Collateral Beliefs and the Rashomon Effect

Abstract

Contested events, where witnesses disagree about what they have seen and what it means, pose a problem for accounts of testimony, which otherwise may serve as a reliable source of evidence in argumentation. I explore this problem as it is presented through the Rashōmon effect, demonstrated in Kurosawa’s 1950 film, Rashōmon. By drawing on ancient work on experience and recent work on cognitive environments, I explore the ways in which collateral beliefs impact the way people experience events and understand them.