Recalling Old Thoughts on Trust

My paper and letter-to-the-editor on safe spaces for the West Chester Writing Center class had some crucial insights on establishing trust before productive disagreements that I had somewhat forgotten.

Trust & Disagreements

Establishing trust at the start of a potential disagreement is a bigger insight worth teaching and writing about.

Productive Disagreement Scooped

Someone already wrote the book on my recent intellectual obsession of productive disagreement.

The Assistant & Patrick Wilson

There's a tremendous power imbalance between a famous man (Patrick Wilson) nonchalantly ignoring an unknown woman in an elevator (I learned this when watching The Assistant.)

I Believe in Magic

I like magic a lot more than I typically admit. (I learned this at my friend Caitlin's birthday party, where she hired a magician.)

Discrimination in Contact & Contract

Glenn Loury's focus on discrimination in contact (social discrimination), which is distinct from discrimination in contract (economic discrimination), encourages practically conservative policy suggestions but stems from liberal ideals of helping the disenfranchised. He understood this position as neoconservativism in the 80's.

Epistemic Dependence

I haven't emphasized the importance of epistemic dependence as an intellectual virtue to my critical thinking students.

Dual Concepts

Some concepts ('art,' 'friend,' 'law'?) are dual concept, while others ('stroller,' 'clock') are not.

FANTI

Fans and critics of someone or something often overlap.

Statistics Is About Ignorance

Statistics is not about detecting facts, but about ignorance.

Moral Skepticism

Intuitions about the burden of proof in the moral realism/skepticism debate are even further apart than I thought.

Laundering Uncertainty

A danger of statistics is using it to launder uncertainty.