Dan Sperber

Dan Sperber

@dansperber.bsky.social

1.9K followers336 following104 posts

Dan Sperber
@dansperber.bsky.social

"OURS": In a chat about LLMs, ChatGPT just wrote: "Their learning history, architecture, sensory experience, embodiment, memory systems differ radically from ours." When I pointed out the oddity of this "ours", it explained it as an "automatic perspective alignment with the interlocutor". Ok, ok

Dan Sperber
@dansperber.bsky.social

"The central problem is endogenous validation: the same operations that make texts scoreable also delimit the evidence by which success is assessed." Discusses methods in textual analysis, but the problem Jennifer Devereaux identifies is much more general. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

cambridge.orgSuccess Without Measure: Historical Authority and Epistemic Overreach | Philosophy of Science | Cambridge CoreSuccess Without Measure: Historical Authority and Epistemic Overreach

Dan Sperber reposted

Rob Sica
@robsica.bsky.social

✨"Social epistemology needs a theory of reasoning that would explain the type of social interactions it describes as the root of scientific knowledge production. And here is the good news: the argumentative theory of reasoning is a rather good candidate for that purpose." philpapers.org/rec/HEITUE

Dan Sperber reposted

Julien Lie-Panis
@jliep.bsky.social

Why do societies rely on rigid moral rules? Don't lie. Keep your promises. Don't steal. We all recognize there are good reasons to make exceptions. So why are moral rules so often categorical? Our new paper proposes an answer. 🧵

Dan Sperber reposted

Florence Dellerie
@florencedellerie.bsky.social

Multiplier par 15 les frais d’inscription universitaires des étudiant·es étrangèr·es non européen·nes. Piétiner l'égal accès aux services publics. Appeler le programme "Bienvenue en France" 🇫🇷🥖 🔴 Signez et faites signer la pétition, ça prend 2 min : petitions.assemblee-nationale.fr/initiatives/...

petitions.assemblee-nationale.frPour la suppression du programme Bienvenue en France mettant en place des frais différenciés pour les étudiant·es extra-européen·nes - Pour la suppression du programme Bienvenue en France mettant en p...La stratégie Bienvenue en France prétend renforcer l'attractivité internationale de la France en multipliant par 15 les frais d’inscription à l’université des étudiant·es non européen·nes. Si les exon...
Dan Sperber
@dansperber.bsky.social

Nothing undermine the never-ending fight against antisemitism in a worse way than the repression of pro-Palestinian activism as inherently antisemitic, which has become routine in many European countries and in the US

Dan Sperber
@dansperber.bsky.social

Kate Scott: "...offers a cognitive underpinning to existing understandings of the various hearer roles that individuals might play in a discourse, ... a key expansion of the scope of relevance theory via application to multiparty communicative interactions." www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.comA relevance-based framework for hearer roles in multiparty interactionsThis paper proposes a cognitive pragmatic, relevance-theoretic framework for understanding and analysing hearer participant roles in discourse. Releva…

Dan Sperber reposted

David Pietraszewski
@dpietra.bsky.social

Why is domain-generality so intuitive? This paper makes a case for why we need an evolutionary psychology of psychology, and what it has to say about the study of intelligence, consciousness, domain-generality, and the theory crisis. @pdurkee.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.comWhat a difference a mind makes: How evolved difference detecting mechanisms harm psychological science, and how an evolutionary psychology of psychology can helpFrom an adaptationist perspective, most of psychology's concepts that form the basis of empirical inquiry, such as memory, attention, consciousness, i…

Dan Sperber reposted

Tim Crane
@timcrane.bsky.social

An absolutely devastating account of part of what is going on in Sudan. The RSF apparently funded by the UAE, where people go for sunny holidays ... (until recently anyway) www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

theguardian.comHeroism, horror and the ‘pits of hell’: inside the last days of El FasherOver two days in October 2025, up to 10,000 people are believed to have been massacred; a further 40,000 civillians from the Sudanese city are still unaccounted for. This is the story of what happened

Dan Sperber reposted

Christophe Heintz
@heintz-c.bsky.social

Here is a PhD fellowship in one of the best places in the world to study cognition and culture. 1. Cultural phenomenon: writing 2. Cognitive capacity: to detect what is unpredictable 3. Mission: Show how (2) drives the evolution of (1) 😲 4. Methods: you’ll eventually master some powerful ones

Olivier Morin@oliviermorin.bsky.social

CALL: a PhD grant (3 years) to do a PhD with me at @cognitionens.bsky.social on the evolution of graphic codes. euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/410213

euraxess.ec.europa.euPhD student grant (3 years) on the evolution of written communicationMy team recruits a PhD student to work under the supervision of Olivier Morin on the evolution of written communication, within a project jointly led by Olivier Morin, Hugo Mercier, and Marc Allassonn...
Dan Sperber
@dansperber.bsky.social

"Social sadism"? Great quote (from Merton, R. K. (1972). Insiders and outsiders: A chapter in the sociology of knowledge. American journal of sociology, 78(1)), serious issue.

Martin Kusch@martinkusch.bsky.social

Merton 1972 ... Surprising that these terms have not caught on.

Dan Sperber reposted

Stephen Chrisomalis
@schrisomalis.bsky.social

At last, the final publication in 'Cognitive Technologies and their Histories': the editorial introduction to the issue in TopiCS, by myself and @helenamiton.bsky.social. 4.5 years since our initial @cogscisociety.bsky.social panel. Free access! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.comCognitive Technologies and Their HistoriesCognitive technologies are socially acquired and culturally evolved systems whose primary function is cognitive. There is a tremendous untapped opportunity for a broad range of disciplines across the...
Dan Sperber
@dansperber.bsky.social

Yuli Novak (executive director of the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem): "Demanding accountability from Israeli leaders isn’t just about the past, it’s the only way to challenge a system designed to repeat such violence." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.comIsrael needs to face accountability for our genocide. And so does the US | Yuli NovakThe international community allowed all of this to happen. We must not look away or move on
Dan Sperber
@dansperber.bsky.social

Cheyenne Dosso, Tiffany Morisseau, Christophe Heintz, Jean-Sébastien Vayre, A cognitive resource-rational account of epistemic injustice, The Philosophical Quarterly, 2025;, pqaf088, doi.org/10.1093/pq/p... Preprint in FREE ACCESS at philpapers.org/archive/DOSA...

doi.orgA cognitive resource-rational account of epistemic injusticeAbstract. We advance a novel account of the cognitive foundations of epistemic injustice. We argue that such injustice arises from the efficient allocation

Dan Sperber reposted

Trends in Cognitive Sciences
@cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social

Online Now: Complex technology requires cultural innovations for distributing cognition

dlvr.itComplex technology requires cultural innovations for distributing cognitionOver the last decade, new research has shown how human collectives can develop technologies that no single individual could discover on their own. However, this research often overlooks how technology can become so complex that individuals cannot operate it on their own. At this level of technological complexity, distributing cognition is a necessary process for reducing cognitive load on individuals. Yet distributing cognition also imposes coordination costs as technological systems become larger and the individuals in these systems become more specialized. We describe a sprawling set of cultural innovations that facilitate cognitive distribution by reducing cognitive load, reducing coordination costs, or doing both. Preliminary evidence suggests that these cultural innovations co-evolve with technological complexity.

Dan Sperber reposted

Amnesty International
@amnesty.org

Israel is carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip, systematically destroying the health, well-being and social fabric of Palestinian life. Read more:

amn.stIsrael/OPT: New testimonies provide compelling evidence that Israel’s starvation of Palestinians in Gaza is a deliberate policyIsrael is carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip, systematically destroying the health, well-being and social fabric of Palestinian life, Amnesty International said today.

Dan Sperber reposted

James Winters
@replicatedtypo.bsky.social

🚨🚨 New preprint 📜 with Mathieu Charbonneau (@matcharbonneau.bsky.social‬): Modelling the emergence of open-ended technological evolution (arxiv.org/abs/2508.04828). Feedback welcomed! #Evolution #Technology #Culture #OpenEnded #TechnologicalEvolution #CulturalEvolution 🧵: 1/29

arxiv.orgModelling the emergence of open-ended technological evolutionHumans stand alone in terms of their potential to collectively and cumulatively improve technologies in an open-ended manner. This open-endedness provides societies with the ability to continually exp...

Dan Sperber reposted

Hugo Mercier
@hugoreasoning.bsky.social

From ancient Greece to the Arabic golden age, scholars have been driven by their curiosity to investigate astronomy, history, philosophy, and sundry other disciplines. Is there a structure to that curiosity? Are astronomers as likely to also be historians or to also be philosophers?

Dan Sperber
@dansperber.bsky.social

My father, Manès Sperber, told me a story that terribly resonnates today: In 1420, at a time of persecution known as the "Vienna Gesera", Jews were banned from the city. Many were killed. Others were placed on rudderless boats on the Danube River and left starving.

Dan Sperber
@dansperber.bsky.social

Onlookers threw them dried bread loafs making the Jews fight for food and causing boats to capsize. Jews said: "God is just. Yes, of us he has made victims, but of you he has made persecutors."

Dan Sperber
@dansperber.bsky.social

Dans Marc Bloch, "L'Etrange Défaite" (Ecrit en 1940): "Je n’ai pas, je crois, l’âme inaccessible à la pitié. Peut-être les spectacles que deux guerres successives m’ont imposés l’ont-ils quelque peu endurcie.

Dan Sperber
@dansperber.bsky.social

Il est un de ces tableaux, cependant, auquel je sens bien que je ne m’habituerai jamais : celui de la terreur sur des visages d’enfants fuyant la chute des bombes, dans un village survolé....

Dan Sperber
@dansperber.bsky.social

Il est atroce que les guerres puissent ne pas épargner l’enfance, non seulement parce qu’elle est l’avenir mais surtout parce que sa tendre faiblesse et son irresponsabilité adressent à notre protection un si confiant appel."