Schmidt, Kathleen, Haeffel, Gerald, Levy, Neil, Moreau, David, Lee, Sean, Buchanan, Erin, Krafnick, Anthony, Voracek, Martin, Pfuhl, Gerit, Barzykowski, Krystian, Kowal, Marta, and Wagge, Jordan (2024) A Response to a Comment on Hall et al. (2024). Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 7 (4). pp. 1-4.

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Abstract

[Extract] The conditions under which laypeople attribute knowledge to protagonists have long been debated by experimental philosophers (Colaço et al., 2014; Nagel et al., 2013; Weinberg et al., 2001). Consider the case of “Darrel,” who accurately recognizes the species of an animal in the woods even though it was the only one of its kind among many animals of an identical-looking species. Responses to this so-called “Gettier-type” case have been studied to examine whether laypeople consider luckily true beliefs as constituting actual knowledge. In their Experiment 1, Turri et al. (2015) compared knowledge attributions in this version of the “Darrel” case to a version in which his belief is a clear case of knowledge; they found no difference between these conditions and concluded that “a salient but failed threat to the truth of a judgment does not significantly affect whether it is viewed as knowledge” (p. 381). Hall et al. (2024) replicated and extended Experiment 1 of Turri et al., testing condition differences by using the Darrel case alongside two other counterfeit-object Gettier-type cases in a large multinational study. Hall et al. found that participants were less likely to attribute knowledge to the protagonists when beliefs were only luckily true (i.e., the Gettier conditions) than when the truth of the beliefs was not under threat (i.e., the knowledge conditions). This significant condition difference reported by Hall et al. stands in contrast to the null result reported by Turri et al. In their commentary on Hall et al., Buckwalter and Friedman (2024) claimed that the replication should have been interpreted as successful, argued that the researchers’ conclusions were incorrect, and implied that the replication effort was misguided. As a subset of contributors to the Hall et al. replication, we appreciate the opportunity to respond to their comment. Although we recognize the potential for disagreement in the interpretation of research results, Buckwalter and Friedman’s critique ignored several key features of the research, and many of their arguments and proposed interpretations were already addressed by Hall et al. (2024). In response to their comment, we (a) explain why Hall et al. did not replicate all of the original findings, (b) emphasize how Hall et al. were accurate and nuanced in the description and interpretation of their results, and (c) caution against focusing on the mechanisms underlying a psychological phenomenon before it is clearly established.

Item ID:	84414
Item Type:	Article (Commentary)
ISSN:	2515-2467
Keywords:	epistemic intuitions, Gettier cases, knowledge, replication
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2024. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Date Deposited:	07 Jan 2025 07:14
FoR Codes:	52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5205 Social and personality psychology > 520505 Social psychology @ 30% 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology > 520401 Cognition @ 70%
SEO Codes:	28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280121 Expanding knowledge in psychology @ 100%
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