What is your main domain of expertise? (Your profession, your area of study, or even a hobby!)
I have just finished degrees in law and philosophy, which I guess counts for some amount of expertise. I’m now studying both at graduate level. For the past three years or so, I’ve also been tutoring “traditional rationality” courses in philosophy. Before that, I was a high-school math tutor for about 8 years. Overall, I’d rate my teaching skills as somewhat higher-level than the areas I’ve studied formally.
I’m a bit of a generalist—I’ve also studied chinese, human biology, and mathematics.
What issues in your domain call most critically for sharp thinking?
Legal and philosophical reasoning often deal with vaguely defined folk-concepts such as causation. Fitting these into good reasoning often means finding precise criteria to look for in the observable world.
Lawyers are also prone to emphasise persuasion, without necessarily being rational about it. Being trained to see both sides of an issue means we risk a failure to conclude based on evidence. It’s easier to say “each side has arguments”.
What do you know that could be of interest to the LessWrong community?
I know that a few simple ideas in argumentation theory can be quite powerful in augmenting people’s rationality. The course I’ve taught most often focuses on evaluating arguments, by performing two tasks: firstly assessing the “logical strength” of inferences, and secondly assessing the “plausibility of premises”.
I also know that many students struggle to understand this simple rationalist tool. I suspect most who do understand it may not apply it outside the domain of passing-philosophy-exams.
What might you learn from experts in other domains that could be useful in yours?
I’d like to know more about mathematical descriptions of reasoning. Statistical and probabilistic reasoning can be important in assessing legal liability, and I’m far from expert at this. Also, Bayesians seem to identify problems with “statistical significance” based on arbitrary p-value thresholds. Understanding this seems important to developing a rational philosophy of science, both academically and for myself.
This sounds like an extremely useful skill set. I think that we desperately need a better understanding of how people typically learn, learn to apply, and fail to apply traditional rationality if we are ever to expand this community beyond the thousands into the tens of thousands of participants without greatly diluting quality. I would GREATLY appreciate help on this topic. If interested, please email me. michael.vassar@gmail.com
I have just finished degrees in law and philosophy, which I guess counts for some amount of expertise. I’m now studying both at graduate level. For the past three years or so, I’ve also been tutoring “traditional rationality” courses in philosophy. Before that, I was a high-school math tutor for about 8 years. Overall, I’d rate my teaching skills as somewhat higher-level than the areas I’ve studied formally.
I’m a bit of a generalist—I’ve also studied chinese, human biology, and mathematics.
Legal and philosophical reasoning often deal with vaguely defined folk-concepts such as causation. Fitting these into good reasoning often means finding precise criteria to look for in the observable world.
Lawyers are also prone to emphasise persuasion, without necessarily being rational about it. Being trained to see both sides of an issue means we risk a failure to conclude based on evidence. It’s easier to say “each side has arguments”.
I know that a few simple ideas in argumentation theory can be quite powerful in augmenting people’s rationality. The course I’ve taught most often focuses on evaluating arguments, by performing two tasks: firstly assessing the “logical strength” of inferences, and secondly assessing the “plausibility of premises”.
I also know that many students struggle to understand this simple rationalist tool. I suspect most who do understand it may not apply it outside the domain of passing-philosophy-exams.
I’d like to know more about mathematical descriptions of reasoning. Statistical and probabilistic reasoning can be important in assessing legal liability, and I’m far from expert at this. Also, Bayesians seem to identify problems with “statistical significance” based on arbitrary p-value thresholds. Understanding this seems important to developing a rational philosophy of science, both academically and for myself.
This sounds like an extremely useful skill set. I think that we desperately need a better understanding of how people typically learn, learn to apply, and fail to apply traditional rationality if we are ever to expand this community beyond the thousands into the tens of thousands of participants without greatly diluting quality. I would GREATLY appreciate help on this topic. If interested, please email me. michael.vassar@gmail.com