Meet Sophie Dandlet
by Alex Roberts
AR: Let’s begin with a question about your philosophical interests. How about you tell us a bit about what you have worked on so far, and what you will be working on in the near future?
SD: Most of my work has been centered on questions about belief. Some of these are very general, like: When a belief is justified, in virtue of what is this the case? Others are about narrower phenomena, like: What’s motivated reasoning, and why does it seem like a kind of bad reasoning? Those are both questions that I’ve written on recently. And I imagine that I’ll keep working on questions about belief for a long time…after thinking about this stuff for years, I feel more mystified than when I began, to be honest.
One question that I’ve found especially puzzling recently: When we contrast believing X with, say, just being highly confident that X, or treating X as a working hypothesis, what are we getting at, exactly? What makes belief different from those other attitudes? I’ve written something on this question that’ll hopefully come out in an edited volume this year.
I also have some emerging interests in philosophical methodology, I guess. By “philosophical methodology,” I mean the strategies that philosophers use to identify their questions and make progress on them. For instance, I’m trying to write something now about ameliorative inquiry. In a nutshell, ameliorative inquirers are trying to refine our concepts in a way that will somehow help us to achieve ethically important goals. I have some questions about that method—what it is trying to achieve, and whether it can really achieve those things as it is generally practiced.
AR: This is all very interesting. I’d like to ask a bit more about both issues you mentioned. First, could you tell us a bit more about how you think believing X contrasts with the other attitudes like having high confidence in X? I’d also be interested to hear how your view on this fits in with the extant takes on this question in the literature.
SD: Basically, I’m attracted to the idea that believing X involves a commitment to the idea that you’re fully informed about whether X; that, in other words, there’s no more X-relevant evidence out there that could give you reason to change your mind. This makes believing X really different from having a .99 credence that X, or being highly confident that X—since of course, you could coherently have one of those attitudes and think that you’re missing some of the X-relevant evidence out there, and that some of that evidence might give you reason to adjust your credences/level of confidence. This idea is definitely around already. I find it, for instance, in Harman’s Change in View. But I think proponents of this idea haven’t totally appreciated how it can be used to explain the value of belief, and that’s what I’m trying to do in that paper that I mentioned.
AR: Nice. I’m looking forward to hearing more about this project when you’re here. I’m also interested to hear a bit more about your views on ameliorative inquiry. From what you said, it sounded like you are slightly sceptical about whether it can achieve its goals? Is that right? If so, are you sceptical about its current form, or about the enterprise more generally?
SD: My thoughts on this are still pretty hazy, but I’ll try to say something here. My main problem with ameliorative inquiry is that its practitioners are generally super vague about how their favored concepts are supposed to make the world a better place—and even when they do offer details here, their hypotheses are basically empirical claims that don’t have sufficient evidential support.
AR: I see! Let’s shift gear a bit. What are your interests outside of philosophy?
SD: I love cooking, eating, fiction (I include books, TV, and movies in this category), knitting, long walks/hikes, and—as of two months ago—hanging out with my twins!
AR: Well, I’m glad to report that there are lots of people here with exactly the same interests. We’re all very much looking forward to your arrival!
SD: Alex and I can’t wait to get there! We’re really looking forward to doing philosophy with all of you, and also partaking in some of the non-philosophical pursuits mentioned above. From our visit, it seems like Madison is a particularly excellent place for pretty walks (thanks to the lakes) and for knitting (thanks to the bitter cold).
AR: It certainly is. I’m sure you’ll come to love the pretty walks on the lakes in the bitter cold too, usually one of the most beautiful times of the year!