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This paper argues that individuating practices are produced through iterative processes of community and agent-level interactions. This claim will be demonstrated by using three case studies from biology: The structuring of data categories for data collection tables and models; establishing spatial and temporal threshold markers or limits; and the comparative use of phenomenal characteristics as cues for object identification. By drawing from examples of data classification and comparative analysis in the biological sciences, I offer a view about ‘individuation’ as double-barreled according to the method of co-constitutive conceptual analysis. Specifically, the capacity—i.e., the ability to individuate—is co-constituted by community level choices and agent applications: Individuation’s evidential role is generated, revised, and refined by scientific communities and their members through an iterative process of community and agent-level interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of ideas and arguments developed in my book Prejudice: A Study in Non-Ideal (Oxford University Press, 2021; paperback edition, 2022). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I argue that data-sharing risks becoming epistemically extractivist and is a practice sensitive to Linda Martín Alcoff´s challenges for extractivist epistemologies. I situate data-sharing as a socio-epistemic practice that gives rise to ethical and epistemic challenges. I draw on the findings of an institutional ethnography of an international social science research project to identify several ethical and epistemic concerns, including epistemic extractivism. I identify Alcoff's first and second challenge for extractivist epistemologies in the findings of the empirical investigation and argue that they are important considerations for the ethics and socio-epistemological functioning of data-sharing in social science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I draw attention to the phenomenon of warranted epistemic blame in order to pose a challenge for most forms of epistemic instrumentalism, which is the view that all of the demands of epistemic normativity are requirements of instrumental rationality. Because of the way in which the instrumentalist takes the force of one’s epistemic reasons to derive from one’s own individually held ends, the instrumentalist faces unique difficulties in explaining our standing to blame one another for violations of epistemic norms. In many cases, it is unclear why, according to the instrumentalist, we might be entitled to others’ adherence to epistemic norms at all. This is a serious problem. The upshot is that theorists of epistemic normativity should be prepared reject most forms of epistemic instrumentalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social epistemology of science has adopted agent-based computer simulations as one of its core methods for investigating the dynamics of scientific inquiry. The epistemic status of these highly idealized models is currently under active debate in which they are often associated either with predictive or the argumentative functions. These two functions roughly correspond to interpreting simulations as virtual experiments or formalized thought experiments, respectively. This paper advances the argumentative account of modeling by proposing that models serve as a means to (re)conceptualize the macro-level dynamics of complex social epistemic interactions. I apply results from the epistemology of scientific modeling and the psychology of mental simulation to the ongoing debate in the social epistemology of science. Instead of considering simulation models as predictive devices, I view them as artifacts that exemplify abstract hypothetical properties of complex social epistemic processes in order to advance scientific understanding, hypothesis formation, and communication. Models need not be accurate representations to serve these purposes. They should be regarded as pragmatic cognitive tools that engender rather than replace intuitions in philosophical reasoning and argumentation. Furthermore, I aim to explain why the community tends to converge around few model templates: Since models have the potential to transform our intuitive comprehension of the subject of inquiry, successful models may literally capture the imagination of the modeling community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People are manifestly polarized. On many topics, extreme perspectives are much easier to find than ‘reasonable’, ‘moderate’ perspectives. A natural reaction to this situation is that something epistemically irrational is afoot. Here, I question this natural reaction. I argue that often polarization is epistemically innocuous. In particular, I argue that certain mechanisms that underlie polarization are rational, and polarized beliefs are often fully justified. Additionally, even reflective subjects, who recognize themselves as in a polarized or polarizing situation shouldn’t necessarily reduce confidence in the relevant beliefs. Finally, I draw attention to some often overlooked epistemic benefits associated with polarization. A fuller understanding of the epistemology of polarization requires incorporating both the potential costs and the potential benefits, and being more precise about exactly what is—and is not—epistemically objectionable in these situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central to the particularist project, one that has become the consensus in the philosophy of conspiracy theory theory, is the claim that a general dismissal of these things called `conspiracy theories' is unsustainable. That is, if we want to say a conspiracy theory is suspicious such that we should not believe it, then we have to engage in at least some investigation of it. Particularists have detailed just why a general attitude of skepticism towards conspiracy theories is implausible; they have, in effect, created the case against generalism. The case for particularism, then, has largely been about challenging and rebutting generalist arguments. But what of the bigger picture? If particularists argue that we should not assume conspiracy theories are mad, bad, or dangerous but, rather, investigate them, then how should we go about that investigation? In this paper I describe (some) of the preliminary concerns the particularist (and the generalist) needs to account for when developing an ethics of investigation into these things called `conspiracy theories.' Whilst this paper does not provide a framework for the investigation of conspiracy theories, it provides the framework for such a framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ+) people are experiencing increasingly varied visibility on social media due to ongoing digitalization. In this paper, I draw on social epistemology and phenomenological accounts of the digital (Frost-Arnold in: Lackey (ed) The epistemic dangers of context collapse online, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2021; Krueger and Osler in Philos Topics 47(2):205–231, 2019; Hine in: Ethnography for the internet: embedded, embodied and everyday, Bloomsbury, London, 2015), and argue that, for LGBTQ+ individuals, social media provides a space for connecting with people with shared lived experiences. This, in turn, makes it possible for social media to enable feelings of belonging. By interacting with other LGBTQ+ people online, LGBTQ+ individuals are enabled to imagine their own being in the world and to feel like they belong. This is especially important when we consider that, for LGBTQ+ identities, it may be more complicated to feel connected due to marginalization and (fear of) discrimination. This paper not only draws on literature from phenomenology and social epistemology on the digital, but also presents and analyzes interviews that were conducted in order to explore the social media experiences of LGBTQ+ people through a phenomenology and social epistemology informed framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under conditions of high social and political polarization, expressing political anger online toward systemic injustice faces an apparent trilemma: Express none but lose anger's valuable goods; express anger to heterogeneous audiences but risk aggravating inter-group polarization; or express anger to like-minded people but succumb to the epistemic pitfalls and extremist tendencies inherent to homogeneous groups. Solving the trilemma requires cultivating an online environment as a deliberative system composed of four kinds of groups—each with distinct purposes and norms. I argue that applying empirically-guided design principles to this systems framework provides political anger a place where its powers can serve justice without damaging the epistemic, ethical, emotional, and community resources required for a democratic path to correcting systemic injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses how multiple individual credences on logically related issues should be aggregated into collective binary beliefs. We call this binarizing belief aggregation. It is vulnerable to dilemmas such as the discursive dilemma or the lottery paradox: proposition-wise independent aggregation can generate inconsistent or not deductively closed collective judgments. Addressing this challenge using the familiar axiomatic approach, we introduce general conditions on a binarizing belief aggregation rule, including rationality conditions on individual inputs and collective outputs, and determine which rules (if any) satisfy different combinations of these conditions. Furthermore, we analyze similarities and differences between our proofs and other related proofs in the literature and conclude that the problem of binarizing belief aggregation is a free-standing aggregation problem not reducible to judgment aggregation or probabilistic opinion pooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses disadvantaging situations that deaf students encounter in higher education in Sweden. We report two recent cases of deaf students’ academic welfare being put at risk. We foreground in these cases the ‘odd situations’ that arise when provisions that fail to access the particular nature of deaf experience also fail to secure deaf students’ participation rights, to be and become the deaf person they wish to be, lead the life they wish to live, and so on. Often, the ‘oddness’ of the situations that arise is in part indicated by no-one involved lacking in good intentions or not doing their very best: there is no lack of good will, but a lack of shared understanding. What deaf students know differently is rarely present in deliberation and not part of forward planning. We infer that situations of this sort reflect epistemic injustice. We propose that this form of formative epistemic injustice – educators not taking on board what deaf students know – can perhaps be overcome by higher education institutions proactively involving deaf students in matters that concern both them and future deaf students.

In this article, the authors review current philosophical discussions about the essence and specific features of conspiracy beliefs, the purpose of which is to formulate its relevant definitions. The parties to the discussion are grouped around two conventionally distinguished positions, designated by the terms «universalism» («generalism») and «particularism» («minimalism»). The purpose of the article is to reveal the content of the philosophical discussion of the question about preferable way to theorize conspiracy beliefs. The purpose of the study determines the choice of comparative analysis as a key method. Particularism and universalism are compared by the authors from the point of view of the views of their representatives on the genesis of the content of conspiracy beliefs, the characteristic mechanisms for justifying such beliefs, and a number of socio-epistemological problems that arise in connection with the study of conspiracy beliefs. Based on the comparative analysis carried out, the authors draw conclusions about the adequacy of the very distinction between theoretical positions in the discussion of conspiracy theories using the dichotomy «universalism – particularism». The novelty of the presented conclusions lies not only in highlighting the content of philosophical discussions around the issues of theorization of conspiracy beliefs, but also in the critical analysis of ideas about the opposition of particularism and universalism. The practical significance of the study is to identify the limitations of the conceptual apparatus used to discuss the philosophical reflection of conspiracy beliefs.

Philosophers who study conspiracy theories have increasingly addressed the questions of where conspiracy theories come from, what such theories do, and what to do about them. This essay serves as a commentary on the answers to these questions offered by contributors to this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partisan epistemology – individuals granting greater credibility to co-partisan sources in evaluating information – is often taken to be evidence of directionally motivated reasoning in which concerns about group membership override concerns about accuracy. Against this dominant view, I outline a novel accuracy-based account of this mode of reasoning. According to this account, partisan epistemology stems from the inference that co-partisans are more likely to be right as they have superior epistemic access to the relevant facts and seek to realize the correct values. I argue that this theory fits better with relevant findings than motivated-reasoning theories of partisan epistemology. Finally, I suggest it has adequate explanatory power vis-à-vis patterns of misinformation belief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies two tendencies in left-wing approaches toward the social sciences. The first expresses skepticism towards science as a kind of product of the ruling ideology that solely reproduces the status quo. The second worries about the capacity of scientific inquiry to actually change people's ingrained beliefs and prejudices. Antonio Gramsci and W.E.B. Du Bois are representative of these two diverging approaches. Their views on science, however, offer more commonalities than at first meet the eye. They are both critical of sociological traditions that seek to discover universal laws of society, arguing that such an approach fails to grasp the complexity of causality and the role of human action in shaping their lives and history. On the other hand, both see the potential for rigorous and nuanced scientific analysis to offer grounds for concrete action and warn off wishful thinking. By combining their views, this article presents a conception of the role and potential of social scientific inquiry for progressive movements toward social change that navigates between the double-sided concerns represented by Gramsci and Du Bois. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terms such as 'fake news' and 'post-truth' circulate freely today within the popular lexicon. It is an environment where objective facts have 'become less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief' (OED). Central here is to understand the conceptual grounding of subjective opinion as a historically specific epistemological structure of social communication. My paper will draw on the Hegelian tradition of critical theory that has in unique ways unified an analysis of the nexus between socio-economic structures and epistemological frameworks. Here I name opinion as a historically specific epistemological structure of self-certainty, which receives validation within what Adorno called the Halbbildung of industrial culture, a form of social consciousness cultivated by the spread of information and economic imperative. It will be argued that the concept of opinion becomes a vital question for understanding, in this 'post-truth' landscape, current standards of instantaneous communication and cultural transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 improve or protect epistemic environments. The contribution of the environment to epistemic standings is explained through recent developments in epistemology and cognitive science, including embodied cognition, embedded cognition, extended cognition and distributed cognition. The paper examines how these developments support epistemic environmentalism, as well as contributes theoretical resources to make epistemic assessments of dynamic environments. The epistemic environmentalist procedure from the assessment of an individual environment to changes made to that environment based on promoting the attainment of epistemic goods is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 relationships of opaque epistemic dependence. Such relationships of trust are taken to be possible only between agents who can be held accountable for their actions. But today, knowledge production in many fields makes use of AI applications that are epistemically opaque in an essential manner. This creates a problem for the social epistemology of scientific knowledge, as scientists are now epistemically dependent on AI applications that are not agents, and therefore not appropriate candidates for trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, some scholars have argued that testimonial injustice may not only be due to prejudice toward the speaker, but also prejudice toward the content of what the speaker says. I argue that such accounts do not merely expand our picture of epistemic injustice, but give us reason to radically revise our approach to reducing testimonial injustice. The dominant conception of this project focuses on reducing speaker prejudice. But even if one were to successfully do so, the frequency of content prejudice means that one would still commit testimonial injustice in many of the same circumstances. I argue that we must reorient the project of reducing testimonial injustice toward critiquing the ideologies that produce it. I conclude with a sketch of what such a research program might look like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Agora (0211-6642) is the property of Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Servicio de Publicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper argues for two propositions. (I) Large asymmetries of power, status and influence exist between economists. These asymmetries constitute a hierarchy that is steeper than it could be and steeper than hierarchies in other disciplines. (II) This situation has potentially significant epistemic consequences. I collect data on the social organization of economics to show (I). I then argue that the hierarchy in economics heightens conservative selection biases, restricts criticism between economists and disincentivizes the development of novel research. These factors together constrain economics' capacity to develop new beliefs and reduce the likelihood that its outputs will be true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Made in languaging aims to help ecolinguists with recrafting ideation and human practices. Inspired by Alexander and Stibbe, I turn to how ecolinguistic expertise can favour life-sustaining relations. In approaching normative goals, I start with how knowledge is made, self-sustains and is disseminated. Ecolinguistic analysis of languages, discourse and narratives can thus be enriched by tracing how practices inform languaging. In turning to epistemic agency, I emphasise the following: (1) building corpora popularia, organised bodies, in order to enhance life-sustaining relations; (2) illuminating life from the inside; and (3) developing bioecological awareness. I contend that, while all living beings use coordinative activities to bring forth what appears to us, humans also use wording types and practices. As we use the already known, languaging enables subjecthood, a person's little worlds, and a group's common realities. Hence, what appears as (and to) experience is made in languaging. When linked to normative concerns, the resulting middle worlds also offer means of putting knowledge to work. As in social epistemology, one might regard 'wealth and well-being' as a marker of public good. Yet, critical work shows, appeal to these values is anthropomorphic. In order to encompass nonhumans and the biogenic, one can reject market orientatation by tracing languaging, and knowing, back to living. In showing benefits of so doing, I contrast two evolving wording types. The case of growthism, I suggest, attests to praxis and contrasts starkly with the ideational value of life-sustaining relations. Yet, in both cases, languaging meshes practices, happenings and the effects of action. The move shows how one can challenge the hypostatisation of ideology by pursuing how epistemic agency can contribute to the future of evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Studies (Routledge) is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Some debates about the role of non-epistemic values in science discuss the so-called Value-Free Ideal together with the autonomy thesis, to the point that they may be assumed to be intertwined. As I will argue in this article, the two are independent from one another, are supported by different arguments, and ought to be disentangled. I will also show that the arguments against value-freedom and supporting a value-laden conception of science, are different from the arguments against autonomy, which support democratized science. Moreover, while some of the arguments against autonomy and for democratized science may actually be consistent with value-freedom, they conflict with some philosophical views about the internal diversity of well-designed epistemic communities. This article distinguishes the Value-Free Ideal and the autonomy thesis, as well as their antitheses, and investigates their relations to some of the socio-epistemological models of the social organization of scientific research. Its aim is to make explicit some incompatibilities between different normative frameworks developed in philosophy of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the financial crisis of 2008, many economists expressed dissatisfaction with the state of macroeconomics. They criticised deficiencies in the dominant dynamic stochastic general equilibrium modelling approach and conceptions of good macroeconomic research behind that dominance. This paper argues that there is a deeper problem in macroeconomics, which remains unaddressed. I connect existing literature critical of the institutions of macroeconomics and of economics in general to the institutional preconditions of effective criticism outlined by the philosopher Helen Longino. I find that as an epistemic community, macroeconomics does not function in a way that adequately supports critical evaluation of established beliefs, norms and practices. This failure may partly explain why many views on macroeconomic modelling, the tenability of which economists questioned after the crisis, were able to persist for so long. My analysis gives additional support to several recent proposals for institutional reforms in economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While positive appraisals of testimonial knowledge by Enlightenment thinkers have recently begun to receive more attention, such discussions often operate at a very general level, leaving out much of the context and dynamics of specific types of testimonial interactions. Drawing on extended passages from Georg Friedrich Meier and Immanuel Kant, the present paper looks at the specific case of scholarly testimony and the various epistemic dangers that can befall the interaction between scholars (or, in modern parlance, ‘experts’) and lay audiences. While Kant recognises the imperfections of many expert testifiers (and pays special attention to the figure of the ‘pedant’), he is keenly aware of the – greater – risk of what may be called ‘epistemic populism’, which seeks ‘to make imperceptible the blatantly obvious inequality between loquacious ignorance and thorough science’ (AA, XI, 141). Furthermore, Kant suggests, those with superior epistemic authority can justifiably disengage from interactions with those who, as laypersons, arrogate to themselves equal epistemic standing and are unwilling to appreciate the rational force of evidence and argumentation. Prolonging interaction in such a scenario would be futile and may well be ‘contrary to the dignity of reason’ (AA, XI, 143). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I analyze some disagreements about scientific ontology as cases of disagreement between epistemic peers. I maintain that the particularities of these cases are better understood if epistemic peerhood is relativized to a perspective-like index of epistemic goals and values. Taking the debate on the metaphysics of laws of nature as a case study, I explore the limits and possibilities of a trans-perspective assessment of positions regarding scientific ontology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many extant theories of placebo focus on their causal structure wherein placebo effects are those that originate from select features of the therapy (e.g. client expectations or "incidental" features like size and shape). Although such accounts can distinguish placebos from standard medical treatments, they cannot distinguish placebos from everyday occurrences, for example, when positive feedback improves our performance on a task. Providing a social-epistemological account of a treatment context can rule out such occurrences, and furthermore reveal a new way to distinguish clinical placebos from standard medical treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that there are irreducibly social epistemic values alongside more traditional epistemic values such as knowledge and true belief. In particular, I argue that what I call "epistemic convergence" is one such value, and that it can help us explain the badness of social epistemic pathologies, such as testimonial injustice and epistemic bubbles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ignorance, or the lack of knowledge, appears to be steadily spreading, despite the increasing availability of information. The notion of informed ignorance herein proposed to describe the widespread position of being exposed to an abundance of information yet lacking relevant knowledge, which is tied to the exponential growth in misinformation driven by technological developments and social media. Linked to many of societies' most looming catastrophes, from political polarization to the climate crisis, practices related to knowledge and information are deemed some of the most imminent and daunting modern threats, evidenced by the latest report of the World Economic Forum, which has named misinformation the most severe short-term global risk. This paper's epistemic perspective links the properties of today's information culture and the ways in which it interacts with individual capacities and limitations in current technological and socio-political contexts. Such a position is analyzed through the lens of epistemic principles as a contemporary epistemic phenotype that emerges from an environment of ill-adapted and excessive information inputs and leads to a distinctive type of social injustice that is primarily epistemic in nature. While equity and accessibility are widely discussed as important contributing factors to epistemic discrepancies, other overlooked but fundamental issues underlying epistemic injustices are considered, such as information manipulation, cognitive limitations, and epistemic degradation. To effectively face this elusive threat, we propose an inclusive viewpoint that harnesses knowledge from cognitive science, science and technology studies, and social epistemology to inform a unifying theory of its main impacts and driving forces. By adjusting a modern epistemic framework to the described phenomena, we intend to contextually outline its trajectory and possible means of containment based on a shared responsibility to maintain ethical epistemic standards. In a time of international unrest and mounting civil acts of violence, it is pertinent to emphasize the ethical principles of knowledge systems and authorities and suggest policy adaptations to maintain a social contract based on the shared values of truth and freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing demand for transparency in AI has recently come under scrutiny. The question is often posted in terms of "epistemic double standards", and whether the standards for transparency in AI ought to be higher than, or equivalent to, our standards for ordinary human reasoners. I agree that the push for increased transparency in AI deserves closer examination, and that comparing these standards to our standards of transparency for other opaque systems is an appropriate starting point. I suggest that a more fruitful exploration of this question will involve a different comparison class. We routinely treat judgments made by highly trained experts in specialized fields as fair or well grounded even though—by the nature of expert/layperson division of epistemic labor—an expert will not be able to provide an explanation of the reasoning behind these judgments that makes sense to most other people. Regardless, laypeople are thought to be acting reasonably—and ethically—in deferring to the judgments of experts that concern their areas of specialization. I suggest that we reframe our question regarding the appropriate standards of transparency in AI as one that asks when, why, and to what degree it would be ethical to accept opacity in AI. I argue that our epistemic relation to certain opaque AI technology may be relevantly similar to the layperson's epistemic relation to the expert in certain respects, such that the successful expert/layperson division of epistemic labor can serve as a blueprint for the ethical use of opaque AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distinction between subjectivist and objectivist approaches has persisted as a fundamental dichotomy in sociological theory for many years. Pierre Bourdieu’s epistemological sociology challenges these opposing approaches and aims to overcome the artificial dichotomies that have long plagued the social sciences. In this article, we argue that Bourdieu opens a third epistemological path, effectively ending the conflict between objectivism and subjectivism that has divided the social sciences into two poles. To achieve this, we explore the influence of the French historical epistemological tradition on Bourdieu's sociological production, emphasizing the importance of recognizing this tradition in shaping Bourdieu’s sociological theory. After clarifying the basic epistemological principles that scientifically grounded sociological studies should follow, we delve into Bourdieu’s critique of subjectivism and objectivism. Finally, we emphasize the importance and potential of adopting Bourdieu’s relational epistemology, which he proposes to do away with essentialist thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Epistemology of Protest" by José Medina is a book that explores the normative arguments surrounding the duty to protest injustice. It emphasizes the transformative power of protest in creating alternative publics and challenges misconceptions about protest in western liberal democracies. The book offers a pluralistic and contextualist approach to protest, focusing on the communicative and epistemic power of collective learning and discovery. It also discusses the importance of centering the voices of the oppressed and recognizing the communicative and epistemic agency of protesters. The text raises questions about the scope of protest, the role of civility and incivility, and the issue of silencing within protest movements. It calls for scholars and activists to actively work towards including marginalized voices in discussions of gender and sexuality. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Journal of Near East University Islamic Research Center / Yakın Doğu Üniversitesi İslam Tetkikleri Merkezi Dergisi is the property of Journal of Near East University Islamic Research Center and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper investigates the epistemic injustice in conflict reporting, where foreign parachute reporters collaborate with local producers and 'fixers.' Drawing from existing research on 'fixers' and other media professionals covering conflict zones and the philosophy of emotion and knowledge, I address the following questions: What is the role of local and foreign media professionals' affective proximity and professional distance in the social epistemology of conflict news production and the epistemic hierarchy among the collaborators? What implications is this particular social epistemology believed to have for conflict reporting accuracy and ethics? Based on 36 semi-structured to in-depth interviews with foreign and local media professionals covering Ukraine, Israel, and Palestine and further online and offline contact with the Ukrainian ecosystem of foreign/conflict news production, I argue that the collaboration between foreign and local media professionals is sometimes marked by identity-prejudicial credibility deficit granted to local media professionals because of their affective proximity to the events they cover. This epistemic injustice mirrors other power vectors and the dominant journalistic professional ideology that values disinvolvement, distance, and detachment. In practice, the (local) media professionals' affective proximity to their contexts is often appreciated as embodied knowledge beneficial to the nuance, accuracy, and ethics of journalistic practices and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criticism can sometimes provoke defensive reactions, particularly when it implicates identities people hold dear. For instance, feminists told they are upholding rape culture might become angry or upset because the criticism conflicts with an identity that is important to them. These kinds of defensive reactions are a primary focus of this paper. What is it to be defensive in this way, and why do some kinds of criticism or implied criticism tend to provoke this kind of response? What are the connections between defensiveness, identity, and active ignorance? What are the social, political, and epistemic consequences of the tendency to defensiveness? Are there ways to improve the situation? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a seemingly innocuous fact that people learn from the testimony of authorities. Children learn from parents, students learn from teachers, and laypeople learn from experts. What makes this appearance a little less innocent, however, is that some of these same people would have believed sources of testimony that are not authoritative, e.g., unreliable peers and charlatans. Since such hearers of testimony could form as many false beliefs as true ones, they appear to be unreliable consumers of testimony. Therefore, we might be tempted to question whether such hearers really do learn from authorities on account of their apparent unreliability. The standard response to this conflict of intuitions (henceforth referred to as “Goldberg’s puzzle”) is to affirm the reliability of the consumers of testimony by excluding problematic speakers from the type of testimonial exchange in which the hearer is engaged. I will argue that the standard response is ad hoc because it does not provide a principled basis on which to identify the type of testimonial exchange in which the hearer is engaged. In order to improve the standard response, I will argue that conceiving of the relevant testimonial exchanges as achievements of joint agency requires holding fixed the practical identities of both hearer and speaker across the relevant worlds that are being used to evaluate the reliability of the testimonial exchange according to a standard possible worlds semantics for counterfactuals and that such a characterization of the modal space provides a principled basis for solving Goldberg’s puzzle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We review several topics of philosophical interest connected to misleading online content. First we consider proposed definitions of different types of misleading content. Then we consider the epistemology of misinformation, focusing on approaches from virtue epistemology and social epistemology. Finally we discuss how misinformation is related to belief polarization, and argue that models of rational polarization present special challenges for conceptualizing fake news and misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferation of conspiracy theories poses a significant threat to democratic decision-making. To counter this threat, many political theorists advocate countering conspiracy theories with 'more speech' (or 'counterspeech'). Yet conspiracy theories are notoriously resistant to counterspeech. This article aims to conceptualise and defend a novel form of counterspeech – narrative counterspeech – that is singularly well-placed to overcome this resistance. My argument proceeds in three steps. First, I argue that conspiracy theories pose a special problem for counterspeech for three interconnected reasons relating to salience, emotion and internal coherence. Drawing on recent work in social epistemology, philosophy of emotion and cognitive science, I then demonstrate that narrative forms of counterspeech constitute an apt response to this diagnosis. Finally, I forestall two objections: the first questions the likely effectiveness of narrative counterspeech; the second insists that, even if it were effective, it would remain unacceptably manipulative. Neither objection, I contend, is ultimately compelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I argue that various epistemic challenges associated with eating disorders (EDs) can negatively affect the care of already marginalized patient groups with various EDs. I will first outline deficiencies in our understanding of EDs—in research, healthcare settings, and beyond. I will then illustrate with examples cases where discriminatory misconceptions about what EDs are, the presentation and treatment of EDs, and who gets EDs, instantiate obstacles for the treatment of various ED patient groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this brief commentary, we offer thoughts on Thomas Kelly's Bias: A Philosophical Study. We focus on the book's relevance to the study of cognitive biases, including Kelly's discussion of naïve realism (in the psychologists' sense). While we are largely enthusiastic about Kelly's theorizing, we also provide some pushback against his notion of emergent biases. We hope that psychologists will engage with Kelly's work and might consider how some philosophical refinements could improve the empirical study of biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can a hearer be rationally justified to have beliefs based on testimony alone when the source of his information is known to have conflicting epistemic goals? When it comes to belief justification, existing theories either recommend avoiding epistemic conflicts of interest or ignoring them. This is an important epistemological limitation. A theory that comes in degrees, capable of explaining what beliefs we are justified to hold and why, despite epistemic conflict of interest, is still lacking. Building on a game-theoretical approach, I suggest such a theory and argue that the hearer can justify some beliefs on testimony alone. This justification relies on an equilibrium concept, which is only reached in the long run. In addition, the hearer’s justified beliefs will always be less accurate than those held by the original source. For instance, assume the speaker is a climate scientist who has good reasons to believe that a 2 ∘ C increase in temperature will lower the current global GDP by 10 percentage points. Under epistemic conflict of interest, a hearer will typically be justified to a belief close to that value, but not equal to it. The smaller the epistemic conflict of interest, the closer, on average, the hearer’s and speaker’s belief. These results highlight the importance of scientific norms which, in practice, are the embodiment of these equilibrium mechanisms and thus of scientific credibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]