Bibliography for belief, delusion, and misinformation
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William J. Bernstein. The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2021.
Michael V. Bronsteina, Gordon Pennycookb, Adam Bearc, David G. Randd, & Tyrone D. Belief in Fake News is Associated with Delusionality, Dogmatism, Religious Fundamentalism, and Reduced Analytic Thinking. https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135512
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Cailin O'Connor and James Weatherall. The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread. Yale University Press, 2019.
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Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in of American Politics. Vintage Books 1952.
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Nikolay Mintchev and R.D. Hinshelwood. ED.. The Feeling of Certainty: Psychosocial Perspectives on the Experience of Identity and Difference. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-57717-3
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James Garret. Avner Segall, and Margaret S. Crocco. Accommodating Emotion and Affect in Political Discussion. The Social Studies. Vol 111, 2020 Michael Polanyi. Personal Knowledge. University of Chicago Press. 1958.
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Michael Polyani. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. University of Chicago Press, 1958.
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Rosa Ritunnano, Joshua Kleinman, Danniella Whyte Oshodi, Maria Michail, Barnaby Nelson, Clara S Humpston, Matthew R Broome. Subjective experience and meaning of delusions in psychosis: a systematic review and qualitative evidence synthesis. Lancet Psychiatry 2022; 9: 458–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S2215-0366(22)00104-3
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Mike Rothschild, The Storm is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult and Conspiracy Theory of Everything. Melville House, 2021.
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Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty. Harper Perennial, 1972.
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Edna O'shaunessey. A Commemorative Essay on Bion's Theory of Thinking. Journal of Child Psychotherapy. Vol 7, 1981.. ​https://doi.org/10.1080/00754178108255031
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Tyson Gill. Pandemic of Delusion. Simon and Shuster.
Mission Statement for Study
The health of public discourse require, at the least, a minimal concern for what is factually true and an openness for the exploration of logical possibilities of reasoned thought. These conditions seem to be failing in current times. The necessary dynamics of discursive “health” are vitiated by feelings of certainty that shut down encounters with dialectical possibility. For this reason, certainty, as an idiosyncratic state of mind, requires in depth understanding. In worst case scenarios it serves as an invitation for authoritarian politics and in less dire contexts denies life enhancing learning.
This study group will seek to examine scholarly perspectives that seek to understand the affective life of reason. These conditions for the flourishing of reason require moral and aesthetic engagements. Karl Figlio describes an ideal condition of the mind, where, unlike tribal allegiances to belief, certainty in thought is delicately poised among competing intellectual demands:
Our study group invites 8 scholars to meet for 8 meetings and consider a broad array of texts. Five of those meetings will take up the readings below. After the group participants are finalized we will, based on group interest, add three more sets of readings. The group study will end with a talk by Karl Figlio, a British Kleinian analyst who has contribute significantly to understand the work of science and the life of the mind necessary to support the life of reason.
This study group will examine certainty as a tribal and psychological practices. The group will meet 8 times between Jan 1 2023 and Dec 31 2023, reading a collection of texts that will historicize, contextualize, and examine the condition.