This page contains visually enhanced recordings of the talks and discussions from day 4 of the Middle Way Study Retreat in August 2013. This covers the integration of belief, the problem of metaphysics, how metaphysics is linked to cognitive biases, the ideas of truth, confidence and objectivity, and the ways that the objectivity of science can be accounted for without a naturalistic idea of truth.
1. The Integration of Belief
How belief (like desire and meaning) can be integrated, not just through having more coherent beliefs but also by recognising that they might be wrong.
1. The Integration of Belief as audio only:
Download audio: 4_1The Integration of Belief
2. The Trouble with Metaphysics
This gives a fairly detailed account of the problems with metaphysics, which are not only due to its separation from all evidence, but also its psychological effects.
2. The Trouble with Metaphysics as audio only:
Download audio: 4_2_The trouble with metaphysics
3. Cognitive biases and metaphysics
This section discusses a selection of cognitive biases – distortions to our judgement identified by empirical psychology – and relates them to metaphysics.
3. Cognitive biases and metaphysics as audio only:
Download audio: 4_3 Metaphysics and cognitive bias
4. Truth on the Edge
Truth is unattainable and we should not relativise its meaning to make it so. However, truth is still a meaningful concept for us and can be a regulatory idea or an archetype.
4. Truth on the Edge as audio only:
Download audio: 4_4 Truth on the Edge
5. Confidence and Doubt
What may seem like confidence when someone is over-assertive may actually be based on the doubt that arises from conflict.
5. Confidence and doubt as audio only:
Download audio: 4_5 Doubt and confidence
6. The Objectivity of Science and Ethics
Why there is no distinction between the objectivity of science and that of ethics.
6. The objectivity of science and ethics as audio only:
Download audio: 4_6 Objectivity of science and ethics
7. The Objectivity of Science
Why is modern science better than the scientific beliefs of the past?
7. The objectivity of science as audio only:
Download audio: 4_7 The objectivity of science