Learning, cognition and ideology

Abstract

Invited to give the 2000 Rick Turner Memorial Lecture, I pondered the following question: What explains the fact that the sincere thought of a brilliant and heroic person such as Turner can appear preposterous to me, if bad faith or scholarly ignorance on one side or the other are ruled out, as they should be in this case? I address this question by considering what ‘ideologies’ are from the perspective of cognitive learning theory. I describe the dynamics by which pressures for social coordination cause brains to implement alternative natural softwares for performing inferences in complex domains of association and inference. I conclude by noting that this need not imply normative relativism, since the relative justifications for conclusions produced by different softwares can still be debated. My aim is thus not to contest Turner’s ideology or political views, but to partially explain how learning produces differences that transcend factual disagreements and even ethical ones.