Predictable polarization is everywhere: we can often predict how people’s opinions, including our own, will shift over time. Extant theories either neglect the fact that we can predict our own polarization, or explain it through irrational mechanisms. They needn’t. Empirical studies suggest that polarization is predictable when evidence is ambiguous, that is, when the rational response is not obvious. I show how Bayesians should model such ambiguity and then prove that—assuming rational updates are those which obey the (...) value of evidence—ambiguity is necessary and sufficient for the rationality of predictable polarization. The main theoretical result is that there can be a series of such updates, each of which is individually expected to make you more accurate, but which together will predictably polarize you. Polarization results from asymmetric increases in accuracy. This mechanism is not only theoretically possible, but empirically plausible. I argue that cognitive search—searching a cognitively accessible space for a particular item—often yields asymmetrically ambiguous evidence, I present an experiment supporting its polarizing effects, and I use simulations to show how it can explain two of the core causes of polarization: confirmation bias and the group polarization effect. (shrink)

Some common explanations of issue polarization and echo chambers rely on social or cognitive mechanisms of exclusion. Accordingly, suggested interventions like “be more open-minded” target these mechanisms: avoid epistemic bubbles and don’t discount contrary information. Contrary to such explanations, we show how a much weaker mechanism—the preference for belief—can produce issue polarization in epistemic communities with little to no mechanisms of exclusion. We present a network model that demonstrates how a dynamic interaction between the preference for belief and (...) common structures of epistemic communities can turn very small unequal distributions of initial beliefs into full-blown polarization. This points to a different class of explanations, one that emphasizes the importance of the initial spread of information. We also show how our model complements extant explanations by including a version of biased assimilation and motivated reasoning—cognitive mechanisms of exclusion. We find that mechanisms of exclusion can exacerbate issue polarization, but may not be the ultimate root of it. Hence, the recommended interventions suggested by extant literature is expected to be limited and the problem of issue polarization to be even more intractable. (shrink)

Recently, researchers and reporters have made a wide range of claims about the distribution, nature, and societal impact of political polarization. Here I offer reasons to believe that, even when they are correct and prima facie merely descriptive, many of these claims have the highly negative side effect of increasing political polarization. This is because of the interplay of two factors that have so far been neglected in the work on political polarization, namely that (1) people have (...) a tendency to conform to descriptive norms (i.e., norms capturing (perceptions of) what others commonly do, think, or feel), and (2) claims about political polarization often convey such norms. Many of these claims thus incline people to behave, cognize, and be affectively disposed in ways that contribute to social division. But there is a silver lining. People’s tendency to conform to descriptive norms also provides the basis for developing new, experimentally testable strategies for counteracting political polarization. I outline three. (shrink)

Contemporary discussions of teacher impartiality often assume that political polarization in classrooms can be managed through balanced pedagogical strategies. This paper challenges that assumption by arguing that polarization is not merely ideological but also affective and epistemic: polarization shapes who is heard, what knowledge is considered legitimate, and which emotions are deemed appropriate in educational spaces. Drawing on recent philosophical work in education, as well as emerging scholarship on epistemic-affective injustice, the paper contends that the duty of (...) teacher impartiality may fail to address the deeper, structurally embedded inequalities that shape classroom dynamics. Instead of refining impartiality norms as a solution, the paper proposes reorienting teacher responsibility around the recognition of epistemic-affective injustices that marginalize certain students’ voices and emotions. The paper offers an epistemic-affective justice framework that prioritizes ethical responsiveness, relational accountability, and affective attunement, problematizing what it means to teach ethically and impartially in contexts of political polarization. (shrink)

Scientific disagreements sometimes persist even if scientists fully share results of their research. In this paper we develop an agent-based model to study the impact of diverging diagnostic values scientists may assign to the evidence, given their different background assumptions, on the emergence of polarization in the scientific community. Scientists are represented as Bayesian updaters for whom the diagnosticity of evidence is given by the Bayes factor. Our results suggest that an initial disagreement on the diagnostic value of evidence (...) can, but does not necessarily, lead to polarization, depending on the sample size of the performed studies and the confidence interval within which scientists share their opinions. In particular, the more data scientists share,the more likely it is that the community will end up polarized. (shrink)

There have been many discussions recently from philosophers, cognitive scientists, and psychologists about group polarization, with online and social media environments in particular receiving a lot of attention, both because of people's increasing reliance on such environments for receiving and exchanging information and because such environments often allow individuals to selectively interact with those who are like-minded. My goal here is to argue that the group epistemologist can facilitate understanding the kinds of factors that drive group polarization in (...) a way that has been overlooked by the existing research. Specifically, I argue that polarization can occur in part because of the ways that members of a group treat the group itself (as opposed to an individual member within that group) as a source of information, and in doing so makes their own position, as well as that of the group, more extreme. I refer to this as a structural factor in driving polarization, and argue that such factors can contribute to explanations of polarization that occurs specifically in an important subset of groups, namely online and social media groups in which little is known about other members within the group, what I refer to as anonymous, semi-anonymous and pseudonymous (ASAP) groups. (shrink)

How do we form aesthetic judgements? And how should we do so? According to a very prominent tradition in aesthetics it would be wrong to form our aesthetic judgements about a particular object on the basis of anything other than first-hand acquaintance with the object itself (or some very close surrogate) and, in particular, it would be wrong to form such judgements merely on the basis of testimony. Further this tradition presupposes that our actual practice of forming aesthetic judgements typically (...) meets, or at least approximates, this ideal. In this paper I target this descriptive claim and argue—by appeal to some empirical work concerning belief polarization and echo chambers in aesthetics—that our actual practice of forming aesthetic judgements is heavily dependent on social sources such as testimony. I then briefly consider what normative implications this descriptive claim may have. (shrink)

Polarization is a topic of intense interest among social scientists, but there is significant disagreement regarding the character of the phenomenon and little understanding of underlying mechanics. A first problem, we argue, is that polarization appears in the literature as not one concept but many. In the first part of the article, we distinguish nine phenomena that may be considered polarization, with suggestions of appropriate measures for each. In the second part of the article, we apply this (...) analysis to evaluate the types of polarization generated by the three major families of computational models proposing specific mechanisms of opinion polarization. (shrink)

Political polarization is one of the most discussed challenges facing contemporary democracies and is often associated with a broader epistemic crisis. While inspiring a large literature in political science, polarization’s epistemic problems also have significance for normative democratic theory, and this study develops a new approach aimed at understanding them. In contrast to prominent accounts from political psychology—group polarization theory and cultural cognition theory—which argue that polarization leads individuals to form unreliable political beliefs, this study focuses (...) on system-level diversity. It argues that polarization’s epistemic harms are best located in its tendency to reduce the diversity of perspectives utilized in a democratic system and in how this weakens the system’s ability to identify and address problems of public concern. Understanding such harms is also argued to require a greater consideration of the political dynamics of polarization and issues of elite discourse, alongside political psychology. (shrink)

Affective polarization (AP), the tendency of opposing ideological groups to experience negative feelings towards each other, is a growing concern in Western democracies. While often discussed in terms of mutual hatred, there is a lack of comprehensive exploration of the discrete emotions underlying AP. As an initial attempt to address this gap, this research investigates the unique association between negative emotions (anger, fear, disgust, contempt, disappointment, and hatred) towards ideological out-group members and AP scores. We argue that, in contrast (...) to the purely negative and destructive nature of hatred, the complex nature of disappointment better captures the dynamics of relations between ideological out-groups. These relations involve not only intense negative feelings but also positive expectations from outgroup members to contribute to the national common good, as fellow citizens. Our research, focusing on horizontal AP between citizens: voters of the Republican and Democratic parties in the US (Studies 1a–1d) and leftists and rightists in Israel (Study 2), identifies disappointment as the strongest and most consistent emotion associated with AP across studies, ideological groups, and measures of emotions. We discuss the implications of adopting a discrete-emotion perspective for understanding AP, its consequences for societies, and its potential to inform strategies for reducing polarization and enhancing democratic and social stability. (shrink)

Affective polarization, characterized by entrenched partisan hostility, is increasingly threatening democratic norms by fostering exclusionary and uncivil discourse, particularly in digital spaces. This study investigates how individuals respond to fact checks that contradict their political beliefs in the polarized and authoritarian context of Turkey. Focusing on 1,543 user comments responding to 23 fact checks published by Teyit.org during the 2023 Turkish presidential elections, this analysis dissects the emotional tone, targets, and rhetorical strategies employed in online political discourse. A key (...) contribution of the study is distinguishing between uncivil comments, profane or insulting remarks primarily targeting political elites, and intolerant discourse, which directs hostility toward marginalized groups, posing a greater risk to democratic pluralism. Findings show that partisans, ignoring factual content, reframe fact checkers as biased actors and use tactics such as whataboutism, sarcasm, and source discrediting to reject inconvenient truths. The results also highlight how online polarization during elections sustains elite-focused antagonisms and facilitates social exclusion and the scapegoating of minorities. These dynamics illustrate that, though designed to promote truth, fact-checking efforts can become entangled in broader struggles over identity, trust, and legitimacy in deeply divided societies. (shrink)

Purpose This study aims to investigate the association between Facebook network heterogeneity and affective polarization among ethnic groups in Afghanistan. In addition, through a moderated mediation model, it explores the indirect impact of network heterogeneity on affective polarization. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional survey (n = 417), inclusive of diverse ethnic groups among students at Badakhshan and Kabul universities, was administered, and the data were used to test the hypothesized moderated mediation model. Findings The findings demonstrate that Facebook network heterogeneity (...) has depolarizing potential in a multiethnic context. It was also found that while diverse content exposure did not directly predict affective polarization, it positively mediated the impact of network heterogeneity on affective polarization. Moreover, the effect of diverse content exposure on affective polarization was moderated by public knowledge acquisition. The findings highlight two depolarizing mechanisms of Facebook network heterogeneity: it contributes to the connection among different ethnic groups, fostering positive contact, and provides diverse information that enhances public knowledge, augmenting mutual understanding among ethnic groups. Originality/value The rise of polarization, particularly political polarization among parties in developed nations, and its association with social media have attracted numerous scholars. However, the association between other polarizing factors, such as ethnicity, race and religion – which are more prevalent in developing countries – and social media has not received sufficient attention. This study offers insights into an understudied topic and significantly contributes to social media polarization literature. (shrink)

Political polarization is often argued to be a major threat to democracy. This article examines whether the two different forms of polarization, ideological and affective, may risk some of the core assumptions of democratic legitimacy. The paper argues that ideological polarization is linked with increasingly radical ideological positions being accepted as legitimate contributions to democratic processes, which may lead to the erosion of the democratic culture of society. Affective polarization, in turn, presents a risk to the (...) type of political collaboration that characterizes legitimate democratic processes. The article presents some remarks on how these forms of polarization could be pre-emptively addressed in education: first, by demonstrating to students the practical consequences of neglecting the core democratic principles of toleration (Forst) and reciprocity (Rawls) in society; and second, through forms of political action that engage students’ political emotions in support of democratic principles and way of life in a nonpartisan way. (shrink)

This article argues that philosophers and laypeople commonly conceptualize moral truths or justified moral beliefs as discoverable through intuition, argument, or some other purely cognitive or affective process. It then contends that three empirically well-supported theories all predict that this ‘Discovery Model’ of morality plays a substantial role in causing social polarization. The same three theories are then used to argue that an alternative ‘Negotiation Model’ of morality—according to which moral truths are not discovered but instead created by actively (...) negotiating compromises—promises to reduce polarization by fostering a progressive willingness to ‘work across the aisle’ to settle moral issues cooperatively. This article then examines potential methods for normatively evaluating polarization, arguing there are prima facie reasons to favor the Negotiation Model over the Discovery Model based on their hypothesized effects on polarization. Finally, I outline avenues for further empirical and philosophical research. (shrink)

Contemporary societies are often “polarized”, in the sense that sub-groups within these societies hold stably opposing beliefs, even when there is a fact of the matter. Extant models of polarization do not capture the idea that some beliefs are true and others false. Here we present a model, based on the network epistemology framework of Bala and Goyal, 784–811 1998), in which polarization emerges even though agents gather evidence about their beliefs, and true belief yields a pay-off advantage. (...) As we discuss, these results are especially relevant to polarization in scientific communities, for these reasons. The key mechanism that generates polarization involves treating evidence generated by other agents as uncertain when their beliefs are relatively different from one’s own. (shrink)

In recent epistemology, belief polarization is generally defined as a process by which a disagreement on a single proposition becomes more extreme over time. Outside of the philosophical literature, however, ‘polarization’ is often used for a different epistemic phenomenon, namely the process by which people’s beliefs on unrelated topics become increasingly correlated over time. This paper argues that the latter type of polarization, here labeled interthematic polarization, is often rational from each individual’s point of view. This (...) suggests that belief polarization is not necessarily a failure of individual rationality, but instead a failure of the social structures within which we live our epistemic lives. (shrink)

When public opinion gets polarized, the population’s beliefs can experience two different changes: they can become more extreme in their contents or they can be held with greater confidence. These two possibilities point to two different understandings of the rupture that characterizes political polarization: extremism and radicalism. In this article, I show that from the close examination of the best available evidence regarding how we get polarized, it follows that the pernicious type of political polarization has more to (...) do with radicalism than with extremism. Reinforcing the confidence in the core beliefs of the group we identify with makes our beliefs immune to the reasons coming from the other political side. Finally, I also suggest that the rise of political polarization is not necessarily the result of an irrational process. (shrink)

Educating students for democratic life requires teachers to make difficult judgment calls about whether controversial issues are appropriate for directive teaching (i.e., teaching that attempts to persuade students to adopt a particular view about the thing being taught). To help educators make these decisions, theorists have proposed criteria for systematically differentiating between issues that do and do not qualify for directive teaching. Unfortunately, the epistemic environment of political polarization degrades educators' abilities to reliably assess whether a broad class of (...) politically contested issues meet these criteria for directive teaching. In this paper Eric Torres argues that, while making judgments about whether individual cases warrant directive teaching remains essential and inevitable, educators can best address this problem by engaging in a practice of epistemic refocusing that makes the conditions of educators' own deliberations salient to students, thereby hedging against the effects of bad calls about which issues to teach directively while simultaneously illuminating the constraints of polarization on political cognition, an awareness that is essential to healthy democratic participation in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Does algorithmic political bias contribute to an entrenchment and polarization of political positions? Franke argues that it may do so because the bias involves classifications of people as liberals, conservatives, etc., and individuals often conform to the ways in which they are classified. I provide a novel example of this phenomenon in human–computer interactions and introduce a social psychological mechanism that has been overlooked in this context but should be experimentally explored. Furthermore, while Franke proposes that algorithmic political classifications (...) entrench political identities, I contend that they may often produce the opposite result. They can lead people to change in ways that disconfirm the classifications. Consequently and counterintuitively, algorithmic political bias can in fact decrease political entrenchment and polarization. (shrink)

Who is responsible for growing political polarization? To many, the answer is obvious: Irrational voters are to blame. This irrationality results in motivated, in-group reasoning that only serves to further deepen the political divide. In this piece, I examine a perspective that holds that polarization results, not from irrationality, but from rational responses by voters to their limited epistemic resources.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the primary architect of the neuron doctrine and the law of dynamic polarization, is considered to be the founder of modern neuroscience. At the same time, many philosophers, historians, and neuroscientists agree that modern neuroscience embodies a mechanistic perspective on the explanation of the nervous system. In this paper, I review the extant mechanistic interpretation of Cajal’s contribution to modern neuroscience. Then, I argue that the extant mechanistic interpretation fails to capture the explanatory import of (...) Cajal’s law of dynamic polarization. My claim is that the definitive formulation of Cajal’s law of dynamic polarization, despite its mechanistic inaccuracies, embodies a non-mechanistic pattern of reasoning (i.e., design explanation) that is an integral component of modern neuroscience. (shrink)

The behavior of judges on both the U.S. Supreme Court, and on federal and state courts throughout the United States, has changed dramatically in the past decade – polarizing along party lines in ways not visible in decades past. Yet while this pattern in some respects echoes that seen in other constitutional democracies around the world today, American legal polarization has been driven in important part by a specifically domestic conservative legal movement whose role and impact are still only (...) partly understood. This article shows how that movement’s intellectual and strategic features have functioned to challenge long-settled norms of legality in the United States – including norms of judicial stability and impartiality – and are today driving a growing reactive interest in elevating “movement,” or purposefully impartial, judges on the progressive left. Further, drawing on empirical studies of judicial behavior and public opinion, the article considers the hypothesis that the dramatic growth in polarized judicial behavior these movement forces have helped to drive is in turn contributing to a bipartisan decline in public belief in the possibility (or desirability) of judicial impartiality more broadly. While the conservative legal movement is best known for its efforts to shift the substance of liberty and equality protections under American constitutional law, its more profound impact may be of this latter kind – destabilizing norms that have helped to preserve at least the relative autonomy of law from politics in the United States for more than a century. (shrink)

This paper demonstrates the potential of democratic civility as a means of safeguarding democracy in times of populism and polarization. I construe democratic civility as a normative framework for interactions among citizens in civil society, anchored in a commitment to relating to one’s fellow citizens as respected adversaries. Conceptualizing democratic civility in this way advances the scholarly literature in three ways. First, by anchoring norms of civility in disagreement, democratic civility allows us to appreciate the transformative potential of populism (...) and polarization while retaining sufficient normative resources to restrain their challenge to democracy. Second, democratic civility highlights shortcomings in recent critical and radical contributions to debates on civility and strikes a balance between skeptics and proponents of civility. Finally, democratic civility reveals how scholarship on democratic defense and depolarization has neglected the merits of civil society and provides a normative blueprint for evaluating new avenues for safeguarding democracy. (shrink)

False polarization (FP) is an interpersonal bias on judgement, the effect of which is to lead people in contexts of disagreement to overestimate the differences between their respective views. I propose to treat FP as a problem of applied social epistemology—a barrier to reliable belief-formation in certain social domains—and to ask how best one may debias for FP. This inquiry leads more generally into questions about effective debiasing strategies; on this front, considerable empirical evidence suggests that intuitively attractive strategies (...) for debiasing are not very effective, while more effective strategies are neither intuitive nor likely to be easily implemented. The supports for more effective debiasing seem either to be inherently social and cooperative, or at least to presuppose social efforts to create physical or decision-making infrastructure for mitigating bias. The upshot, I argue, is that becoming a less biased epistemic agent is a thoroughly socialized project. (shrink)

A common lamentation about political polarization is that it decreases social and political civility. Family members disown each other over political affiliations, protestors flood the streets, and social disavowals become part of everyday life. Polarization increases incivility, which increases polarization, in what appears to be a vicious cycle. However, I argue that there is one kind of political incivility, namely, uncivil obedience, that has the ability to decrease polarization. Uncivil obedience has the capacity to decrease (...) class='Hi'>polarization by cleverly drawing attention to both the ironies inherent in our legal, regulatory, and policy schemes and the ways in which neither the political left nor the political right have consistent sets of social and political views. By encouraging people to see the inconsistencies within the polarized left and the polarized right, uncivil obedience can draw people away from polarization as a social and political practice. (shrink)

The powerful role that teachers can play in our development is the focus Binyamin, Jayusi, and Tamir’s chapter in this volume. They argue that teachers, in particular teachers that don’t share the same background as their students, can help counter the increasing polarization that characterizes our current era. In these critical notes I raise three challenges to their proposal. First, by exploring the mechanisms of polarization I demonstrate that polarization is not a problem unique to thick diversity (...) or thick multiculturalism. Second, the central premise of the authors’ proposal rests on the ability of greater contact to reduce prejudice. The contact hypothesis, however, has numerous backlash effects and unintended consequences that can increase prejudice rather than reduce prejudice. These backlash effects and unintended consequences raise serious doubts for the success of placing minority teachers in majority classrooms to reduce prejudice. Third, I raise concerns about how the proposal tokenizes minority teachers, the use of instrumental rationales for diversity, and the politics of deference and being-in-the-room privilege that also go unaddressed in their proposal. (shrink)

This contribution to the special issue on Robert Talisse’s Civic Solitude argues in favor of seeing personal and relational approaches to remediating polarization as being complimentary, not antagonistic. I summarize Talisse’s argument in favor of atopia, which describes a highly personal response to polarization that does not emphasize engagement with others, and discuss how this practice has some additional benefits for different types of civic diversity and creativity. I then present a challenge for both personal and relational approaches (...) to remediating polarization based on the selection effects of participation and note that pursuing both strategies simultaneously mitigates this challenge and provides a promising means of leveraging the benefits of each approach. (shrink)

Communities frequently experience belief polarization, even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence supporting one side of the debate. Current explanations for this phenomenon, which we define as bad polarization, attribute its emergence to the influence of social incentives on belief formation. However, these explanations presuppose the existence of a fragmented community in which opposing groups develop different beliefs. Here, we provide a model of belief formation in which social incentives bring about bad polarization even in structurally (...) cohesive communities. We assume agents to distribute a finite amount of social support among their like-minded neighbors and to sample evidence partially in order to form the belief that grants them the highest possible support. Accordingly, we show that bad polarization emerges more frequently when communities are highly connected, and that bad believers, individuals holding unsupported beliefs, are consistently a minority. Bad polarization is driven by the competition for social support: bad believers form a minority because this allows them to gain a higher amount of support than if they adhered to the majority view. (shrink)

The aspiration for peace has been a recurring theme in human history, yet war remains a persistent reality. This paradox raises fundamental questions: Can war be rendered impossible? How do historical enemies transition into allies? The international friend-enemy polarization threatens global stability, with contemporary political divisions exacerbating internal national conflicts. We offer a collection of papers and debates that presented at the 2024 Dublin conference ‘Dreams of Peace and Realities of War. The Friend-Enemy Polarization’. The first section examines (...) political polarization and enmity: Jacob Rogozinski’s analysis of absolute hostility in democratic societies questions whether democratic agonism can contain enmity without leading to destructive divisions. Nicholas Hayes-Mota revisits Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic democracy, comparing it with Saul Alinsky’s community organizing to assess its practical viability. Nadia Urbinati critiques the decline of political intermediation, linking it to socio-economic inequalities and the erosion of democratic deliberation. Mauro Magatti explores globalization’s failure, arguing that it has fueled instability, reinforcing nationalistic and religious divisions. The second section focuses on inclusion and exclusion in politics, tradition, and religion. Seán Golden discusses Confucianism’s historical role as a counterbalance to militaristic realpolitik. Asma Afsaruddin explores Islamic peacemaking traditions, highlighting Quranic and Hadith-based principles of justice and mercy. Chandra Mallampalli analyzes India’s anti-conversion laws and Hindu nationalism, while Brian Levy examines South Africa’s struggle with economic inequality and identity politics. The final section addresses globalization and polarization in the digital age. Fulvia Giachetti critiques the neoliberal belief that free markets promote peace, while Assaf Sharon interrogates how authoritarian demagogues manipulate public discourse. Marina Calloni discusses algorithmic-driven political enmity, and Chiara Giaccardi advocates for ‘inter-independence’ as a framework for sustainable global relations. As history oscillates between peace and conflict, this collection of essays offers critical insights into the challenges of reconciliation, urging renewed efforts to institutionalize peace amid rising global tensions. (shrink)

Belief polarization (BP) is widely seen to threaten havoc on our shared political lives. It is often assumed that BP is the product of epistemically irrational behaviors at the individual level. After distinguishing between BP as it occurs in intra-group and inter-group settings, this paper argues that neither process necessarily reflects individual epistemic irrationality. It is true that these processes can work in tandem to produce so-called “echo chambers.” But while echo chambers are often problematic from the point of (...) view of collective rationality, it doesn't follow that individuals are doing anything wrong, epistemically speaking, in seeking them out. In non-ideal socio-epistemic contexts, echo chamber construction might provide one's best defense against systematic misinformation and deception. (shrink)

Recent research on thick terms like “rude” and “friendly” has revealed a polarity effect, according to which the evaluative content of positive thick terms like “friendly” and “courageous” can be more easily canceled than the evaluative content of negative terms like “rude” and “selfish”. In this paper, we study the polarity effect in greater detail. We first demonstrate that the polarity effect is insensitive to manipulations of embeddings (Study 1). Second, we show that the effect occurs not only for thick (...) terms but also for thin terms such as “good” or “bad” (Study 2). We conclude that the polarity effect indicates a pervasive asymmetry between positive and negative evaluative terms. (shrink)

What is the communicative value of negative polarity? That is, why do so many languages maintain a stock of special indefinites that occur only in a proper subset of the contexts in which ordinary indefinites can appear? Previous answers include: marking the validity of downward inferences; marking the invalidity of veridical inferences; or triggering strengthening implications. My starting point for exploring a new answer is the fact that an NPI must always take narrow scope with respect to its licensing context. (...) In contrast, ordinary indefinites are notorious for taking wide scope. So whatever other functions NPIs may have, they at least serve as an utterly reliable signal that an indefinite is taking narrow scope. As also proposed in recent work of Kusumoto and Tancredi, I will show that NPIs are only licensed in contexts in which the wide scope construal of an indefinite fails to entail the narrow scope. In other words, weak NPIs occur only in contexts in which taking narrow scope matters for interpretation. Thus one part of the explanation for the ubiquity and robust stability of negative polarity is that it signals scope relations. (shrink)

Political polarization has become one of the most significant challenges facing modern democracies, reshaping political discourse, governance, and public trust in institutions. This article explores the nature of polarization, defining it as the deepening ideological and social divide between political factions, often accompanied by hostility and distrust. We examine its primary causes, including economic inequality, media fragmentation, identity politics, and institutional design, all of which contribute to reinforcing divisions and entrenching partisan loyalties. A central argument of this article (...) is that polarization not only exacerbates political conflict but also transforms traditionally neutral institutions into partisan battlegrounds, undermining their credibility and effectiveness. Courts, in particular, have increasingly become the focus of political struggles, as different factions seek to shape judicial rulings to align with their ideological preferences. Ultimately, we argue that the partisanship of institutions is one of the most damaging consequences of polarization, leading to diminished trust in democratic structures and weakening their ability to function effectively. (shrink)

In this paper we present the results of a simulation study of credence developments in groups of communicating Bayesian agents, as they update their beliefs about a given proposition p. Based on the empirical literature, one would assume that these groups of rational agents would converge on a view over time, or at least that they would not polarize. This paper presents and discusses surprising evidence that this is not true. Our simulation study shows that these groups of Bayesian agents (...) show group polarization behavior under a broad range of circumstances. This is, we think, an unexpected result, that raises deeper questions about whether the kind of polarization in question is irrational. If one accepts Bayesian agency as the hallmark of epistemic rationality, then one should infer that the polarization we find is also rational. On the other hand, if we are inclined to think that there is something epistemically irrational about group polarization, then something must be off in the model employed in our simulation study. We discuss several possible interfering factors, including how epistemic trust is defined in the model. Ultimately, we propose that the notion of Bayesian agency is missing something in general, namely the ability to respond to higher-order evidence. (shrink)

The Bayesian polarization literature asks how rational agents can diverge given common evidence. This is the wrong question. In real-world political environments, evidence is not common. Fox News does not show what MSNBC shows. The convergence theorems fail not because of subtle differences in priors, likelihoods, or credibility assessments, but because their central premise—shared observation—is violated at scale. The existing literature models second-order effects while ignoring the first-order cause. This paper argues that most political polarization requires no sophisticated (...) explanation: people see different things. Interventions targeting cognition address the wrong problem. Infrastructure is the target. (shrink)

This paper uses the distribution and interpretation of antonymous adjectives in comparative constructions as an empirical basis to argue that abstract representations of measurement, or ‘degrees’, must be modeled as intervals on a scale, rather than as points, as commonly assumed. I begin by demonstrating that the facts in this domain must be accounted for in terms of the interaction of the semantics of adjectival polarity and the semantics of the comparative, rather than principles governing the (overt) expression of particular (...) types of adjectives in comparatives. I then show that a principled account of the full range of data under consideration can be constructed within a model in which degrees are formalized as intervals on a scale and adjectival polarity is characterized in terms of two structurally distinct and complementary sorts of `positive' and `negative' degrees. (shrink)

Robert Talisse theorizes a “Democrat’s Dilemma,” which argues that liberal democratic citizenship involves a normative and phenomenological conflict between the norms of democratic equality and pursuing justice. If citizens succumb to the dilemma and disengage with their opposition’s reasoning, polarization dynamics undermine their capacities to develop justified beliefs and maintain alliances. Extending this analysis, even if one is subject to an authoritarian system, an equivalent dilemma exists for a revolutionary between a norm of solidarity and the pursuit of revolutionary (...) justice. The daunting political-epistemic burdens of authoritarian political conditions require a separate account of political polarization and its remedies. (shrink)

This paper examines how spiritual practices can contribute to conflict transformation under contemporary conditions of digital, moral, and relational polarization. It argues that many conflicts today are not only struggles over power, resources, security, or political authority, but also crises of shared reality. In contemporary context of polarization, disagreement often becomes destructive because persons and communities no longer share a stable interpretative ground through which truth, grief, accountability, and responsibility can be pursued together. Against this background, the study (...) does not romanticize spirituality, since religion and spirituality may also intensify exclusion, moral superiority, and hostility. Instead, drawing on Thomas W. Porter’s account of conflict transformation and JustPeace, the paper presents spiritual practices as transformative practices of reorientation. Silence, listening for understanding, and speaking the truth in love reshape the habits through which persons attend, perceive, speak, and relate within conflict. While these practices are already central to conflict transformation and peace studies, this study relocates them at the micro level of everyday digital life, where ordinary acts of reaction, judgment, and attention can either wound and damage, or support and restore others. The study then extends this reorientation through moral imagination and public trust. The study concludes that spiritual practice does not eliminate conflict or guarantee peace but can reorient persons and communities capable of living out conflict differently, so that harm can be named, accountability can be faced, relationships can be restored, and JustPeace can become morally imaginable and communally practicable. (shrink)

People seem more divided than ever before over social and political issues, entrenched in their existing beliefs and unwilling to change them. Empirical research on mechanisms driving this resistance to belief change has focused on a limited set of well-known, charged, contentious issues and has not accounted for deliberation over reasons and arguments in belief formation prior to experimental sessions. With a large, heterogeneous sample (N = 3,001), we attempt to overcome these existing problems, and we investigate the causes and (...) consequences of resistance to belief change for five diverse and less contentious socio-political issues. After participants chose initially to support or oppose a given socio-political position, they were provided with reasons favoring their chosen position (affirming reasons), reasons favoring the other, unchosen position (conflicting reasons), or all reasons for both positions (reasons for both sides). Our results indicate that participants are more likely to stick with their initial decisions than to change them no matter which reasons are considered, and that this resistance to belief change is likely due to a motivated, biased evaluation of the reasons to support their initial beliefs (prior-belief bias). More specifically, they rated affirming reasons more favorably than conflicting reasons—even after accounting for reported prior knowledge about the issue, the novelty of the reasons presented, and the reported strategy used to make the initial decision. In many cases, participants who did not change their positions tended to become more confident in the superiority of their positions after considering many reasons for both sides. (shrink)

The Dogmatism Paradox begins with the claim that I know some proposition p and uses apparently good reasoning to draw a seemingly irrational dogmatic conclusion: that I should therefore dismiss any new evidence against p. A standard solution to this paradox is to note that when I acquire new evidence against p, that evidence defeats my justification for believing p. As a result, I no longer know that p, and so the reasoning used to generate the paradox begins with a (...) false premise. By appealing to recent work in social epistemology by Endre Begby and C. Thi Nguyen, I develop a new, stronger version of the Dogmatism Paradox that is immune to this standard solution. This version of the Dogmatism Paradox has significant consequences for contemporary polarized political disagreements, in which subjects on both sides of the disagreement have reason to distrust new evidence against their beliefs. So, unless the paradox can be solved, many political disagreements in sufficiently polarized communities will turn out to be rationally intractable in the sense that agreement can only be reached by one side irrationally revising their beliefs. (shrink)

Positive polarity items (PPIs) are generally thought to have the boring property that they cannot scope below negation. The starting point of the paper is the observation that their distribution is significantly more complex; specifically, someone/something-type PPIs share properties with negative polarity items (NPIs). First, these PPIs are disallowed in the same environments that license yet type NPIs; second, adding any NPI-licenser rescues the illegitimate constellation. This leads to the conclusion that these PPIs have the combined properties of yet-type and (...) ever-type NPIs: what appears to be a prohibition is nothing but “halfway licensing”. The paper goes on to propose a unification of the analyses of rescuable PPIs, NPIs, and negative concord, and questions the grounding of polarity sensitivity in the scalar or the referential semantics of the items involved. (shrink)

An electronic poster from "Polarity from Different Perspectives," New York University, 2005. The authors present an experiment that investigated to what extent six negative polarity items (slept a wink, in ages, ever, much, at all, and yet) are licensed by 9 potential licensers.

People are manifestly polarized. On many topics, extreme perspectives are much easier to find than ‘reasonable’, ‘moderate’ perspectives. A natural reaction to this situation is that something epistemically irrational is afoot. Here, I question this natural reaction. I argue that often polarization is epistemically innocuous. In particular, I argue that certain mechanisms that underlie polarization are rational, and polarized beliefs are often fully justified. Additionally, even reflective subjects, who recognize themselves as in a polarized or polarizing situation shouldn’t (...) necessarily reduce confidence in the relevant beliefs. Finally, I draw attention to some often overlooked epistemic _benefits_ associated with polarization. A fuller understanding of the epistemology of polarization requires incorporating both the potential costs and the potential benefits, and being more precise about exactly what is—and is not—epistemically objectionable in these situations. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the relationship between misinformation and disagreement. We begin by arguing that one traditional bogeyman in this domain, ideological polarization, does not account for the many problems that have been documented. Instead, affective polarization seems to be the root cause of most of these problems. We then discuss the relationships between moral outrage, misinformation, and affective polarization. We next turn to the political implications of affective polarization and conclude by discussing some potential solutions to (...) the problems that arise in this area. (shrink)

Pessimism over a democracy’s ability to produce good outcomes is as longstanding as democracy itself. On one hand, democratic theorists consider democracy to be the only legitimate form of government on the basis that it alone promotes or safeguards intrinsic values like freedom, equality, and justice. On the other, skepticism toward the ordinary citizen’s cognitive capacities remains a perennial concern. Qualms about the epistemic value of democracy have only been made more pertinent by a fundamental problem of deep epistemic disagreement (...) which underlies the post-truth phenomenon. I argue that the democratic theorists who have sought to defend democracy on epistemic grounds have thus far neglected such deep and intractable disagreements. Without addressing this oversight, the epistemic democrat will find that collective decision-making processes quickly become paralyzed and will not be able to yield the epistemic benefits they promise. Hence, the work for epistemic democrats is to recognize and take into account the ramifications of epistemic disagreements so as to make a stronger case for epistemic democracy. (shrink)