The Epistemic Dangers of Context Collapse Online

2021 ◽  
pp. 437-456
Author(s):  
Karen Frost-Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic Communities ◽  
Online Harassment ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Normative Framework ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
Multiple Contexts ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Online Environments

In this chapter, Karen Frost-Arnold provides a close analysis of the epistemological challenges posed by context collapse in online environments and argues that virtue epistemology provides a helpful normative framework for addressing some of these problems. “Context collapse” is the blurring or merging of multiple contexts or audiences into one. Frost-Arnold identifies at least three epistemic challenges posed by context collapse. First, context collapse facilitates online harassment, which causes epistemic harm by decreasing the diversity of epistemic communities. Second, context collapse threatens the integrity of marginalized epistemic communities in which some types of true beliefs flourish. Third, context collapse promotes misunderstanding, as understanding relies on background knowledge which, in turn, is often context sensitive. Frost-Arnold then argues that we can cultivate and promote the epistemic virtues of trustworthiness and discretion in order to address some of these problems.

Clinical trials and the origins of pharmaceutical fraud: Parke, Davis & Company, virtue epistemology, and the history of the fundamental antagonism

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 533-558
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Gabriel ◽  
Bennett Holman
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Pharmaceutical Industry ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Medical Science ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Laboratory Science ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
History Of ◽  
Origin Point

This paper describes one possible origin point for fraudulent behavior within the American pharmaceutical industry. We argue that during the late nineteenth century therapeutic reformers sought to promote both laboratory science and increasingly systematized forms of clinical experiment as a new basis for therapeutic knowledge. This process was intertwined with a transformation in the ethical framework in which medical science took place, one in which monopoly status was replaced by clinical utility as the primary arbiter of pharmaceutical legitimacy. This new framework fundamentally altered the set of epistemic virtues—a phrase we draw from the philosophical field of virtue epistemology—considered necessary to conduct reliable scientific inquiry regarding drugs. In doing so, it also made possible new forms of fraud in which newly emergent epistemic virtues were violated. To make this argument, we focus on the efforts of Francis E. Stewart and George S. Davis of Parke, Davis & Company. Therapeutic reformers within the pharmaceutical industry, such as Stewart and Davis, were an important part of the broader normative and epistemic transformation we describe in that they sought to promote laboratory science and systematized clinical trials toward the twin goals of improving pharmaceutical science and promoting their own commercial interests. Yet, as we suggest, Parke, Davis & Company also serves as an example of a company that violated the very norms that Stewart and Davis helped introduce. We thus seek to describe one possible origin point for the widespread fraudulent practices that now characterize the pharmaceutical industry. We also seek to describe an origin point for why we conceptualize such practices as fraudulent in the first place.

Habermas, Virtue Epistemology, and Religious Justifications in the Public Sphere

Hypatia ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 422-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Epstein
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Epistemic Communities ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Miranda Fricker ◽  
Epistemological Basis

Jürgen Habermas's recent challenge to secular citizens calling for greater inclusivity of religious justifications in the public sphere opens new epistemological debates that could benefit from the rich insights of feminist epistemologists. Despite certain theoretical tensions, there is some common ground between Habermas and recent work in feminist epistemology. Specifically, this article explores the shared interests between Habermas and one feminist theorist in particular, Miranda Fricker. I choose Fricker because her formulation of the epistemological and ethical hybrid virtues of testimonial justice and hermeneutical justice provide efficacious theoretical and practical tools capable of deepening the epistemological basis of Habermas's challenge to secular citizens. After a detailed analysis of Habermas's and Fricker's respective epistemological positions, I argue that Fricker's analysis provides a rich framework for thinking through questions of power, identity, and credibility with respect to religious justifications in the public sphere. In conclusion, this article emphasizes the importance of fostering more robust and just epistemic communities capable of countering the social, political, and ethical injustices of epistemic disauthorization and marginalization.

Semantics for a Module

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto G. de Almeida ◽  
Ernie Lepore
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Semantic Level ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Propositional Representation ◽  
Language Input

Fodor’s The Modularity of Mind (1983) and subsequent work propose a principled distinction between perceptual computations and background knowledge. The chapter argues that language input analyzers produce a minimally—and highly constrained—context-sensitive propositional representation of the sentence, built up from sentence constituents. Compatible with the original Modularity story, it thus takes the output of sentence perception to be a “shallow” representation—though a semantic one. The empirical data discussed bear on alleged cases of sentence indeterminacy and how such cases might be assigned (shallow) semantic representations, interact with context in highly regulated ways, and whether and how they can be enriched. The chapter proposes a semantic level of representation that serves as output of the module and as input to other systems of interpretation, arguing for a form of modularity or encapsulation that is minimally context-sensitive provided that the information from context is itself determined by linguistic principles.

scholarly journals Hoops and Barns: a new dilemma for Sosa

Synthese ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 197 (12) ◽  
pp. 5187-5202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Kelp ◽  
Cameron Boult ◽  
Fernando Broncano-Berrocal ◽  
Paul Dimmock ◽  
Harmen Ghijsen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
Rescue Mission ◽  
Normative Framework ◽  
Apt Belief ◽  
The Way ◽  
A Performance

AbstractThis paper critically assesses Sosa’s normative framework for performances as well as its application to epistemology. We first develop a problem for one of Sosa’s central theses in the general theory of performance normativity according to which performances attain fully desirable status if and only if they are fully apt. More specifically, we argue that given Sosa’s account of full aptness according to which a performance is fully apt only if safe from failure, this thesis can’t be true. We then embark on a rescue mission on behalf of Sosa and work towards a weakened account of full aptness. The key idea is to countenance a distinction between negligible and non-negligible types of risk and to develop an account of full aptness according to which even performances that are endangered by risk can be fully apt, so long as the risk is of a negligible type. While this alternative account of full aptness solves the problem we developed for Sosa earlier on, there is also bad news for Sosa. When applied to epistemology, the envisaged treatment of barn façade cases as cases in which the agent falls short of fully apt belief will no longer work. We show that, as a result, Sosa faces a new version of a familiar dilemma for virtue epistemology. Either he construes full aptness as strong enough to get barn façade cases right in which case his view will run right into the problem we develop. Or else he construes full aptness as weak enough to avoid this problem but then he will not be able to deal with barn façade cases in the way envisaged.

scholarly journals Challenging Anti-gypsyism in Academia

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-28
Author(s):  
Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Normative Framework ◽  
Dynamic Development ◽  
Internal Homogeneity ◽  
Academic Discourses

As a social phenomenon and an ideology, anti-gypsyism is sustained on essentialized narratives, which reify ethnic borders (between those considered as Roma and non-Roma) and assumes internal homogeneity of all members of the Romani group based on vaguely-defined and generalized notions of “culture” or “ethnicity”. These narratives tend to exclude plural and diverse representation of social realities and intersecting Romani identities, which can challenge the dominant and stigmatizing discourse. In this paper, I analyse how academic discourse contributes to sustaining essentialist representations of Roma and assess how more nuanced, plural, and context-sensitive interpretations of ethnic identity can contribute to challenging anti-gypsyism. By reviewing the scholarship of Brubaker (2002, 2004), Hall (1996) and Vertovec (2007), I discuss the potential of definitions in deconstructing homogenized and essentialized discourses on Roma in knowledge production and beyond. Furthermore, I discuss how the emergence and dynamic development of Romani scholarship has been gradually challenging the legacy of Romani Studies and providing an entry into new avenues of research, conducted primarily from the standpoint of Romani scholars. I argue that their engagement in knowledgeproduction is essential for promoting diversified, balanced and context-sensitive discourses. In this article, rather than prescribing a specific, normative framework for Romani Studies and elaborating a fixed research agenda, I point to possible directions and promising theoretical avenues which may provide a refreshing counter-balance to an otherwise homogenizing scholarship. In doing so, I assess possible implications for adapting diverse notions of ethnicity as a tool for de-essentializing academic discourses on Roma – including advantages and existing risks. Such an approach enables the mapping out of issues and challenges relevant for the process of elaborating a Critical Romani Studies research agenda.

scholarly journals Gulliver and the Rabbis: Counterfactual Truth in Science and the Talmud

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Menachem Fisch
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Normative Framework ◽  
Gulliver's Travels ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Advance Knowledge

The paper presents Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels as the first attempt to claim that thought experiments, namely the close analysis of contrived counterfactual scenarios, are the only way we challenge normative framework assumptions and learn anything significantly new in and outside science. The standard epistemologies of his day – Baconian empiricism and Cartesian rationalism –fiercely ridiculed in the course of Gulliver's third voyage, are cruelly dismissed as powerless to advance knowledge, and keep it in normative check. The transformative effect of the clever thought experiments presented in the three other voyages (of imagining London shrunk to a twelfth of its size and enlarged to giant proportions, and a more responsible and intelligent race of beings inserted above (normally sized) humans) enable Swift to obtain critical normative distance from several major assumptions about politics, religion, aesthetics, ethics, and much more, including the limits of the thought experiment itself. In the second part of the paper, the impressivre use to which the Talmudic literature puts such imagined counterfactual scenarios, is examined, with special reference to ethics and law.

Moral and Epistemic Virtues: A Thomistic and Analytical Perspective

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Roger Pouivet
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Saint Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Ethics Of Belief ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
Analytical Perspective ◽  
The Ethics Of Belief

The article elaborates on the concept of ethics, noting the contrasting definitions of morality virtue-based and rule-based ethics. It highlights the related distinction between virtue epistemology and rule epistemology, stating that the main difference lies in the appreciation of the ethics of belief by either discipline. It also discusses the claim by philosopher Linda Zagzebski that epistemology is a branch of ethics, focusing on the contrary arguments including the perspectives of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

“Vicious Minds”

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 127-141
Author(s):  
Asya A. Filatova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Specific Approach ◽  
Scientific Consensus ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
Intellectual Abilities ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
High Degree

Virtue Epistemology (VE) offers a specific approach to the problem of knowledge. The condition for the possibility of knowledge is the presence of certain intellectual abilities or traits in the subject – epistemic virtues. The task of VE is to compile a list of epis - temic virtues, the development and cultivation of which should lead individuals to epistemic success with a high degree of probability. The vice epistemology arises as a branch of VE, which focuses not on virtues, but on vices that hinder achievement and deserve censure. Vices can be attributed to both individuals and communities. As a rule, those who tend to question the scientific consensus are considered to be vicious knowing communities: conspiracy theorists, denialists, religious fundamentalists, etc. The article argues that the logic of imputing blame for bad epistemic traits used in vice epistemology tends to turn from an epistemological tool into an ideological and political one. Since in the logic of the vice epistemology, "vicious minds" pose a threat not only to themselves, but also to the health of modern democratic societies, the eradication of vices is a primary political task. Using the theoretical framework of S. Fuller's social epistemology, the author shows how the rhetoric of vice epistemology is used today in the fight against anti-intellectualism and epistemic populism.

The New Evil Devil Problem and Deontological Internalism

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 95-109
Author(s):  
Mikhail G. Khort ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Evil Demon ◽  
The Third ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
The Social ◽  
Introductory Part ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
New Evil Demon Problem

The article defends an internalist version of the virtue epistemology. This point contradicts many contemporary theories of epistemic virtues, as they are mostly externalistic. This is partly due to the fact that externalism is more consistent with cognitive science, situationism and the social epistemology. Another reason is that it was the externalists who revived interest in the aretic approach within the framework of modern epistemology. Nevertheless, the author shows that it is internalism that offers the best answer to the question about the essence of epistemic virtues. In the introductory part of the article, the classical definitions of internalism and externalism are given. It is explained that the author use an extended definition of internalism, which is characterized by the inclusion epistemic virtues in the structure of justification. The second part is devoted to critic of externalism. The New Evil Demon Problem is the instrument of analysis. The author shows that there are scenarios in which the function of justification as a reliable “guide” to truth cannot serve as a criterion for epistemic evaluation. Situations are possible in which the subject has a false but justified belief. Externalism cannot explain such scenarios, which motivates to abandon this approach. The third part of the article discusses internalism as a possible response to The New Evil Demon Problem. The author believes that justification should be considered as a deontological concept. The condition of reliability, which is an important element of externalism, must be replaced by the condition of correct motivation and epistemic debt. This means that the assessment of beliefs and subjects should be based on what motives they have and how they manifest them in cognition.

The Dialectics of Objectivity

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Axtell
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Epistemic Virtue ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
Communities Of Inquiry

Abstract This paper develops under-recognized connections between moderate historicist methodology and character (or virtue) epistemology, and goes on to argue that their combination supports a “dialectical” conception of objectivity. Considerations stemming from underdetermination problems motivate our claim that historicism requires agent-focused rather than merely belief-focused epistemology; embracing this point helps historicists avoid the charge of relativism. Considerations stemming from the genealogy of epistemic virtue concepts motivate our claim that character epistemologies are strengthened by moderate historicism about the epistemic virtues and values at work in communities of inquiry; embracing this point helps character epistemologists avoid the charge of objectivism.

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