A Two-tiered View on Acceptance Joëlle Proust Institut Jean-Nicod Paris dividnorm.ens.fr

1. A Two-tiered View on AcceptanceJoëlle ProustInstitut Jean-NicodParishttp://dividnorm.ens.fr MAICS Cincinnati 2012 April 21-22, 2012

2. Why does « acceptance » deserve your attention? • Used in a descriptive way to characterize a system’s knowledge in terms of propositional contents and attitudes such as beliefs and desires (« belief box » paradigm) • Semantic problems arise when treating acceptance as a belief-like attitude Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

3. Why does « acceptance » deserve your attention? • Descriptive accuracy requires IA designers to explore how cognitive agency determines attitude selection and relation of attitude content to decision to act on it. • Dynamics of cognitive agency imposes recognizing the various epistemic dimensions relevant to cognitive revision Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

4. Outline • Introduction: epistemic norms and their relation with mental actions. • Why is acceptance problematic? • A two-tiered view of acceptance: 4 ideas • Complex mental actions • Instrumental selection of epistemic norms • Epistemic evaluation autonomous • Strategic acceptance: final say • Conclusion: 3 types of error in accepting Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

5. Introduction Epistemicnorms and their relation with mental actions Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

6. Mental actions • = ways of controllingone’s cognitive activity. • Examples: • controlledmemory (versus automaticmemory) • Perceptual attention (vs passive registering) • Accepting (versus automaticallybelieving) Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

7. Epistemicnormsdeterminewhich mental action isbeingperformed • Example: • trying to rememberaccuratelywhowasthereat a meeting: correction requires no false positives, but tolerates omissions. • Trying to rememberexhaustivelywhowasthereat a meeting: correction tolerates false positives, but requiresno omission.  two distinct cognitive actions, whichrespond to differentnorms. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

8. What are epistemicnorms? • The normative feature of epistemic norms derives from the structure of action being polarized (success vsfailure) • A given norm is what regulates self-evaluation , i.e. action monitoring. • the computational and semantic properties underlying the various norms derive from the various dimensions of information which can be profitably controlled and monitored in mental agency (through metacognition) Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

9. Whyisacceptanceproblematic? Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

10. No consensus about the norm(s) of acceptances • Velleman(2000) regarding a proposition P as true, even though it may not be "really true” • Cohen (1992): "a policy for reasoning, (..) the policy of taking it as a premise that P”. • Stalnaker (1987): “Sometimes it is reasonable to accept something that one knows or believes to be false” • Bratman (1999): “Acceptances conjoin epistemic and practical goals”. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

11. Whyisacceptingcontextual? • It isleftunclear how a context of acceptancecanbeconstrued in a waythat justifies applyingfluctuatingepistemic standards. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

12. Puzzles about acceptance The lotteryparadox(Kyburg, 1961, p. 197) arises from considering a fair 1000 ticket lottery with one winning ticket: • It is rational to accept that some ticket will win, while also accepting that ticket 1, 2 etc. will not win.  Aggregating acceptances results in inconsistency Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

13. The prefaceparadox • A writer mayrationallyacceptthateachstatement in his book istrue, whileat the same time rationallyacceptingthathis book containsat least one error (Makinson 1965).  Aggregating acceptances again results in inconsistency Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

14. A slipperyslopebetweentruth and utility? • Someauthorsseem to considerthatacceptance conjoins epistemic and instrumental norms, which questions the very notion of havingepistemicnorms in the first place (what if truthcanbeaccommodatedaccording to utility?) Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

15. « For almosttwentyyearsthere have been signsthat the theory of rational acceptancesuffersfromdeepfoundationaldifficulties. Thesedifficultiesultimately call into question the veryintelligibility of whatwe are sayingwhenwesay of someonethatsheaccepts a proposition ». Mark Kaplan (1981) Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

16. A two-tieredview about acceptance Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

17. First idea Although a simple mental action cannotbesubjectboth to epistemic and non-epistemicnorms, a complex action can Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

18. Discussion: how do epistemic actions contribute to world-directed action? • An epistemic action is usually embedded in an instrumental (world-directed) action. For example: • In order to shop for food, I need to remember the items on the list (which I forgot to bring with me). Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

19. Second idea The epistemicnormguiding a mental action isselected on the basis of the ultimate goal of the world-directed action Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

20. Example: • The particularstrategy of remembering (exhaustivity/accuracy) isselectedfor instrumental reasons. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

21. Epistemic action: Epistemicnorm(s) Instrumental action: norm of utility Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

22. A widevariety of epistemicnorms are available to control cognitive activity Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

23. Norms for acceptance: • Accuracy (memory, reasoning) • Comprehensiveness or exhaustiveness (memory, reasoning) • Coherence (fiction, demonstrativereasoning) • Consensus (negociation) • Relevance (conversation) • Intelligibility or fluency (perceptualjudgment, epistemic vigilance) Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

24. Contextdetermined by the relation betweenepistemicnorm and strategy • Utility dictatesthat a givennormwillbeused to control cognitive activitygivenone’sultimate goal. • Contextisdetermined by selecting a cognitive action as relevant to an ultimate goal. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

25. Thirdidea Acognitive action issuccessfuliff the correspondingepistemicnormisactuallysatisfied. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

26. Selecting a norm for instrumental reasonsdoes not influence correctness • Agents' epistemic confidence in acceptingnP (accepting P under norm n) is not influenced by the cost or benefit associated with being wrong or right: the epistemic content is not influenced by utility. • Thus we don't need to endorse the view that an epistemic acceptance of P is yielding to utility considerations, as Bratman suggests. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

27. Solution of lottery puzzle • An agent acceptsat (as accuratetruth) thatthereis one winning ticket in the one thousand tickets actuallysold • Shedoes not need to acceptpl (as plausible or likely) that the single ticket shewants to buywillbe the winning one. • There is no contradiction between the twoacceptances, becausetheyrespond to differentepistemicnorms. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

28. Solution of the preface puzzle • The author's epistemic goal is one of offering an ideally comprehensive presentation of his subject matter: • she can acceptct(comprehensive truth) that her book includes all the truths relevant to her subject, while acceptingpl (accepting as plausible or likely) that one of her claims is false. • Hence, a mental act of acceptancectdoes not allow aggregation of truth, because its aim is exhaustive (include all the relevant truths) rather than accurate truth (include only truths). Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

29. Fourthidea Fromepistemic to strategicacceptance Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

30. Whystrategicacceptance ? • A subject may or not decide to act on his/her epistemic acceptance, depending on the risk and benefit at stake. • Utility does not just influence the selection of certain epistemic norms of acceptance. • It also influences decision to act in a way that may depart greatly from the cognitive output of epistemic acceptance. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

31. Whyisstrategicacceptance a second, independentstep? Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

32. Conceptual argument • The existence of an autonomous level of epistemic acceptance enables agents to have a stable epistemic map that is independent from local and unstable instrumental considerations. •  It is functionally adaptive to prevent the contents of epistemic evaluation from being affected by utility and risk. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

33. Argument from metacognitive studies (Koriat and Goldsmith, 1996) • In situations where agents are forced to conduct a cognitive task, strategic acceptance is ruled out: agents merely express their epistemic acceptance. • In contrast, when agents can freely consider how to plan their action, given its stakes, they can refrain from acting on the unique basis of their epistemic acceptance. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

34. Argument frommetacognitivestudies • A decision mechanism is used to compare the probability for their acceptance being correct and a preset response criterion probability, based on the implicit or explicit payoffs. • Agents are allowed to strategically withhold or volunteer an answer according to their personal control policy (risk-aversive or risk-seeking), associated with the anticipated costs and benefits (Koriat and Goldsmith, 1996). Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

35. Argument frommetacognitivestudies • Strategic acceptance can be impaired in patients with schizophrenia, while epistemic acceptance is not(Koren et al. 2006) • this suggests that epistemic and strategic acceptances are cognitively distinct steps. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

36. Context: alsodetermined by stakes Acceptanceiscontextdependent for tworeasons: • Itsnorm(constitutingthis type of accepting) isstrategicallydependent on the instrumental context of a plan to act. • The decision to act on its content (whatisfinallyaccepted) issecondarilyadjusted to the expected gain/cost of content being correct or incorrect. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

37. Conclusion

38. Three types of errors: instrumental Instrumental errors occur • when selecting an epistemic norm inappropriate to a context, (for example, trying to reconstruct a shopping list accurately, when comprehensiveness is sufficient), • when incorrectly setting the decision criterion given the stakes (taking an epistemic decision to be non-important when it objectively is, and reciprocally). Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

39. Three types of errors: epistemic Epistemic errorsoccur • in applying the selected norm to cognitive content , (for example, seeming to remember that P when one merely imagines that P) • in forming an incorrect judgment of confidence about one’s epistemic performance (for example, being highly confident in having correctly learned an item when one will actually fail to retrieve it). Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

40. Three types of errors: Strategic Strategic errors occur • when incorrectly setting the decision criterion given the stakes • i.e., taking an epistemic decision to be non-important when it objectively is, and reciprocally. Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012

41. Thank you for your attention !

42. Analysis of strategicacceptance:Subjective Expected Utility theory • Parameters: • Value • Probability • Expected Utility = value x probability • Each course of action (xi) shouldbeevaluated by myltiplying a subjective valuation of itsconsequences (reward) u(xi) by theirprobability of occurrence P(xi) Si u(xi) P(xi) Joëlle Proust - MAICS 2012