psychology jargon

[gusl]

What's the technical name for the belief that life is fair? ~"just world assumption"?

Comments

falsificationism

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

You have the right idea, but I am not exactly a naïve falsificationist. Falsification is just the dual of verification.

Kevin Kelly can articulate this better than me.
He and I agree that even Sigma_2 statements can be scientific:

KK:
> In other words, one feels secure while a
> particular instance of the sigma-2 statement continues to be "confirmed"
>and then one loses confidence for a while when the favored instance is
> refuted. That's the best you can do.

I agree.
I further claim that, since it only makes sense to talk about things
within our horizon, any meaning we can correctly give to Sigma_2
sentences is by projecting them as empirically-verifiable-or-refutable
predictions... as you suggest when talking about "confidence", a
Sigma_2 statement would have probabilistic consequences that are, in a weaker sense, empirically-verifiable-or-refutable.