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The Formation of Belief 327

explain why contradictory information triggers resistance in some situations
but conversion in others. if there are processes of resistance, why are they not
operating continuously, preventing conversion altogether? if the processes of
conversion can overcome resistance, why is conversion rare and perseverance
ubiquitous?
There is as yet no theory that resolves this assimilation paradox.
Theorists have falsified falsification, made an anomaly out of the accumu-
lation of anomalies, classified ontological shifts under the wrong category
and failed to achieve even local coherence. This state of affairs is itself an
anomaly that requires explanation. i suggest that the assimilation paradox
remains unresolved because it is, in principle, unsolvable. There is no exit,
no way to cut the circular relation between old concepts and new infor-
mation. experience and discourse are necessarily understood in terms of
already acquired concepts and beliefs, so they will be interpreted in ways
that make them consistent with those concepts and beliefs. Peripheral
change is always possible and always represents the path of least cognitive
effort. These insights are stumbling blocks to any current or future theory
that postulates that beliefs are based on the evaluation of evidence and that
non-monotonic changes in core beliefs are triggered by anomalous, contra-
dictory or falsifying information.
Prior work has nevertheless contributed useful ideas. Kuhn’s notion of
failing at problem solving puts a pragmatist spin on the discussion about the-
ory change by reminding us that the purpose of a theory is not to be true. in
the context of everyday cognition, beliefs and informal theories are not mere
possessions, admired for their epistemological beauty, but tools of cognitive
trades. Their purpose is to enable us to succeed at various cognitive tasks,
including explaining facts, phenomena and regularities; predicting future
events; and informing the design of successful artifacts. Being true is a helpful
attribute that allows a theory to better support those functions, but capturing
the truth is a means to that end. Kuhn implicitly promoted the pragmatic view
by characterizing normal science as problem solving instead of truth seeking,
and by conceptualizing cognitive conflict as a failure to solve a problem that
one expected to solve rather than a logical contradiction between theory and
evidence.
other useful contributions include Kuhn’s emphasis that theory change
is a cumulative, protracted affair. This is one of the main phenomena to be
explained: if a single anomaly is insufficient to trigger theory change, why
would 10 anomalies suffice? Another fundamental contribution is Chi’s prin-
ciple of category shifts. Because knowledge is hierarchically organized, a