Truth, Thinking, Testimony, and Trust

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harvey Siegel
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Alvin Goldman ◽  
Instrumental Value

In his recent work in social epistemology, Alvin Goldman argues that truth is the fundamental epistemic end of education, and that critical thinking is of merely instrumental value with respect to that fundamental end. He also argues that there is a central place for testimony and trust in the classroom, and an educational danger in overemphasizing the fostering of students’ critical thinking. This chapter takes issue with these claims and argues that (1) critical thinking is a fundamental end of education, independently of its instrumental tie to truth, and (2) it is critical thinking, rather than testimony and trust, that is educationally basic.

Cultivating Reason

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harvey Siegel
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Epistemic Dependence ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Educational Ideal

The Western philosophical tradition has historically valorized the cultivation of reason as a fundamental intellectual ideal. This ideal continues to be defended by many as educationally basic. However, recent philosophical work has challenged it on several fronts, including worries stemming from relativistic tendencies in the philosophy of science, the apparent ubiquity of epistemic dependence in social epistemology, and broad critiques of objectionable hegemony launched from feminist and postmodernist perspectives. This chapter briefly reviews the historical record, connects the cultivation of reason to the educational ideal of critical thinking, spells out the latter ideal, and evaluates these challenges. It ends by sketching a general, “transcendental” reply to all such critiques of reason.

Testimonial Smothering and Domestic Violence Disclosure in Clinical Contexts

Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jack Warman
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Personal Histories ◽  
Domestic Violence And Abuse

Abstract Domestic violence and abuse (DVA) are at last coming to be recognised as serious global public health problems. Nevertheless, many women with personal histories of DVA decline to disclose them to healthcare practitioners. In the health sciences, recent empirical work has identified many factors that impede DVA disclosure, known as barriers to disclosure. Drawing on recent work in social epistemology on testimonial silencing, we might wonder why so many people withhold their testimony and whether there is some kind of epistemic injustice afoot here. In this paper, I offer some philosophical reflections on DVA disclosure in clinical contexts and the associated barriers to disclosure. I argue that women with personal histories of DVA are vulnerable to a certain form of testimonial injustice in clinical contexts, namely, testimonial smothering, and that this may help to explain why they withhold that testimony. It is my contention that this can help explain the low rates of DVA disclosure by patients to healthcare practitioners.

scholarly journals A moral education? British Values, colour-blindness, and preventing terrorism

2021 ◽  
pp. 026101832199892
Author(s):  
Christine Winter ◽  
Charlotte Heath-Kelly ◽  
Amna Kaleem ◽  
China Mills
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Secondary Schools ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
Education Sector ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Colour Blindness ◽  
British Education

The Prevent Strategy tasks the British education sector with preventing radicalisation and extremism. It defines extremism as opposition to fundamental British Values and requires schools to promote these values and refer students and staff believed to be vulnerable to radicalisation. Little research examining the enactment of the Prevent and British Values curriculum has included students. To fill this gap, we investigated how students, teachers and Prevent/British Values trainers engage with this curriculum by conducting individual interviews in two multicultural secondary schools in England, framing the study in recent work on colour-blindness. We found that whilst multiculturalism was celebrated, discussion about everyday structural racism was avoided. Critical thinking was performed strategically, and classrooms were securitised as sites for identifying potential safeguarding referrals. Moral education, colour-blindness and safeguarding intersected to negate racialised experiences, whilst exposing students and teachers to racialised Prevent referrals.

After the Gold Rush: Cleaning Up after Steve Fuller’s Theosis

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 505-523
Author(s):  
William T. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Gold Rush ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
New Ideas

Remedios and Dusek have provided a useful contextualization of Steve Fuller’s recent work in social epistemology. While they have provided some good criticisms of some of Fuller’s new ideas, they fail to provide a systematic critique of Fuller’s retreat from a naturalistic and materialist social epistemology for one embracing transhumanism, intelligent design, and the proactionary imperative. An alternative approach is developed, drawing on Fuller’s early work and incorporating recent work on our biological and cultural evolution as a species.

scholarly journals EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE IN THE SPACE OF REASONS

Episteme ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Congdon
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Space Of Reasons ◽  
Miranda Fricker ◽  
Epistemological Framework

AbstractIn this paper, I make explicit some implicit commitments to realism and conceptualism in recent work in social epistemology exemplified by Miranda Fricker and Charles Mills. I offer a survey of recent writings at the intersection of social epistemology, feminism, and critical race theory, showing that commitments to realism and conceptualism are at once implied yet undertheorized in the existing literature. I go on to offer an explicit defense of these commitments by drawing from the epistemological framework of John McDowell, demonstrating the relevance of the metaphor of the “space of reasons” for theorizing and criticizing instances of epistemic injustice. I then point out how McDowell’s own view requires expansion and revision in light of Mills' concept of “epistemologies of ignorance.” I conclude that, when their strengths are used to make up for each others' weaknesses, Mills and McDowell’s positions mutually reinforce one another, producing a powerful model for theorizing instances of systematic ignorance and false belief.

Hold on a Minute Here: What Happened to Critical Thinking in the Information Age?

1996 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Brouwer
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Computer Literacy ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Electronic Mail ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Cultural Artifact ◽  
Critical Thinking Instruction ◽  
The Impact

Information technology has come to occupy a central place in higher education. Claims for increased faculty productivity and improved teaching and learning through information technology can be widely found. However, too often these claims contain faulty assumptions or are not backed with sound empirical evidence. While it is evident that there are reasons to be optimistic that increased use of educational technology may bring about gains in productivity and improvements in pedagogy, there are also grounds for concern. So with the emergence of this technology comes the need to reexamine our traditional conception of computer literacy as well as to extend our approaches to critical thinking instruction so that questions about technology are included. This article will consider a theoretical framework for understanding the impact of the computer, and as such recognize the computer as cultural artifact: a tool that both amplifies and reduces aspects of human experience. Using this framework, two cases will be examined: electronic mail and the Internet (World Wide Web). Finally, an expanded conception of computer literacy, one that builds upon this analysis, will be discussed.

scholarly journals Catholic Intellectuals and the Invention of Pluralism in France

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
H. S. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Important Influence ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Christian Democracy ◽  
Jacques Maritain ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American

AbstractThis article traces the invention of pluralist political language in France to a very specific ideological source: Jacques Maritain, Emmanuel Mounier, and the progressive Catholic circles that gathered around the journalEspritin the 1930s. It shows that the dialogue with the émigré Russian Jewish sociologist Georges Gurvitch was an important influence on theEspritcircle, but also that it was Maritain rather than Gurvitch who did most to disseminate the language of pluralism. The paper thus builds on recent work according Maritain and Christian democracy a central place in the intellectual history of twentieth-century politics. It also contests the Anglo-American bias that has dominated histories of pluralism, and instead places France at the centre.

scholarly journals On the Assessed Strength of Agents’ Bias

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Landes ◽  
Barbara Osimani
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Single Agent ◽  
Entire Group ◽  
Surprising Result ◽  
Commonsense Reasoning ◽  
Ceteris Paribus

AbstractRecent work in social epistemology has shown that, in certain situations, less communication leads to better outcomes for epistemic groups. In this paper, we show that, ceteris paribus, a Bayesian agent may believe less strongly that a single agent is biased than that an entire group of independent agents is biased. We explain this initially surprising result and show that it is in fact a consequence one may conceive on the basis of commonsense reasoning.

scholarly journals Responsibilism and the Analytic-Sociological Debate in Social Epistemology

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Dieleman
Keyword(s):  
Social Epistemology ◽  
The State ◽  
Epistemic Responsibility ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Alvin Goldman ◽  
State Of The Field

This is the second paper in the invited collection. Dieleman provides an overview of the “state-of-the-field” debate between Analytic Social Epistemology (ASE), represented by Alvin Goldman, and what Dieleman calls the Sociological Social Epistemology (SSE), represented by Steve Fuller. In response to this ongoing debate, this paper has two related and complementary objectives. The first is to show that the debate between analytic and sociological versions of social epistemology is overly simplistic and doesn’t take into account additional positions that are available and, indeed, have been available since social epistemology was (re)introduced in the mid to late 1980s. The second is to uncover and tell a story of how Lorraine Code’s Epistemic Responsibility is one such additional position. Looking to Code's Epistemic Responsibility reveals the artificiality of the debate between analytic and sociological social epistemologists.

Kant and the Enlightenment's Contribution to Social Epistemology

Episteme ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Axel Gelfert
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
German Enlightenment ◽  
Scientific Experts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Epistemology Of Testimony ◽  
Historical Trajectory

ABSTRACTThe present paper argues for the relevance of Immanuel Kant and the German Enlightenment to contemporary social epistemology. Rather than distancing themselves from the alleged ‘individualism’ of Enlightenment philosophers, social epistemologists would be well-advised to look at the substantive discussion of social-epistemological questions in the works of Kant and other Enlightenment figures. After a brief rebuttal of the received view of the Enlightenment as an intrinsically individualist enterprise, this paper charts the historical trajectory of philosophical discussions of testimony as a source of knowledge, via such philosophers as C. Thomasius, C. A. Crusius, J. M. Chladenius, G. F. Meier, and finally Kant. Building on recent work on Kant's epistemology of testimony, the paper considers Kant's broader contributions to social epistemology. This includes an analysis of Kant's comments on the social basis of contingent epistemic standards, e.g. in the sciences, as well as on problems arising from the management of what Kant calls the growing ‘volume of knowledge’. Special attention is paid to the relation between Kant's views and contemporary problems arising both in the context of education and from our increased reliance on scientific experts.

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