fragile, and we argue that, instead, they exhibit a surprising degree of resilience in the face of adverse evidence and criticism. Borrowing from the psychological rese…
The Implications of the Cognitive Sciences for the Relation Between Religion and Science Education
In Mysterious Ways
The psychology of prayer and supernatural causation has received surprisingly little attention from empirical researchers. This paper discusses implicit belief patterns about the causal mechanisms by which God effects changes in the world. The authors offer a psychological account of belief in supernatural causation based on the existing empirical literature on petitionary prayer, incorporating mechanisms of psychological self-correction and rati…
How convenient! The epistemic rationale of self-validating belief systems
This paper offers an epistemological discussion of self-validating belief systems and the recurrence of "epistemic defense mechanisms" and "immunizing strategies" across widely different domains of knowledge. We challenge the idea that typical "weird" belief systems are inherently fragile, and we argue that, instead, they exhibit a surprising degree of resilience in the face of adverse evidence and criticism. Borrowing from the psychological rese…
The mismeasure of machine
The Implications of the Cognitive Sciences for the Relation Between Religion and Science Education
In Mysterious Ways
The psychology of prayer and supernatural causation has received surprisingly little attention from empirical researchers. This paper discusses implicit belief patterns about the causal mechanisms by which God effects changes in the world. The authors offer a psychological account of belief in supernatural causation based on the existing empirical literature on petitionary prayer, incorporating mechanisms of psychological self-correction and rati…
Where the Design Argument Goes Wrong
Sober has reconstructed the biological design argument in the framework of likelihoodism, purporting to demonstrate that it is defective for intrinsic reasons. We argue that Sober’s restriction on the introduction of auxiliary hypotheses is too restrictive, as it commits him to rejecting types of everyday reasoning that are clearly valid. Our account shows that the design argument fails, not because it is intrinsically untestable but because it c…
Reasonable Irrationality
Pseudoscience spreads through communicative and inferential processes that make people vulnerable to weird beliefs. However, the fact that pseudoscientific beliefs are unsubstantiated and have no basis in reality does not mean that the people who hold them have no reasons for doing so. We propose that, reasons play a central role in the diffusion of pseudoscience. On the basis of cultural epidemiology and the interactionist theory of reasoning, w…
The Epistemic Predicament of a Pseudoscience
Social constructivist approaches to science have often been dismissed as inaccurate accounts of scientific knowledge. In this article, we take the claims of robust social constructivism (SC) seriously and attempt to find a theory which does instantiate the epistemic predicament as described by SC. We argue that Freudian psychoanalysis, in virtue of some of its well‐known epistemic complications and conceptual confusions, provides a perfect illust…
Where the Design Argument Goes Wrong
Sober has reconstructed the biological design argument in the framework of likelihoodism, purporting to demonstrate that it is defective for intrinsic reasons. We argue that Sober’s restriction on the introduction of auxiliary hypotheses is too restrictive, as it commits him to rejecting types of everyday reasoning that are clearly valid. Our account shows that the design argument fails, not because it is intrinsically untestable but because it c…
How convenient! The epistemic rationale of self-validating belief systems
This paper offers an epistemological discussion of self-validating belief systems and the recurrence of "epistemic defense mechanisms" and "immunizing strategies" across widely different domains of knowledge. We challenge the idea that typical "weird" belief systems are inherently fragile, and we argue that, instead, they exhibit a surprising degree of resilience in the face of adverse evidence and criticism. Borrowing from the psychological rese…
The Implications of the Cognitive Sciences for the Relation Between Religion and Science Education
In Mysterious Ways
The psychology of prayer and supernatural causation has received surprisingly little attention from empirical researchers. This paper discusses implicit belief patterns about the causal mechanisms by which God effects changes in the world. The authors offer a psychological account of belief in supernatural causation based on the existing empirical literature on petitionary prayer, incorporating mechanisms of psychological self-correction and rati…
Psychoanalytic Facts as Unintended Institutional Facts
We present an inference to the best explanation of the immense cultural success of Freudian psychoanalysis as a hermeneutic method. We argue that an account of psychoanalytic facts as products of unintended declarative speech acts explains this phenomenon. Our argument connects diverse, seemingly independent characteristics of psychoanalysis that have been independently confirmed, and applies key features of John Searle’s and Eerik Lagerspetz’s t…
Philosophy of Pseudoscience
What sets practice of rigorously tested, sound science apart from pseudoscience? In this volume, contributors seek to answer this question, known to philosophers of science as the demarcation problem. This issue has a long history in philosophy, stretching as far back as early twentieth century and work of Karl Popper. But by late 1980s, scholars in field began to treat demarcation problem as impossible to solve and futile to ponder. However, ess…
The mismeasure of machine
Can evolution get us off the hook? Evaluating the ecological defence of human rationality
This paper discusses the ecological case for epistemic innocence: does biased cognition have evolutionary benefits, and if so, does that exculpate human reasoners from irrationality? Proponents of 'ecological rationality' have challenged the bleak view of human reasoning emerging from research on biases and fallacies. If we approach the human mind as an adaptive toolbox, tailored to the structure of the environment, many alleged biases and fallac…
The Dark Side of the Loon. Explaining the Temptations of Obscurantism
After contrasting obscurantism with bullshit, we explore some ways in which obscurantism is typically justified by investigating a notorious test‐case: defences of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Obscurantism abuses the reader's natural sense of curiosity and interpretive charity with the promise of deep and profound insights about a designated subject matter that is often vague or elusive. When the attempt to understand what the speaker means requires …
Why Do Irrational Beliefs Mimic Science? The Cultural Evolution of Pseudoscience
Why do irrational beliefs adopt the trappings of science, to become what is known as “pseudoscience”? Here, we develop and extend an epidemiological framework to map the factors that explain the form and the popularity of irrational beliefs in scientific garb. These factors include the exploitation of epistemic vigilance, the misunderstanding of the authority of science, the use of the honorific title of “science” as an explicit argument for beli…
The cultural buck stops somewhere
When I was a kid I used to pray in front of a glow-in-the-dark statue of the Virgin Mary. To “enhance” my telepathic connection with the Mother of God, I would rapidly flick the light switch in my
Reasonable Irrationality
Pseudoscience spreads through communicative and inferential processes that make people vulnerable to weird beliefs. However, the fact that pseudoscientific beliefs are unsubstantiated and have no basis in reality does not mean that the people who hold them have no reasons for doing so. We propose that, reasons play a central role in the diffusion of pseudoscience. On the basis of cultural epidemiology and the interactionist theory of reasoning, w…
Truth and Consequences
Judgments of the rationality of beliefs must take the costs of acquiring and possessing beliefs into consideration. In that case, certain false beliefs, especially those that are associated with the benefits of a cohesive community, can be seen to be useful for an agent and perhaps instrumentally rational to hold. A distinction should be made between excusable misbeliefs, which a rational agent should tolerate, and misbeliefs that are defensible …
“Trust Me, I’m a Scientist”
Modern democratic societies tend to appeal to the authority of science when dealing with important challenges and solving their problems. Nevertheless, distrust in science remains widespread among the public, and, as a result, scientific voices are often ignored or discarded in favour of other perspectives. Though superficially “democratic”, such a demotion of science in fact hinders democratic societies in effectively tackling their problems. Wo…
Diagnosing Pseudoscience – by Getting Rid of the Demarcation Problem
Ethics of Nuclear Energy in Times of Climate Change
In recent years, there has been an intense public debate about whether and, if so, to what extent investments in nuclear energy should be part of strategies to mitigate climate change. Here, we address this question from an ethical perspective, evaluating different strategies of energy system development in terms of three ethical criteria, which will differentially appeal to proponents of different normative ethical frameworks. Starting from a st…
Is onze klimaatcrisis de schuld van het christendom? Over achterafgoderij en menselijke vooruitgang
On epistemic black holes
Many pseudosciences, conspiracy theories and other unfounded belief systems have a self‐sealing nature, being equipped with defence mechanisms and immunizing strategies that protect them against counterevidence and criticism. In this article, we discuss the existence of ‘epistemic black holes’, belief systems which posit intelligent agents that are deliberately evading detection and thus sabotaging any investigation into their existence. These be…
Is religion just make-believe, or only for some Weird people
The selfish machine? On the power and limitation of natural selection to understand the development of advanced AI
Why Liberalism Might Last
In ‘Can Liberalism Last?’ Anomaly and Faria (2023) argue that liberal societies tend to undermine their own long‐term survival, chiefly by fostering conditions—urbanization, mass migration from culturally distant regions and sub‐replacement fertility—that erode social trust and grant a demographic advantage to illiberal groups, whereas liberalism's philosophical commitments bar the corrective measures (immigration restriction, pronatalism, nation…
Between listening and refusal
In 2002, Belgium enacted three laws that significantly shaped the organisation of end-of-life care: the Patients’ Rights Act, the Euthanasia Act, and the Palliative Care Act. A shared emphasis across these laws is the promotion of patient autonomy. The Euthanasia Act, among the most liberal in the world, does not exclude euthanasia for individuals with psychiatric disorders, provided all legal criteria are met. While the Act enjoys broad public a…
Epistemology (14 obras) · Philosophy (14 obras) · Psychology (9 obras) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (8 obras) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (8 obras) · Computer Science (6 obras) · Philosophy and History of Science (6 obras) · Argument (complex analysis) (4 obras) · Law (4 obras) · Political science (4 obras)