Lisa Bortolotti, "The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs" (Oxford UP, 2020)
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What is the central claim of The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs book?
Hello, and thanks for joining us for this episode of New Books and Philosophy, which is part of the New Books Network. I'm Robert Talese. I'm Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. I host the program with Carrie Figder, Alexis McLeod, and Sarah Tyson. Today, my guest is Lisa Bortolotti. Lisa is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham in the U.K., She works at the intersection of epistemology and the philosophies of psychology and psychiatry. Her new book has just been published by Oxford University Press. Its title is The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs. Now, there's something intuitive about the idea that when we believe, we ought to follow, in some sense of that term, our evidence.
This entails that beliefs which are the products of certain garden varieties of irrationality, I'm thinking here of delusion and confabulation, false memories, these sorts of things, are for that reason, in some sense, derelict. Many philosophers would go so far as to say that people just ought not to hold beliefs of that kind. And some would go further to say that it's our duty to challenge those who hold that kind of belief. However, in The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs, Lisa Bortolotti argues that the full story about irrational beliefs is far more complex and complicated and philosophically interesting. She identifies circumstances under which irrational beliefs are nonetheless beneficial in an epistemic sense, and thus, as she says, epistemically innocent.
Now, as usual, there's a lot to talk about. A lot of fascinating philosophical issues are in the air. But why don't we begin, as we usually do, with our guest. Hello, Lisa.
Hello, Bob.
How are you today?
Very well, thank you.
Fabulous. We usually start these interviews off by me asking the author to say a little bit about herself. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Yes, sure. I'm Italian, I was born in Bologna, and that's where I did my first degree in philosophy. Here in Italy, we do start philosophy earlier than university, so I was already completely both on philosophy and I had a passion for it, although I didn't predict at the time that I would become a professional philosopher. After my first degree, which was very much on questions about conceptual relativism and Davidson idea, I moved on to the UK. So I did a master at King's College London, and there I started looking at issues concerning rationality and irrationality, but mainly in the context of the philosophy of science and scientific progress. And then I moved to Oxford for a B field. And there I examined in my dissertation, again, issues about rationality and belief, but in the context of the rationality debate in the cognitive sciences.
So the question whether humans are rational after all. And the PhD thesis was very much an extension of that project, looking at whether there is any reason to think that we should adopt a rationality constraint on the description of beliefs. And I did that in Canberra, so in Australia, at ANU, with Martin Davies. So that was kind of a bit of a nomadic student life. Once I did that, I went back to the UK. I initially had a research position in Manchester on a European funded project. And then I moved to Birmingham where I stayed. So actually this September is going to be 15 years in Birmingham.
Congratulations.
Yeah.
what is exciting about birmingham being in birmingham now um quite different from when i started is first of all the philosophy department has uh has developed but also i developed myself an affiliation with the school of psychology they have an institute for mental health so i'm able to pursue my interest in philosophy and at the same time collaborate in an interdisciplinary way with psychiatrists, psychologists, and other people who are interested in mental health from different disciplinary backgrounds. So that's something that I really value about where I am at the moment.
Fantastic. One of the nice, I should say, and refreshing features of your book is the precise kind of interdisciplinarity.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central claim of The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs book?
0:01–6:56
2
How does Lisa Bortolotti’s personal and academic background shape her research on irrational belief?
6:56–16:37
3
What does “epistemic innocence” mean and what three conditions must a belief meet to be considered innocent?
16:37–28:03
4
Why can distorted memory beliefs in dementia be epistemically innocent rather than harmful?
28:03–40:25
5
How do everyday confabulation and delusional beliefs function as emergency responses that preserve epistemic agency?
40:25–49:46
6
In what ways can optimistically biased (Dunning‑Kruger‑type) beliefs be epistemically beneficial?
49:46–59:28
7
What are the broader philosophical implications of treating irrational beliefs as sometimes valuable?
59:28–1:06:56
8
How does the discussion wrap up and what are the key take‑aways for listeners?
1:06:56–1:08:13
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