The Psychology Readings module is designed to give students an opportunity to earn credit for reading articles and books in a specified area of psychology. The readings module will be supervised by a member of the psychology faculty who will usually meet with the student regularly to discuss progress. The readings can be used to explore an area of psychology not offered in other modules by the department. Or, it can be used to allow the student to learn more about a previously taught topic in greater depth. The readings must culminate in the production of a written review paper (word limit 5000 words). Please note that students can only take this module if they are able to find a member of faculty to supervise them.

Module Content and Indicative Topics 


Taken over two terms, this module is designed for students with previous knowledge of Portuguese and aims to strengthen...

Our strength of beliefs influence our decision making. But how should we measure strength of belief, and what rational constraints are there on one&#039;s...

Our strength of beliefs influence our decision making. But how should we measure strength of belief, and what rational constraints are there on one's strength of belief? How should one's strengths of belief change in response to evidence? And how exactly ought one's strength of beliefs feed through into rational decision making?

These are the central questions that will be tackled in this module, where students will be introduced to the probabilistic representation of strength of belief, arguments for the rationality of probabilistic degrees of belief, arguments for various rational constraints on those beliefs - including constraints concerning belief updates in response to evidence - and to decision theory.

Formal epistemology is an increasingly important area of philosophy, and its influence on other areas of philosophy (traditional epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, metaphysics, ethics, and political philosophy) has been profound. The field is also strongly interdisciplinary, with cross-overs into economics, statistics, computer science, and political science.

Key Text

Bradley, D. (2015): A Critical Introduction to Formal Epistemology (Bloomsbury).

Background Reading

Bradley, D. (2015): A Critical Introduction to Formal Epistemology (Bloomsbury).

Fenton-Glynn, L. (2015): ‘A Simple Introduction to Probability’ < https://www.academia.edu/12094718/A_Simple_Introduction_to_Probability>.

Nozick, R. (1970): 'Newcomb's Problem and Two Principles of Choice', in N. Rescher et al. (eds.) Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel (Dordrecht: Reidel).

Topic 1: Overview & Introduction to Probability

Topic 2: The Probabilistic Representation of Degrees of Belief

Topic 3: Conditionalization

Topic 4: Prior Probabilities

Topic 5: Chance and Credence

Topic 6: Reflection & Disagreement

Topic 7: The Problem of Old Evidence

Topic 8: Knowledge & Probability

Topic 9: Epistemic & Causal Decision Theory

Topic 10: Imprecise Probabilities

Philosophy Area A