Utrecht, the Netherlands, 20-21 June 2018

Last november, the Guardian published an article proclaiming that in order to make sense of our current predicament living in a post-truth world, we should take note of “two fundamental things about what it means to think and talk like a human”. Firstly, there is our vulnerability to all forms of bias and distortion. And secondly, there is our capacity to (at least sometimes) outsmart such bias and distortion by deliberate effort and reasoning. The aim of the workshop is to shed light on the interplay of both these features. Although we have gained important insights from dual-process approaches to cognition, roughly distinguishing implicit and explicit processes (Evans, 2003; Frankish, 2016; Hassin, Aarts, Eitam, Custers, & Kleiman, 2009; Strack & Deutsch, 2015), what remains unclear is how human beings as persons can relate to these different features of their own existence. After all, implicit cognition does not only lead to biases: it is an invaluable feature without which our everyday life would be unbearable. And although our capacity for explicit reasoning is the motor of science, it all too often leads us astray. So the question is: can we ‘employ’ one form of cognition in order to correct the excesses of the other – and if so, from what perspective can we do that? In this workshop, we will address these questions from both psychological and philosophical perspectives. The workshop is open to everyone interested in reasoning, human cognition and current debates on post-truth.

PROGRAMME

Wednesday June 20 (10.00-17.30)

Prof. Agnes Moors (KU Leuven) & Prof. Jan de Houwer (Universiteit Gent): Thinking fast isn’t simple: On the complexities of implicit cognition

Prof. Thomas Sturm (ICREA & UAB, Barcelona): Dual process theories and the “public use of reason” today

Prof. Shira Elqayam (De Montfort University, Leicester): Are people really cognitive misers?

Dr. Annemarie Kalis (Universiteit Utrecht): Implicit bias: what’s the problem?

Thursday June 21 (9.30-16.00)

Prof. Lisa Osbeck (University of West Georgia): Quasi-rational from root to branches: Person-centric accounts of reasoning for even a post-truth world

Prof Åsa Wikforss (Stockholm University): Knowledge resistance and skewed reasoning

Dr. Ruud Custers (Universiteit Utrecht): When human behavior is misinformed by beliefs: The formation of erroneous action-outcome representations

Prof. Axel Gelfert (TU Berlin): Staying abreast, fast and slow: processing reports in the age of ‘fake news’

Prof. Marc Slors (RU Nijmegen): Implicit and explicit cultural cognition: on conventions and division of labour

Location: Utrechts Centrum voor de Kunsten, Domplein 4, Utrecht

Registration: Participation and lunch are free, but spaces are limited. Please register by sending an e-mail to Annemarie Kalis: A.Kalis@uu.nl

This workshop is sponsored by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO, VENI grant 275-20-046) and by the UU Strategic Theme Institutions for Open Societies (Platform Facts & Reasoning).