Uploaded June 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
To judge things provisionally, it's important not only to improve our overall practice of provisionality, but also to be able to apply critical thinking to complex judgements (e.g. on politics or religion). Robert M Ellis here talks about two aspects of provisionality practice that are very helpful with complex judgements: probabilizing and weighing up. Both owe much to scientific tradition, but are applied in a way relevant to individual judgement rather than in the socially organized manner of scientific practice. Robert also extends probabilizng to near-certainties (which we still need to distinguish from certainties) and to values. He also particularly discusses the weighing up of credibility when we are judging whether to believe a particular source.
This talk was given in the context of a Zoom meeting on the Middle Way Network (see middlewaysociety.org), and is followed by questions and discussion - in this case with two members of the audience who are both scientifically trained (in medicine and physics respectively).
0:00 Preliminaries
1:40 Recap and introduction
13:25 Introduction to probabilizing
23:12 Asymptotes (near-certainties) as a problem in probabilizing
32:08 How we can probabilize values as well as factual claims
39:58 The practice of weighing up to reach a judgement
46:03 Weighing up the credibility of sources
52:02 Conclusion
54:30 Discussion: Ockham's Razor. How far should we prefer the simpler option?
1:02:40 Discussion: The value of specific expertise v the importance of questioning it
1:11:45 Discussion: The special difficulties of probabilizing in a 'post truth age', e.g. with deepfakes
1:18:05 Practice Focus Questions
Picture credit: 'Change your mind' by Dr CVSB, CCSA4: Wikimedia Commons.
To judge things provisionally, it's important not only to improve our overall practice of provisionality, but also to be able to apply critical thinking to complex judgements (e.g. on politics or religion). Robert M Ellis here talks about two aspects of provisionality practice that are very helpful with complex judgements: probabilizing and weighing up. Both owe much to scientific tradition, but are applied in a way relevant to individual judgement rather than in the socially organized manner of scientific practice. Robert also extends probabilizng to near-certainties (which we still need to distinguish from certainties) and to values. He also particularly discusses the weighing up of credibility when we are judging whether to believe a particular source.
This talk was given in the context of a Zoom meeting on the Middle Way Network (see middlewaysociety.org), and is followed by questions and discussion - in this case with two members of the audience who are both scientifically trained (in medicine and physics respectively).
0:00 Preliminaries
1:40 Recap and introduction
13:25 Introduction to probabilizing
23:12 Asymptotes (near-certainties) as a problem in probabilizing
32:08 How we can probabilize values as well as factual claims
39:58 The practice of weighing up to reach a judgement
46:03 Weighing up the credibility of sources
52:02 Conclusion
54:30 Discussion: Ockham's Razor. How far should we prefer the simpler option?
1:02:40 Discussion: The value of specific expertise v the importance of questioning it
1:11:45 Discussion: The special difficulties of probabilizing in a 'post truth age', e.g. with deepfakes
1:18:05 Practice Focus Questions
Picture credit: 'Change your mind' by Dr CVSB, CCSA4: Wikimedia Commons.
