Paradoxes

Sainsbury, R. M.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511812576

Cited by 88 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…-The Sorites Paradox (Paradox of the Heap), in Fisher (2000) Observations like the one above can be traced as far back as the Ancient Greeks (circa 400 BCE) and were recently named as representing one of the most bewildering and profound problems in contemporary philosophy (see Sainsbury, 2009). A collection of individual grains will eventually become a heap, but the objective point at which they do is effectively ambiguous.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The tipping point of perceived change: Asymmetric thresholds in diagnosing improvement versus decline.

O’Brien

Klein

2017

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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Change often emerges from a series of small doses. For example, a person may conclude that a happy relationship has eroded not from 1 obvious fight but from smaller unhappy signs that at some point "add up." Everyday fluctuations therefore create ambiguity about when they reflect substantive shifts versus mere noise. Ten studies reveal an asymmetry in this first point when people conclude "official" change: people demand less evidence to diagnose lasting decline than lasting improvement, despite similar evidential quality. This effect was pervasive and replicated across many domains and parameters. For example, a handful of poor grades, bad games, and gained pounds led participants to diagnose intellect, athleticism, and health as "officially" changed; yet corresponding positive signs were dismissed as fickle flukes (Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c). This further manifested in real-time reactions: participants interpreted the same graphs of change in the economy and public health as more meaningful if framed as depicting decline versus improvement (Study 2), and were more likely to gamble actual money on continued bad versus good luck (Study 3). Why? Effects held across self/other change, added/subtracted change, and intended/unintended change (Studies 4a, 4b, and 4c), suggesting a generalized negativity bias. Teasing this apart, we highlight a novel "entropy" component beyond standard accounts like risk aversion: good things seem more truly capable of losing their positive qualities than bad things seem capable of gaining them, rendering signs of decline to appear more immediately diagnostic (Studies 5 and 6). An asymmetric tipping point raises theoretical and practical implications for how people might inequitably react to smaller signs of change. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The tipping point of perceived change: Asymmetric thresholds in diagnosing improvement versus decline.

O’Brien

Klein

2017

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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“…I have a slight preference for this presentation of the gamer’s dilemma. This is because it can be easier to critically regard the truth of each of these propositions when they are not presented in a way that suggests one of them is “an apparently unacceptable conclusion derived by apparently acceptable reasoning from apparently acceptable premises” (Sainsbury, 2009 , p.1). So we shall continue with this paradox in mind.…”

Section: What Is the Gamer’s Dilemma?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Grave Resolution to the Gamer’s Dilemma: an Argument for a Moral Distinction Between Virtual Murder and Virtual Child Molestation

Luck

2022

Philosophia

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In this paper a new resolution to the gamer’s dilemma (a paradox concerning the moral permissibility of virtual wrongdoings) is presented. The first part of the paper is devoted to strictly formulating the dilemma, and the second to establishing its resolution. The proposed resolution, the grave resolution, aims to resolve not only the gamer’s dilemma, but also a wider set of analogous paradoxes – which together make up the paradox of treating wrongdoing lightly.

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“…Moore’s paradox is of beliefs, and not of pure reasoning. The definition of a paradox of reasoning is given, for example, by Sainsbury (2009) as an apparently unacceptable conclusion that is derived by apparently acceptable reasoning and premises. In Moore’s problem, in fact, a simple disbelief generates paradoxes, in a self-contradictory way (Kriegel, 2004), as a premise or conclusion.…”

Section: Premisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These contradictions cannot be absolute. They are neither absolutely false nor absolutely incomprehensible (Cook, 2014; Sainsbury, 2009).…”

Section: Premisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A logical reading key in psychology: Clinical paradoxes in mental systems.

Monte¹,

Mossolani²

2023

Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology

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This article defines mind as a system, in general and logical terms. In general terms, a system has internal elements related both to each other (organization) and to the external environment (adaptation). In logical terms, moreover, a system can be opened when its determinate language (symbolic internal organization) is inclusive, so that it accepts external indeterminacy in an effort to expand and strengthen itself. But a logical system can also be closed when its impervious language is exclusive, so that it refuses and contrasts the same external indeterminacy in an illusion to preserve itself in nonchange. So that, like a general and logical system, mind can be internally organized to include the indeterminacy of reality and existence, so that it becomes as a changing flow, which is preserved in the sense of its own continuity and persistence. But mind can be organized to exclude the same indeterminacy, so that it becomes as a rigid structure which does not change, but in a world and in an existence that change. So that, mind generates paradoxes, just like closed logical systems studied by Kurt Gödel, and so it generates suffering of misunderstanding. In conclusion, from a clinical perspective, these paradoxes can become opportunities for understanding and growth, as Graham Priest demonstrates with his paraconsistent logic. Therefore, a clinical intervention on paradox marks the way of change, as we will show at the end of this article with some clinical examples, which are based on evidence. Public Significance StatementThe study demonstrates the importance of considering psychic suffering as a closed and paradoxical system. The objective pursued is to broaden the knowledge of mental illness in general, with the aim of offering new tools for understanding and clinical intervention on the individual. Starting from assumption that becoming aware of one's contradictions facilitates the process of change, discovery and resolution of one's paradoxes can thus help the person to solve their problems.

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Paradoxes

Cited by 88 publications

References 0 publications

The tipping point of perceived change: Asymmetric thresholds in diagnosing improvement versus decline.

The tipping point of perceived change: Asymmetric thresholds in diagnosing improvement versus decline.

The Grave Resolution to the Gamer’s Dilemma: an Argument for a Moral Distinction Between Virtual Murder and Virtual Child Molestation

A logical reading key in psychology: Clinical paradoxes in mental systems.

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