Methodological vs inferential heuristics

Finally, I make a distinction between what I will callmethodological heuristicsandinferential

etymological understanding of the term “heuristic” has to do with methods of discovery. It was in this sense that P´olya employed the term to refer to the endeavour to study the strategies and processes typically useful for solving problems. Using the term as a noun, heuristics in this tradition are methodological devices for learning and problem-solving. It is in this sense that the use of models and analogy are heuristic devices to help us learn or understand some- thing about our world, and the techniques offered by P´olya, such as those given in (2)-(6), are heuristic aids in solving problems. This is what I intend to refer to by methodological heuris- tics. Methodological heuristics are what concern philosophers of science who are interested in creative thought, the logic of discovery, and the construction and improvement of theories in science (e.g., Lakatos, 1963-64; Popper, 1959).

However, a different meaning of “heuristic” emerged in the psychology literature, inspired (perhaps christened?) by the work of Kahneman and Tversky. As I had described above, the heuristics studied by Kahneman and Tversky (and others such as Gigerenzer, and Simon to some extent) are not precisely the methods of discovery and invention intimated by the term’s etymology. The important distinction to recognize here is between the respective domains of use, and their respective functions in our cognitive lives. As tools or devices for discovery and problem-solving, methodological heuristics are aids to learning and understanding. In contrast, the heuristics that are of interest to Kahneman and Tversky (and other psychologists) are principles that guide judgment and inference. Thus, these latter are what I call inferential heuristics. Inferential heuristics are not about learning or understanding per se, but serve to facilitate judgments, inferences, and decision-making.

In a certain sense, inferential heuristics may be understood as special cases of methodolog- ical heuristics. This is suggested by Simon’s remarks given above regarding using the term “heuristic” as a noun; in this sense, inferential heuristics aid in the discovery of a solution to a problem by providing the appropriate judgments and inferences. Nevertheless, inferen- tial heuristics remain distinct in kind from methodological heuristics insofar as either serves distinct cognitive functions.

Moreover, we can distinguish inferential heuristics from methodological heuristics by mak- ing some generalizations. Inferential heuristics are often epistemically opaque—people often employ these heuristics without knowingthat they do so, and without knowing the nature of these heuristics (that is, absent of a psychologist informing one of such things). Methodological heuristics, on the other hand, are generally epistemically transparent—these methods are more or less easily identified; we often consciously and deliberately employ them; their usefulness is usually known; and, because of this, an individual is able to compare and manipulate them (and all this without a psychologist informing one of such things). Moreover, methodologi- cal heuristics are typically cultivated from experience and therefore vary between individuals, whereas inferential heuristics can be to some extent immune to experience and very common among everyone, and some may even be innate.30 _{For example,}

(6) Find a related problem that has been solved before, and try to use its result or method,

is a technique that one acquires by working through many problems and drawing abstract principles, whereas

(11) Probabilities are evaluated by the degree to which one thing or event is representative of (resembles) another; the higher the representativeness (resemblance) the higher the probability estimation.

and

(12) The frequency of a class or the probability of an event is assessed according to the ease with which instances or associations can be brought to mind.

are pervasive, as those in the heuristics and biases tradition have shown, and are not cultivated or developed through experience.

30_{I use the qualifiers “often” and “generally” and “typically” because there will undoubtedly be exceptions.} The exceptions, I suppose, can contribute to our understanding of the natures of methodological and inferential heuristics.

Since methodological and inferential heuristics are both kinds of cognitive heuristics, con- dition C applies to both. The epistemic opaqueness of inferential heuristics and the epistemic transparency of methodological heuristics may be owed to the kind of process each heuristic is and the kinds of information each operates over. In terms of dual-processes theory (Wason & Evans, 1975; J. Evans & Over, 1996; Frankish & Evans, 2009), it may be said that inferential heuristics are type 1 processes, and that methodological heuristics are type 2 processes. But this is just speculation.

Alternatively, this might be cashed out in terms of what representational information fig- ures into the operations of either type of process. As strategies that help us to understand or learn something about our world, methodological heuristics must involve deep conceptual processing. At the very least, the problems that methodological heuristics are recruited to solve (learning about or understanding our world) are problems that appear to require the use and manipulation of conceptual content. This may be a factor in what makes us consciously aware of such problems, and allows us to consciously and deliberately apply methodological heuristics in solving them. On the other hand, inferential heuristics may not have to engage in deep conceptual processing to guide inference and judgment, at least not to the same extent as methodological heuristics. In chapter 4, we shall see that, according to my account of how heuristics work in cognition, it is a feature of inferential heuristics that they do not operate over conceptual content but over conceptual relations. I will briefly return to this matter below, but I save substantial discussion for chapter 4. For now, I will simply speculate that not generally engaging and manipulating conceptual content may contribute to the epistemic opaqueness of inferential heuristics. Admittedly, these are empirical issues that can be confirmed or falsified with the appropriate evidence.

This is not to say that inferential heuristics cannot be instantiated in higher-order cognition. For instance, it is possible that one can learn and consciously employ the Availability heuristic, or Take the Best. Moreover, it may not always be clear whether a given heuristic falls in the methodological or inference category. That there are fuzzy cases, however, does not bear nega-

tively on the methodological-inferential distinction drawn here. Indeed, fuzzy cases should not come as a surprise since it is not uncommon for us to learn something about the world while we make inferences, nor is it uncommon that the very act of making a judgment solves a problem. Nevertheless, the functional distinction between methodological and inferential heuristics can be maintained so long as the functional role of the heuristic can be determined.31

To sum up, heuristics are to be distinguished from stimulus-response behaviour. Moreover, there are many kinds of heuristics, including (though perhaps not exhausted by) computational, perceptual, and cognitive. And cognitive heuristics can be subdivided into methodological heuristics and inferential heuristics. This is represented, with examples, in Figure 2.1. (The branch representing cognitive heuristics is highlighted since these will be the main focus from here on in.)