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Your review of Backsliding: Understanding Weakness of Will ("Just one more wafer-thin mint?", Books, 16 August) should have recast the problem as one of epistemology.

How can Jack, struggling in the third year of an obscure media studies course at a mediocre and poorly staffed university, possibly know that two hours of early evening revision are going to improve his career prospects one iota?

Neil Richardson, Kirkheaton