107 - Kevin Dorst: Bayesian Reasoning, Irrationality, and Political Polarization

Kevin Dorst is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT. He works at the intersection between philosophy and social science, focusing on rationality. In this episode Kevin and Robinson discuss just this: They begin with classical theories of rationality and where they fall short before discussing instances where the empirical literature shows that humans do not reason rationally at all, touching on the gambler’s fallacy, sunk-cost reasoning, and the hindsight bias. They then move on to discuss the phenomenon of political polarization, which draws both on our capacity for rationality and irrationality. Make sure to check out Kevin’s Substack, Stranger Apologies. Stranger Apologies: https://kevindorst.substack.com Kevin’s Website: https://www.kevindorst.com Kevin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevin_dorst OUTLINE 00:00 In This Episode… 01:02 Introduction 04:14 Rationality and Philosophy 15:14 Bayesian Reasoning 45:10 The Hindsight Bias 56:53 What is Bias? 01:04:03 The Gambler’s Fallacy 01:15:00 Sunk-Cost Reasoning 01:19:07 Political Polarization 01:40:12 Talking Through Disagreement Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.