The Department of Philosophy at Simon Fraser University would like to congratulate Nava Karimi, who has been awarded the Peter Horban Philosophy Essay Award for her paper “Break on Through to the Rational Side? – on Fanatics, Extremes, and Echo Chambers.”. The annual departmental award is made to recognize excellence in a philosophical essay written by an undergraduate student. Winning essays demonstrate academic and research excellence at the undergraduate level with particular emphasis placed upon originality and promise of ability in research.

Congratulations on winning the Horban Award! Can you provide a brief overview of the argument at the heart of your paper “Break on Through to the Rational Side? – on Fanatics, Extremes, and Echo Chambers.”?

Thank you so much! My paper aims to address some aspects of the puzzling nature of belief polarization and echo chambers. Belief polarization refers to the phenomenon of individuals becoming more entrenched or extreme in their views after exchanging information with others, which sometimes results in these individuals finding themselves “trapped” in echo chambers, socio-epistemic structures that exclude and discredit relevant external voices. There are many discussions on the rationality (or irrationality) of the individuals in these circumstances, such as questions of whether they possess certain epistemic vices or rather if a case can be made for their potential rationality.

My argument is essentially that the structure of echo chambers encourages and fuels a “fanaticism” of sorts, in which the individual possesses a rigid, whole-hearted, and unwavering commitment to an object or idea to which they are devoted in ways that are identity-defining. I argue that, as echo chambers provide the circumstances for fanaticism to thrive, the beliefs the individuals hold within the chamber become tied to their identities, which causes the “escape” from the chamber to be much more costly and seemingly impossible. This presents the problem through an affective lens in which the fanatic’s affective state must be considered in evaluating their rationality.

I then go on to argue that the fanatic is rational, based on their reasons when in their fanatical affective state, for fervently defending their views as the cost of identity-destruction is a greater consideration for the fanatic than the search for better-functioning belief-updating processes. In order to make this argument, I also make a case for a reconciliation between affect and rationality, since the question of whether there can even be rationality within the affective domain has long been debated. To do this, I turn to the literature on epistemic reasons and cognitive rationality for emotions to present a plausible understanding of how rationality does not necessarily need to exclude affective considerations.

What first drew you to Philosophy? And when did you first get the feeling that it was a good fit for you?

I think I’ve always been interested in the questions we consider in philosophy, so it’s hard to pinpoint when exactly, but I would say it was the philosophy class I took in high school that really made me think more about philosophy as a discipline. I had a really fantastic teacher who introduced me to a lot of interesting books (mostly works in existentialism, which pretentious, high-school-me enjoyed probably too much) and it encouraged me to then try out a philosophy course in university. That course, PHIL 120W (which I think everyone should take!), might not have been existentialism, but I found myself fascinated by the content in a way that I hadn’t felt about other courses, and this was probably when I realized philosophy was right for me. I remember listening to the way that Dr. Bruno Guindon presented the arguments in our readings or writing my papers and thinking that this method of analysis made perfect sense to me. So, the semester after, I declared my philosophy major!

What's something about studying Philosophy that you think would surprise someone who is unfamiliar with it?

I think that people who don’t study philosophy have a lot of misconceptions regarding what it is as a discipline. If I mention “philosophy” to someone, they think that it involves reading a bunch of snobby, depressing, “nonsense” written by some old, dead guys in Ancient Greece. While those old, dead guys may certainly play a role in philosophy, the way that we do conceptual analysis is very different from what people seem to think! I find that “doing philosophy” feels a lot like solving (or trying to solve) puzzles about, well, everything! It’s not only about pondering some seemingly impossible-to-answer questions, but about issues we come across in our everyday lives. I found this to be especially true in researching for my paper, since I have observed individuals becoming polarized in their beliefs or being trapped in echo chambers in many online political discussions, and getting to do a philosophical analysis on the phenomena gave me a greater understanding of how they might function. The philosophy department offers a lot of courses on really cool and specific topics that I think demonstrate how we can apply philosophy to our lives, and I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to take these classes! In addition to that, having to take logic courses has also made me much better at winning arguments, to the great dismay of those around me.

If you had to recommend one book or paper to get someone interested in Philosophy, what would it be?

That’s a tough one! I think getting people interested in philosophy often involves showing that philosophy doesn’t always have to be about abstract, distant concepts, so I think I would probably suggest some works that appeal to more common interests, which may immediately intrigue a non-philosophy-enthusiast! For example, I took a course with Dr. Alex King about ethical issues in art and we read chapters from a book by Erich Hatala Matthes called Drawing the Line. This book dealt with questions of how we should (or shouldn’t) engage with the work of immoral artists, “cancel culture,” the relationship between fans and artists, and more. I think a lot of the work in that realm could be of interest to those without a pre-existing desire to read philosophy as we often are faced with these questions in our day-to-day lives.

For those who are open to something that’s maybe a little less “popular culture-y” and more “philosophical” though, I think Edmund Gettier’s iconic 1963 paper “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge” is a really fun one. The fact that he wrote a two page paper that generated as much discourse as it did on the topic is really impressive, and the paper does a great job at highlighting a significant problem in epistemology mainly through the use of engaging case studies. Hopefully some of these works inspire more people to study philosophy, or at least to take some of the super interesting courses we have in our fantastic department!