Social epistemology is the study of the social dimensions of knowledge or information. There is little consensus, however, on what the term "knowledge" comprehends, what is the scope of the "social", or what the style or purpose of the study should be. According to some writers, social epistemology should retain the same general mission as classical epistemology, revamped in the recognition that classical epistemology was too individualistic. According to other writers, social epistemology should be a more radical departure from classical (...) epistemology, a successor discipline that would replace epistemology as traditionally conceived. The classical approach could be realized in at least two forms. One would emphasize the traditional epistemic goal of acquiring true beliefs. It would study social practices in terms of their impact on the truth-values of agents' beliefs. A second version of the classical approach would focus on the epistemic goal of having justified or rational beliefs. Applied to the social realm, it might concentrate, for example, on when a cognitive agent is justified or warranted in accepting the statements and opinions of others. Proponents of the anti-classical approach have little or no use for concepts like truth and justification. In addressing the social dimensions of knowledge, they understand "knowledge" as simply what is believed, or what beliefs are "institutionalized" in this or that community, culture, or context. They seek to identify the social forces and influences responsible for knowledge production so conceived. Social epistemology is theoretically significant because of the central role of society in the knowledge-forming process. It also has practical importance because of its possible role in the redesign of information-related social institutions. (shrink)

Social epistemology is the study of the social dimensions of knowledge or information. There is little consensus, however, on what the term "knowledge" comprehends, what is the scope of the "social", or what the style or purpose of the study should be. According to some writers, social epistemology should retain the same general mission as classical epistemology, revamped in the recognition that classical epistemology was too individualistic. According to other writers, social epistemology should be a more radical departure from classical (...) epistemology, a successor discipline that would replace epistemology as traditionally conceived. The classical approach could be realized in at least two forms. One would emphasize the traditional epistemic goal of acquiring true beliefs. It would study social practices in terms of their impact on the truth-values of agents’ beliefs. A second version of the classical approach would focus on the epistemic goal of having justified or rational beliefs. Applied to the social realm, it might concentrate, for example, on when a cognitive agent is justified or warranted in accepting the statements and opinions of others. Proponents of the anti-classical approach have little or no use for concepts like truth and justification. In addressing the social dimensions of knowledge, they understand "knowledge" as simply what is believed, or what beliefs are "institutionalized" in this or that community, culture, or context. They seek to identify the social forces and influences responsible for knowledge production so conceived. Social epistemology is theoretically significant because of the central role of society in the knowledge-forming process. It also has practical importance because of its possible role in the redesign of information-related social institutions. (shrink)

The paper investigates the epistemological and communicative competences the experts need to use and communicate evidence in the reasoning process leading to diagnosis. The diagnosis and diagnosis communication are presented as intertwined processes that should be jointly addressed in medical consultations, to empower patients’ compliance in illness management. The paper presents defeasible reasoning as specific to the diagnostic praxis, showing how this type of reasoning threatens effective diagnosis communication and entails that we should understand diagnostic evidence as defeasible as well. (...) It argues that metaphors might be effective communicative devices to let the patients understand the relevant defeasors in the diagnostic reasoning process, helping to improve effective diagnosis communication, and also encouraging a change in patients’ beliefs and attitudes on their own experience of illness and illness’ management. (shrink)

Is there anything wrong with publishing philosophical work which one does not believe (publishing without belief, henceforth referred to as ‘PWB’)? I argue that there is not: the practice isn’t intrinsically wrong, nor is there a compelling consequentialist argument against it. Therefore, the philosophical community should neither proscribe nor sanction it. The paper proceeds as follows. First, I’ll clarify and motivate the problem, using both hypothetical examples and a recent real-world case. Next, I’ll look at arguments that there is something (...) wrong with PWB, and show that none is sound. Then, I’ll give some reasons for thinking a norm against PWB is detrimental to the profession. Do I believe these arguments? If I’m right, it shouldn’t matter. (shrink)

This paper introduces three new concepts: epistemic health, epistemic immunity, and epistemic inoculation. Epistemic health is a measure of how well an entity (e.g. person, community, nation) is functioning with regard to various epistemic goods or ideals. It is constituted by many different factors (e.g. possessing true beliefs, being disposed to make reliable inferences), is improved or degraded by many different things (e.g. research funding, social trust), and many different kinds of inquiry are relevant to its study. Epistemic immunity is (...) the robustness with which an entity is resistant to performing certain kinds of epistemic activity, such as questioning certain ideas, believing certain sources, or making certain inferences. Epistemic inoculation occurs when social, political or cultural processes cause an entity to become immune to engaging in certain epistemic activities. After outlining each of these concepts, we close by considering some of the risks associated with attempts to improve others’ epistemic health. (shrink)

Hostile epistemology is the study of how environmental features exploit our cognitive vulnerabilities. I am particularly interested in those vulnerabilities arise from the basic character of our epistemic lives. We are finite beings with limited cognitive resources, perpetually forced to reasoning a rush. I focus on two sources of unavoidable vulnerability. First, we need to use cognitive shortcuts and heuristics to manage our limited time and attention. But hostile forces can always game the gap between the heuristic and the ideal. (...) Second, we need to trust others, and trust makes us vulnerable. In particular, we need to trust experts whose expertise lies beyond our individual ability to vet. So we must rely on various imperfect signals and proxies, like institutional affiliation, to manage our trust. We are forced to use these imperfect and exploitable forms of reasoning, in order to cope with a cognitively overwhelming world. I present the hostile epistemology framework as a counterbalance to vice epistemology, which tends to locate responsibility for bad beliefs in the character of the believer. I draw two conclusions from my analysis. First: suppose we accept that that only communities and institutions can know about the world. This deeply social approach doesn’t solve the problem of expert identification. The individual still faces a problem: given their incomplete understanding, how should the individual pick which group to trust? Second: we might have hoped to get some kind of static picture of the right principles of reasoning — but hostile epistemology presents a different picture. We have to use risky heuristics and shortcuts, which hostile forces can game and exploit. We can respond by shifting to a different set of heuristics, but this simply shifts the location of our vulnerabilities. These new heuristics are also exploitable. There is no end to this, only a constant struggle to adapt. Limited beings in a hostile epistemic environment are locked in an unending epistemic arms race. (shrink)

Homoeopathy is commonly recognised as pseudoscience. However, there is, to date, no systematic discussion that seeks to establish this view. In this paper, we try to fill this gap. We explain the nature of homoeopathy, discuss the notion of pseudoscience, and provide illustrative examples from the literature indicating why homoeopathy fits the bill. Our argument contains a conceptual and an empirical part. In the conceptual part, we introduce the premise that a doctrine qualifies as a pseudoscience if, firstly, its proponents (...) claim scientific standing for it and, secondly, if they produce bullshit to defend it, such that, unlike science, it cannot be viewed as the most reliable knowledge on its topic. In the empirical part, we provide evidence that homoeopathy fulfils both criteria. The first is quickly established since homoeopaths often explicitly claim scientificity. To establish the second, we dive into the pseudo-academic literature on homoeopathy to provide evidence of bullshit in the arguments of homoeopaths. Specifically, we show that they make bizarre ontological claims incompatible with natural science, illegitimately shift the burden of proof to sceptics, and mischaracterise, cherry-pick, and misreport the evidence. Furthermore, we demonstrate that they reject essential parts of established scientific methodology and use epistemically unfair strategies to immunise their doctrine against recalcitrant evidence. (shrink)

In a recent paper, José Ángel Gascón extends the Frankfurtian notion of bullshit to the sphere of argumentation. On Frankfurt’s view, the hallmark of bullshit is a lack of concern for the truth of an utterance on the part of the bullshitter. Similarly, Gascón argues, the hallmark of argumentative bullshit should be viewed as a lack of concern for whether the reasons that are adduced for a claim genuinely support that claim. Gascón deserves credit for drawing attention to the idea (...) of argumentative bullshit. Nevertheless, we argue, his treatment leaves room for further refinement as he fails to clarify important points and misidentifies several features of argumentative bullshit. In particular, Gascón’s account fails to accommodate non-Frankfurtian forms of argumentative bullshit. This paper aims to amend and extend his proposal and proposes a general account that can encompass both Frankfurtian and non-Frankfurtian forms of argumentative bullshit. (shrink)

Resumen: El objetivo de este escrito es discutir el rol y validez de las intuiciones en el ámbito epistémico, en particular el rol de las denominadas intuiciones racionales y su característica de acceso a priori a ciertos ítems o de conocimiento o de creencia. Se analizará el supuesto de centralidad de las intuiciones en la argumentación filosófica. Este supuesto otorga un rol evidencial a una intuición I que un sujeto S tiene respecto a una proposición P. En otras palabras, dicha (...) intuición sería un proceso confiable para acceder al valor de verdad de dicha proposición, cumplir el rol de conductora de verdad. El criterio de conductora de verdad es asociado generalmente o una creencia o a un ítem de conocimiento, y el afirmar que una intuición es confiable implica que es una vía de acceso al valor de verdad de cierto ítem de conocimiento o de creencia. Siguiendo a Cappelen, en este escrito afirmo que el supuesto de centralidad es errado, en primer lugar, porque una intuición racional no tiene por objetivo fundamentar, justificar o evidenciar la verdad o falsedad de una creencia o conocimiento, sino más bien cumplir un rol propedéutico y transmisor previo a la determinación de ese valor de verdad. Hay, por tanto, un criterio de dispensabilidad en el rol epistémico que le compete a una intuición y un rol de falseador epistémico indirecto vía descarte de hipótesis.: The aim of this paper is to discuss the role and validity of intuitions in the epistemic field, in particular therole of so-called rational intuitions and their characteristic of access to certain items of a priori knowledgeor belief. The assumption of centrality of intuitions in philosophical argumentation will be analyzed. Thisassumption gives an evidential role to an intuition I that a subject S has regarding a proposition P. In otherwords, this intuition would be a reliable process to access the truth value of such a proposition, fulfillingthe role of conductor of truth. The truth-conduciveness criterion is usually associated either with a beliefor with an item of knowledge, and affirming that an intuition is reliable implies that it is a way of accessingthe truth value of a certain item of knowledge or belief. Following Cappelen, here I affirm that theassumption of centrality is wrong, firstly because a rational intuition is not intended to ground, justify or evidence the truth or falsity of a belief or knowledge, but rather to fulfill a propaedeutic role andtransmitter role before the determination of that truth value. There is, therefore, a criterion of dispensability in the epistemic role that corresponds to an intuition and an indirect epistemic defeater rolevia discarding hypotheses. (shrink)

Vice epistemology studies the qualities of individuals and collectives that undermine the creation, sharing, and storing of knowledge. There is no settled understanding of which epistemic vices exist at the collective level. Yet understanding which collective epistemic vices exist is important, both to facilitate research on the antecedents and effects of collective epistemic vice, and to advance philosophical discussions such as whether some collective epistemic vices are genuinely collective. I propose an empirical approach to identifying epistemic vices in corporations, analyzing (...) a large dataset of online employee reviews. The approach has parallels to the methodology for identifying the big-five personality traits. It surfaces epistemic vices that are attributed to corporations by its own members and reduces the number of vices to the minimum required to describe differences between corporations. This approach yields a new taxonomy of epistemic vices for corporations. While two vices identified have close correlates in the existing literature, four others have not been identified at all or only in aspects. Two of these vices are ‘genuinely’ collective in the sense that they can only be attributed to collectives. (shrink)

The simple knowledge norm of assertion holds that one may assert that p only if one knows that p. Turri :37–45, 2011) and Williamson both argue that more is required for epistemically permissible assertion. In particular, they both think that the asserter must assert on the basis of her knowledge. Turri calls this the express knowledge norm of assertion. I defend SKNA and argue against EKNA. First, I argue that EKNA faces counterexamples. Second, I argue that EKNA assumes an implausible (...) view of permissibility on which an assertion is epistemically permissible only if it is made for a right reason, i.e., a reason that contributes to making it the case that it is epistemically permissible to make that assertion. However, the analogous view in other normative domains is both controversial and implausible. This is because it doesn’t make it possible for one to act or react rightly for the wrong reason. I suggest that proponents of EKNA have conflated requirements for φ-ing rightly with requirements for φ-ing well. Finally, I argue that proponents of SKNA can explain the intuitive defectiveness of asserting on the basis of an epistemically bad reason, even when the asserters know the content of their assertion, by arguing that the asserters are epistemically blameworthy. (shrink)

There has been much concern with the abundance of misinformation in public discourse. Although misinformation has always played a role in political debate, its character has shifted from support fo...

This paper discusses two important emphases of epistemology – of virtue and vice epistemology in particular – one concerning agency and patiency, and the other concerning self-regard and other-regard. The paper offers, for the first time in the literature, a framework in which four types of epistemological work can be categorized according to their respective dual emphases: Type 1 (agent/self-regarding), Type 2 (agent/other-regarding), Type 3 (patient/self-regarding), and Type 4 (patient/other-regarding). The paper also shows how four ways of doing epistemology can (...) be categorized in terms of these four types and draws particular attention to one dubbed other-centering. (shrink)

This paper comments on Maria Baghramian’s ‘The Virtues of Relativism’. We agree that some relativist positions are naturally couched as ‘stances’ and that it is fruitful to connect relativism to virtue epistemology. But I find Baghramian’s preferred rendering of relativism uncharitable.

It is argued that understanding is the norm of political discourse, and it is shown why political assertions can be epistemically problematic within a liberal democracy even when asserted knowledgeably.

Who protects individual liberties and human dignity from domination by the State, by Civil Society or by individuals is a question under debate in China as well as the West, not from the point of view of Liberalism, but from the point of view of ‘Relationality’. Liberalism posits the individual as the measure of these matters but the ‘individual’ in question is an abstraction. Relationality posits social relations as the measure of these matters. Persons are not abstractions. They combine several (...) different social ‘roles’, and each role includes obligations as well as rights. These roles limit the individual’s freedom of action. There are no unipersonal societies. Liberalism also posits rights as an abstraction: ‘All men are created equal’. Relationality posits rights in a context of mutual recognition of rights and responsibilities. Rights only exist if they can in fact be exercised. From the point of view of Relationality, therefore, a person’s ability to exercise her or his rights must be seen in the light of a concept of Justice and there must be an agency that can guarantee this Justice, the exercise of these rights, while it guarantees the fulfilment of social obligations. Is this the role of the State? of Civil Society? of the Market? To truly discuss these matters in a transcultural context, we would need to look for common ground, not take as ‘self-evident’ the classical Liberal perception of the individual. Understanding the underlying political philosophy of China’s concept of ‘responsive authoritarianism’ does not mean endorsing it. But understanding this idea and its ramifications does provide room for amplifying the basic question of who protects individual liberties and human dignity. (shrink)

Politics is full of people who don’t care about the facts. Still, while not caring about the facts, they are often concerned to present themselves as caring about them. Politics, in other words, is full of bullshitters. But why? In this paper I develop an incentives-based analysis of bullshit in politics, arguing that it is often a rational response to the incentives facing different groups of agents. In a slogan: bullshit in politics pays, sometimes literally. After first outlining an account (...) of bullshit (Section 1), I discuss the incentives driving three different groups of agents to bullshit: politicians, the media, and voters (Section 2). I then examine several existing proposals to combat bullshit in politics, arguing that each will fail because they ignore the relevant underlying incentives (Section 3). I conclude somewhat pessimistically that a certain amount of bullshit in politics is inevitable (Section 4). (shrink)

Following Cass Sunstein's popular treatment of the concept, echo chambers are often defined as environments which exclude contrary opinions through omission. C. Thi Nguyen contests the popular usage and defines echo chambers in terms of in-group trust and out-group distrust. In this paper, I argue for a more comprehensive treatment. While both exclusion by omission and out-group distrust help sustain echo chambers, neither defines the phenomenon. I develop a social network model of echo chambers which focuses on the role of (...) belief-reinforcing echoes. First, I argue that the model allows us to incorporate Nguyen's main point about distrust without construing other commentators as deeply mistaken about the nature of echo chambers. Second, I use the model to develop an account of collaborative resistance and use it to clarify the role echo chambers play in spreading misinformation. (shrink)

Following Cass Sunstein's popular treatment of the concept, echo chambers are often defined as environments which exclude contrary opinions through omission. C. Thi Nguyen contests the popular usage and defines echo chambers in terms of in-group trust and out-group distrust. In this paper, I argue for a more comprehensive treatment. While both exclusion by omission and out-group distrust help sustain echo chambers, neither defines the phenomenon. I develop a social network model of echo chambers which focuses on the role of (...) belief-reinforcing echoes. First, I argue that the model allows us to incorporate Nguyen's main point about distrust without construing other commentators as deeply mistaken about the nature of echo chambers. Second, I use the model to develop an account of collaborative resistance and use it to clarify the role echo chambers play in spreading misinformation. (shrink)

The actual or potential epistemic vices of a given discipline or field of study are its disciplinary vices. This paper identifies three actual or potential disciplinary vices of vice epistemology. Vice epistemology explains people's epistemic misconduct by reference to their supposed epistemic vices. Such vice explanations are contrasted with attempts to achieve Verstehen of people's epistemic conduct and understand it from their point of view. Although vice explanations do not preclude Verstehen, vice epistemology is in danger of overlooking alternatives to (...) its preferred mode of explanation. In some cases, Verstehen calls into question the assumption that a person is guilty of epistemic misconduct. Vice explanations also risk attaching insufficient weight to politico‐strategic factors in the explanation of political action. Care needs to be taken by vice epistemologists to avoid intellectual myopia, political naivety, and overconfidence in attributing vices. (shrink)

This paper holds the view that although bullshit and obscurantism are obviously related phenomena, they should be kept distinct for conceptual reasons. It shows that whereas phenomena of bullshit tend to concentrate on speech acts and a violation of the expectations of relevance therein, obscurantism betrays an indirect move to confound while promising deep content. After an overview of studies on bullshit and a look at the different characteristics and types of obscurantism, this paper investigates why readers retain interest in (...) reading obscure texts. Interpretive charity, which is one of the reasons for this sustained interest, is found to be unsuccessful in making sense of obscurantism. Obscurantism is thus seen to be a vice more cryptic and systematic than bullshit. (shrink)

Vice epistemology is in the business of defining epistemic vice. One of the proposed requirements of epistemic vices is that they are reprehensible—blameworthy in a non-voluntarist way. Our problem, as vice epistemologists, is giving an analysis of non-voluntarist responsibility that will count just the right qualities, no more and no less, as epistemic vices. If our analysis of non-voluntarist responsibility ends up being too narrow, then it risks excluding some qualities that we want to count as epistemic vices, such as (...) implicit biases. Whereas, if it ends up being too broad, it risks including qualities that we do not want to count as epistemic vices, such as impaired vision. I recommend a three-step program for vice epistemologists: 1. admit that we have a responsibility problem; 2. strive to define the responsibility problem; 3. work together with specialists in non-voluntarist responsibility to solve the responsibility problem. (shrink)

Recognizing that truth is socially constructed or that knowledge and power are related is hardly a novelty in the social sciences. In the twenty-first century, however, there appears to be a renewed concern regarding people’s relationship with the truth and the propensity for certain actors to undermine it. Organizations are highly implicated in this, given their central roles in knowledge management and production and their attempts to learn, although the entanglement of these epistemological issues with business ethics has not been (...) engaged as explicitly as it might be. Drawing on work from a virtue epistemology perspective, this paper outlines the idea of a set of epistemic vices permeating organizations, along with examples of unethical epistemic conduct by organizational actors. While existing organizational research has examined various epistemic virtues that make people and organizations effective and responsible epistemic agents, much less is known about the epistemic vices that make them ineffective and irresponsible ones. Accordingly, this paper introduces vice epistemology, a nascent but growing subfield of virtue epistemology which, to the best of our knowledge, has yet to be explicitly developed in terms of business ethics. The paper concludes by outlining a business ethics research agenda on epistemic vice, with implications for responding to epistemic vices and their illegitimacy in practice. (shrink)

Among the many features that go hand in hand with the recent onset of populism in many countries, an interesting phenomenon is surely the shift of public discourse in the direction of social media. Is there any-thing special about communication in social media that is particularly suitable for the development of such movements and ideas? In what fol-lows, I provide an attempt to read Facebook comments as showing an anaphoric structure. This analysis permits me to give emphasis on a number (...) of interesting features that such communications exhibit. Final-ly, I try also to highlight some of the main implications of this model in comparison with ordinary communication. (shrink)