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Better Not to Know: On the Possibility of Culpable Knowledge Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-03-20 Jimmy Alfonso Licon
Many philosophers hold there are genuine cases of culpable ignorance. This paper argues that there are conditions that can render knowledge epistemically culpable too. First, we contrast culpable i...
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Populism and the New Radical Right: A Necessary Distinction Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Francesco Maria Scanni
In current political analysis, as well as in discourse, the term populism has become an ‘umbrella term’, embracing a large number of concepts and phenomena. One risk underlying this conceptual stre...
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Knowledge-Production, Digitalization and the Appropriation of Surplus-Knowledge Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-03-08 Siyaves Azeri
According to some commentators, the introduction of digital technologies into the sphere of knowledge-production and the consequent digitalization and computerization of this field have radically c...
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How Can Constitutivism Account for the Persistence of Deep Disagreements? Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-03-08 Enrico Galli
Exploring the metaphysics of deep disagreements, Ranalli identifies several essential features shared by all such disputes. These very features constitute a set of adequacy conditions that any sati...
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AI-Testimony, Conversational AIs and Our Anthropocentric Theory of Testimony Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-03-06 Ori Freiman
The ability to interact in a natural language profoundly changes devices’ interfaces and potential applications of speaking technologies. Concurrently, this phenomenon challenges our mainstream the...
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Overcoming Eurocentrism: Exploring Ethiopian Modernity Through Entangled Histories and Coloniality Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-02-07 Fasil Merawi
In this article, the nature of Ethiopian modernity will be explored through the usage of concepts like coloniality, entangled modernities and uneven histories that are borrowed from decolonial and ...
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Transcultural Identity of Twerking: A Cultural Evolution Study of Women’s Bodily Practices of the Slavic and East African Communities Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-01-22 Aleksandra Łukaszewicz, Priscilla Gitonga, Kiryl Shylinhouski
Human culture is built upon nature to help humans adapt to their environment – first natural, but later natural-cultural. Cultural practices are aimed at aiding survival in changing environments, a...
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Propositional Versus Encyclopedic Epistemology and Unintentional Plagiarism Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-01-09 Erhan Şimşek
Unintentional plagiarism abounds at universities. The literature offers several explanations for students’ difficulties with acquiring standards of good academic practice. In this paper, I propose ...
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How Expertise is Enabled: Why Epistemic Cycles Matter to us All Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Stephen J. Cowley
Rather than ask if expertise is under threat, this paper uses case studies to show how expertise is enabled. Its appearance can be traced to how the already known evokes sensibility, judging, think...
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“I’ll Show You Differences”: Skills, Creativity and Meaning Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Johan Siebers, Paul Cobley
This article arises out of critical contemplation of ‘skills’ in relation to Higher Education pedagogy as it relates to the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. As the emphasis on skills dominates...
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Expertise in Non-Well-Defined Task Domains: The Case of Reading Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Sarah Bro Trasmundi, Edward Baggs, Juan Toro, Sune Vork Steffensen
In this article, we discuss expertise by considering the activity of reading. Cognitive scientists have traditionally conceptualised reading as a single, well-defined task, namely the decoding of l...
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Becoming a Knower: Fabricating Knowing Through Coaction Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Marie-Theres Fester-Seeger
This paper takes a step back from considering expertise as a social phenomenon. One should investigate how people become knowers before assigning expertise to a person’s actions. Using a temporal-s...
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Designing an Expert-Setting for Interdisciplinary Dialogue: Literary Texts as Boundary Objects Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Karin Kukkonen
While literature is often used as a source of examples and illustrations across disciplines, literary studies tends to be underrepresented in interdisciplinary exchanges. Perhaps the reason lies in...
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Introduction to the Special Issue: “Expertise, Semiotics and Interactivity” Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Charles Lassiter, Sarah Bro Trasmundi
In this article, we offer an overview of the philosophical and psychological literatures on expertise. Work so far has failed to engage with recent work in embodied and encultured cognition--in par...
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Reading the Signs: From Dyadic to Triadic Views for Identifying Experts Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Charles Lassiter
A naturalistic approach to expert-identification begins by asking, ‘how do novices pick out putative experts?’ Alvin Goldman and Elizabeth Anderson, representing a fairly common approach, consider ...
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Apology for an Average Believer: Wagered Belief and Information Environments Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Richard Kenneth Atkins
Some persons who believe provably false claims – such as that there were significant voter irregularities in the 2020 election – may nevertheless be evidentially rational for holding their false be...
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Mechanistic Explanation, Interdisciplinary Integration and Interpersonal Social Coordination Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2024-01-02 Matti Sarkia
Prominent research programs dealing with the nature and mechanisms of interpersonal social coordination have emerged in cognitive science, developmental psychology and evolutionary anthropology. I ...
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Scientism and the Problem of Self-Referential Incoherence Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-12-21 Zoltán Vecsey
In recent discussions on the possibilities and boundaries of science, the term ‘scientism’ has been used with multiple meanings. In this paper, this term is taken to refer to a strong epistemic the...
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Testimonial Injustice from Countervailing Prejudices Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-12-13 Federico Luzzi
In this paper I argue that Fricker’s influential account of testimonial injustice (hereafter ‘TI’) should be expanded to include cases of TI from mutually neutralising countervailing prejudices. In...
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The Contribution of Logic to Epistemic Injustice Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-12-13 Franci Mangraviti
While much has been said on the connection between dominant rationality standards and systemic oppression, the specific role of logic in supporting epistemic injustice has not received much explici...
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‘Blackness’, the Body and Epistemological and Epistemic Traps: A Phenomenological Analysis Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-12-13 Kuir ë Garang
This paper has two objectives. The first objective is a decoupling of the African body from ‘blackness’—a discursive formation—that was attached to the body by the slave and the colonial regimes. T...
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Friend or Foe? Rethinking Epistemic Trespassing Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-12-12 Jelena Pavličić, Jelena Dimitrijević, Aleksandra Vučković, Strahinja Đorđević, Adam Nedeljković, Željko Tešić
In this paper, we reconsider the notion of epistemic trespassing and attempt to explore possible scenarios in which it could lead to positive outcomes in scientific research and information dissemi...
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Universities as Anarchic Knowledge Institutions Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Säde Hormio, Samuli Reijula
Universities are knowledge institutions. Compared to several other knowledge institutions (e.g. schools, government research organisations, think tanks), research universities have unusual, anarchi...
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We Have No Satisfactory Social Epistemology of AI-Based Science Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-12-01 Inkeri Koskinen
In the social epistemology of scientific knowledge, it is largely accepted that relationships of trust, not just reliance, are necessary in contemporary collaborative science characterised by relat...
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Smart Environments Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-11-28 Shane Ryan, S. Orestis Palermos, Mirko Farina
This paper proposes epistemic environmentalism as a novel framework for accounting for the contribution of the environment – broadly construed – to epistemic standings and which can be used to impr...
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How Do Philosophical Positions Influence the Social Science Research Process? A Classification and Metaphor Analysis of Researchers’ Descriptions Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-11-28 Adam Coates
Textbooks for social science research suggest that studies are necessarily grounded in foundational philosophies that shape the research process. However, the literature does not provide a consiste...
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Censorship Bubbles Vs Hate Bubbles Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-11-06 Wendy Xin
In this paper, I argue that considerations of epistemic bubbles can give us reason to defend censorship of hate speech. Although censoring hate speech leads to epistemic bubbles (‘censorship bubble...
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Epistemic Inclusion as the Key to Benefiting from Cognitive Diversity in Science Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-10-30 Vlasta Sikimić
Throughout scientific history, there have been cases of mainstream science dismissing novel ideas of less prominent researchers. Nowadays, many researchers with different social and academic backgr...
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Cringe Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-10-30 Thomas J. Spiegel
While shame and embarrassment have received significant attention in philosophy and psychology, cringe (also sometimes called ‘vicarious embarrassment’ and ‘vicarious shame’) has received little th...
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The Wrong of Bullshit Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-10-27 Thorian R. Harris
It may be hard to imagine how bullshit, or being strategically indifferent to the veracity of one’s assertions, might ever be morally permissible. Yet to categorically denounce it is to find onesel...
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Enacting Practices: Perception, Expertise and Enlanguaged Affordances Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-09-26 Rasmus Gahrn-Andersen
The paper thematizes basic content-free cognition in human social practices. It explores the enlanguaged dimension of skilled practical doings and expertise by taking the minimal case of concept-ba...
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Epistemic Autonomy and Intellectual Humility: Mutually Supporting Virtues Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Jonathan Matheson
Recently, more attention has been paid to the nature and value of the intellectual virtue of epistemic autonomy. One underexplored issue concerns how epistemic autonomy is related to other intellec...
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No-Regret Learning Supports Voters’ Competence Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-09-11 Petr Spelda, Vit Stritecky, John Symons
ABSTRACT Procedural justifications of democracy emphasize inclusiveness and respect and by doing so come into conflict with instrumental justifications that depend on voters’ competence. This conflict raises questions about jury theorems and makes their standing in democratic theory contested. We show that a type of no-regret learning called meta-induction can help to satisfy the competence assumption
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Other-Oriented Hermeneutical Injustice, Affected Ignorance, or Human Ignorance? Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-09-10 J. M. Dieterle
Paul-Mikhail Podosky introduces the notion of other-oriented hermeneutical injustice and argues that non-human animals are often the subjects of such injustice. In this paper, I argue that although...
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Intra-Group Epistemic Injustice: Jewish Identity, Whiteness, and Zionism Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-09-10 Dana Grabelsky
In this paper, I work towards a conceptualization of a new form of epistemic injustice – one that occurs within groups, as opposed to across groups – which I call ‘intra-group epistemic injustice’....
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Cognitive Diversity or Cognitive Polarization? On Epistemic Democracy in a Post-Truth World Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Esther K. H. Ng
Pessimism over a democracy’s ability to produce good outcomes is as longstanding as democracy itself. On one hand, democratic theorists consider democracy to be the only legitimate form of governme...
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The Limited Role of Social Sciences and Humanities in Interdisciplinary Funding: What are Its Effects? Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Anita Välikangas
There is wide agreement among scholars in research policy that the position of the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in interdisciplinary research is not as good as it should be. Academics give ...
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Why Human Prejudice is so Persistent: A Predictive Coding Analysis Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-08-13 Tzu-Wei Hung
Although the relationship between prejudice and predictive coding has attracted more attention recently, many important issues remain to be investigated, such as why prejudice is so persistent and ...
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Reflexive Research Practice in Women’s Prison Research in Uganda Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-08-01 Milliam Kiconco
ABSTRACT Although much has been written about the centrality of reflexivity in qualitative research, the literature on researcher’s reflexivity in prison research is limited. I conducted a PhD qualitative study with a sample of 30 women convicted of murder from one female prison in Uganda. This paper demonstrates the value of reflexivity in research with respect to oppressed women. It does this by
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‘Islamic Epistemology’ in a Modern Context: Anatomy of an Evolving Debate Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-08-02 Mohamed Fouz Mohamed Zacky, Md Moniruzzaman
ABSTRACT This paper critically analyses how Islamization of Knowledge (IOK), Radical Reform (RR), and Maqasid Methodology (MM), three distinct Islamic intellectual projects, attempted to develop discourses of Islamic epistemology in facing contemporary developments of natural and social sciences. Mainly, the paper focuses on similarities, differences, and potential contributions of all three projects
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Credibility Trouble: When ‘I Believe You’ is an Epistemic Wrong Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-07-31 Eliana Luxemburg-Peck
This article defends the counterintuitive conclusion that public assignments of credibility – including statements, by hearers, of ‘that’s right’, ‘she is credible’, or ‘I believe you’ – can actual...
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Towards a Clear and Fair Conceptualization of Empathy Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-07-26 Caroline Bollen
ABSTRACT Empathy is operationalised and measured in various different ways in research. I have identified several trends in empathy research that have resulted in what I refer to as neurotypical gatekeeping of the concept of empathy. Narrow assumptions on the relationship between experiences and expressions have made the concept exclusive to those who are perceived as neurotypical. In several ways
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What Would It be Like to be Bohmians? Experiencing a Gestalt Switch in Physics as an Effect of Path Dependence Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-07-11 Léna Soler
ABSTRACT The philosophical goal is to characterize ‘path dependence’ (PAD) in science by comparison to PAD in technology where the concept was initially introduced. I rely on quantum mechanics to substantiate the analyses, exploiting the contrast between standard versus Bohmian quantum physics (NQP/BQP). To achieve the goal, counterfactual history is mobilized as a means to generate instructive virtual
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Lessons from Reckwitz and Rosa: Towards a Constructive Dialogue between Critical Analytics and Critical Theory Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-07-11 Simon Susen
ABSTRACT It is hard to overstate the growing impact of the works of Andreas Reckwitz and Hartmut Rosa on contemporary social theory. Given the quality and originality of their intellectual contributions, it is no accident that they can be regarded as two towering figures of contemporary German social theory. The far-reaching significance of their respective approaches is reflected not only in their
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The Applied Epistemology of Official Stories Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-07-06 Tim Hayward
ABSTRACT Is it generally rational to defer to official stories? On the affirmative view exemplified by Neil Levy, grounds for scepticism cannot outweigh the epistemic authority of the experts presumed to generate them. Yet sociological studies of how expertise is mediated into official communications reveal the epistemic potential of citizens’ collaboratives. These may include, or advocate hearing
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‘Conspiracy Theory’ as a Tonkish Term: Some Runabout Inference-Tickets from Truth to Falsehood Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-06-15 Charles Pigden
ABSTRACT I argue that ‘conspiracy theory’ and ‘conspiracy theorist’ as commonly employed are ‘tonkish’ terms (as defined by Arthur Prior and Michael Dummett), licensing inferences from truths to falsehoods; indeed, that they are mega-tonkish terms, since their use is governed by different and competing sets of introduction and elimination rules, delivering different and inconsistent results. Thus ‘conspiracy
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On the Inconsistency between Practice and Reporting in Science: The Genesis of Scientific Articles Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-06-12 Teresa Diaz Gonçalves
ABSTRACT Scientific publications depict science as an orderly endeavour and the epitome of rationality. In contrast, scientific practice is messy and not strictly rational. Here, I analyse this inconsistency, which is recurrent, and try to clarify its meaning for the functioning of science. The discussion is based on a review of relevant literature and detailed analysis of the role of each of the three
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A Philosophical Explanation for the Islamization of Philosophy: How Can Mullā Ṣadrā’s Transcendent Philosophy Contribute to the Islamization of Philosophy in Iran? Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-05-08 Amir Rastin Toroghi, Vahideh Fakhar Noghani
ABSTRACT This paper evaluates the potentials of Mullā Şadrā’s philosophy to explain the possibility of the Islamization of philosophy. This contributes to a more general, yet controversial, project in post-revolutionary Iran, namely the Islamization of knowledge, especially in the humanities. If there would be a mechanism through which Islamization of philosophy – as a historical example and as a field
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Producing ME/CFS in Dutch Newspapers. A Social-Discursive Analysis About Non/credibility Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-04-05 Marjolein Lotte de Boer, Jenny Slatman
ABSTRACT Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a highly contested illness. This paper analyzes the discursive production of knowledge about, and recognition of ME/CFS. By mobilizing insights from social epistemology and epistemic injustice studies, this paper reveals how actors, through their social-discursive practices, attribute to establishing, sustaining, and disregarding
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Do Political Convictions Infect Every Fibre of Our Being? Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-03-28 Joseph Ulatowski, David Lumsden
ABSTRACT Many countries’ constituencies are populated by polarised groups with sharply contrasting political loyalties and convictions, which appear to be becoming more and more extreme. We wish to explore such extreme political convictions with a focus on their place in a supporter’s mind, which underpins their engagement with a political movement. We look at how a political narrative can be internalised
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Conspiracy Theory and (or as) Folk Psychology Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-03-29 Brian L. Keeley
ABSTRACT One issue within conspiracy theory theory is whether, or to what extent, our central concept – – should map on to the common, lay sense of the term. Some conspiracy theory theorists insist that we use the term as everyday people use it. So, for example, if the term has a pejorative connotation in everyday parlance, then academic work on the concept should reflect that. Other conspiracy theory
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Towards Epistemic Translatability: On Epistemic Difference and Hermeneutical Injustice Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-03-29 Angelo Vannini
This paper addresses the relationship between epistemic difference and hermeneutical injustice, starting from an example discussed by Townsend and Townsend: the case of the Kichwa Indigenous People...
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Why Epistemic Decolonisation in Africa? Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-03-29 Veli Mitova
The call to decolonise knowledge is gaining increasing popularity in African philosophy. But as scholarly attention to the topic intensifies, so do doubts about the usefulness of theorising it, esp...
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Conspiracy Theories, Scepticism, and Non-Liberal Politics Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-03-13 Fred Matthews
ABSTRACT There has been much interest in conspiracy theories (CTs) amongst philosophers in recent years. The aim of this paper will be to apply some of the philosophical research to issues in political theory. I will first provide an overview of some of the philosophical discussions about CTs. While acknowledging that particularism is currently the dominant position in the literature, I will contend
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Perspectives on Post-Truth Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-03-06 Filippo Ferrari, Anna Maria Lorusso, Sebastiano Moruzzi, Giorgio Volpe
ABSTRACT This opening piece of the special issue ‘Perspectives on Post-Truth’ aims to accomplish three tasks. First, and foremost, it highlights the issue’s distinctive feature, namely its variegated approach to post-truth. The leading idea in assembling it has been to draw on different methodologies, theoretical approaches, and competences, in order to gain a fine-grained understanding of the post-truth
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Intra-Group Epistemic Injustice Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-03-01 Abraham Tobi
When an agent suffers in their capacity as a knower, they are a victim of epistemic injustice. Varieties of epistemic injustices have been theorised. A salient feature across these theories is that...
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Taming Human Subjects: Researchers’ Strategies for Coping with Vagaries in Social Science Experiments Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-02-27 Carol Ting, Martin Montgomery
ABSTRACT The experimental method is designed to secure the reliable attribution of causal relationships by means of controlled comparison across conditions. Doing so, however, depends upon the reduction of uncertainties and inconsistencies in the process of comparison; and this poses particularly significant challenges for the behavioral and social sciences because they work with human subjects, whose
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Against Intellectual Autonomy: Social Animals Need Social Virtues Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-02-22 Neil Levy
ABSTRACT We are constantly called upon to evaluate the evidential weight of testimony, and to balance its deliverances against our own independent thinking. ‘Intellectual autonomy’ is the virtue that is supposed to be displayed by those who engage in cognition in this domain well. I argue that this is at best a misleading label for the virtue, because virtuous cognition in this domain consists in thinking
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Non Experts: Which Ones Would Trust You? Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-02-23 Saúl Pérez-González, María Jiménez-Buedo
ABSTRACT Following Goldman’s seminal work, most contemporary philosophical contributions on the novice-expert relation have adopted a normative, expert-focused approach. In this paper, we aim to shift the focus of the philosophical analysis towards the characteristics of the novices, and how they might determine the choices that experts make. On the bases of recent empirical evidence from social psychology
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The Normative Turn in Conspiracy Theory Theory? Social Epistemology (IF 1.625) Pub Date : 2023-02-20 Patrick Stokes
ABSTRACT The papers contained in this special issue are evidence that the philosophy of conspiracy theory is undergoing a ‘normative turn’, with earlier concerns about the epistemological soundness of conspiracy theories now being supplemented by a shift to concerns about discursive and epistemic justice. This is a welcome development. Nonetheless, these normative concerns need to be seen within the