Colloquium: October 16

This paper is part of a larger project in which I examine the nature and rationality of transitional attitudes that we form during ongoing, complex reasoning processes. My aim here is to explain which aspects of one’s ongoing deliberation are relevant to determining the rationality of a transitional attitude. I argue that significant factors include the evidence one has considered, the manner in which it has been considered, and metacognitive information regarding the execution of one’s reasoning. In taking a closer look at these factors, I explain that an important stage of reasoning consists in ‘eyeballing the evidence.’ Instances of Simpson’s paradox turn out to be especially good examples of this phenomenon.