I am wondering if anyone knows of any psychological research on this kind of phenomenon, which I think relates to cognitive dissonance. I suspect there must be something out there, even something that directly relates to teaching philosophy or other "controversial issues," but I have yet to find it. But a deeper understanding of this phenomena would surely be helpful in addressing it and helping students develop the cognitive skills and attitudes (and virtues?) that philosophy can teach.
Here's a few things from philosophy that I've found relevant here. First, Richard Feldman on "argument stoppers."
Second, there are a number of articles in Teaching Philosophy on a phenomena called "student relativism," starting with this excellent article by Stephen Satris:
STUDENT RELATIVISM. | |||
6 | TI: | Teaching-Philosophy. S 86; 9: 193-205 | |
AU: | 0145-5788 | ||
SO: | IN THIS PAPER I OFFER AN ANALYSIS OF, AND SUGGEST SOME METHODS FOR DEALING WITH, A QUITE PARTICULAR AND PECULIAR PROBLEM IN TEACHING PHILOSOPHY. IT IS, PERHAPS, NOT A PROBLEM ESSENTIAL TO THE DISCIPLINE OR TO ITS TEACHING, BUT IT IS NEVERTHELESS ONE OF THE MOST SERIOUS, PERVASIVE, AND FRUSTRATING PROBLEMS CONFRONTING MOST PHILOSOPHY TEACHERS TODAY. I SPEAK OF THE PROBLEM OF STUDENT RELATIVISM--OR, SR FOR SHORT. | ||
IS: | METAPHYSICS-; PROFESSOR-; RELATIVISM-; STUDENT-; TEACHING- | ||
AB: | ENGLISH | ||
DE: | Journal-Article |
Nathan, you're definitely right that resistance to philosophical inquiry seems to originate, in part, in a desire to avoid cognitive dissonance. I think I see this most clearly when I ask students to think about ethical dilemmas: Many of them instinctually want to suggest facts that change the proposed situation so that one horn of the dilemma magically disappears. You certainly want to encourage their attentiveness to the facts of the case, but of course, students who propose these facts seem often to want to make sure there are no hard dilemmas to think about. I.e., with enough jiggering of the facts, there are no hard cases (much the less any bona fide dilemmas) in ethics.
ReplyDeleteI think it's very difficult to dislodge the notion that learning something always feels good, from beginning to end. The bad news is that cognitive dissonance isn't a nice feeling. The good news is that it's usually a learning opportunity. So how do we help students get from the former to the latter?