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SOCIAL epistemology, PLURALISM, HUMAN behavior, SOCIAL services, and COMPARATIVE studies

This paper draws on the author's work in social epistemology and on comparative studies of sciences of human behavior to draw attention to the importance of interaction. Drawing further on recent and contemporary research in biology, she argues that interaction ought to be considered a distinct ontological category, not reducible to properties of its participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOCIAL epistemology, THEORY of knowledge, FEMINISTS, and FEMINISM

This article aims to present a feminist perspective of the social epistemology. From this analysis, criticize the universalization of the truth done through the traditional method of analytic epistemology and sciences, frequently said to be neutral or bodiless. I propose to demonstrate that the researcher is a body as a localization, or, is social and historical situated. To do so, my main argumentative scope will be the contributions of Donna Haraway and Sandra Harding in order to articulate the idea of an objective knowledge through knowledges that are located. Finally, highlight this perspective as an essential ramification to the social epistemology field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOCIAL epistemology, CARE ethics (Philosophy), VOLUNTARISM (Philosophy), and DUTY

In developing her ethics of care, Eva Kittay discusses the vulnerability and voluntarism models of obligation. Kittay uses the vulnerability model to demonstrate that we have some obligations to care, even for those to whom we've made no promise or with whom we have no agreement. Kittay's primary interest is in our moral obligations. I use this distinction to propose a new way to understand our epistemic obligations to one another. After explaining Kittay's models and their epistemic analogs, I use epistemic vulnerability to explain two cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ALIENATION (Philosophy), SOCIAL epistemology, PETRIFACTION, PAIN, and OPPRESSION (Psychology)

My aim in this paper is to draw attention to a currently underdeveloped notion of pain and alienation, in order to sketch an account of the harms of 'discursive abuse'. This form of abuse comprises systemic practices of violating a person's vulnerable integrity as a knowing agent. Discursive abuse results in, what I would like to call, 'agential alienation'. This particular genus of alienation, whose broad conceptual origins lie in the respective works of Hegel and the early Marx, involves an agent being robbed of their self-conception as a rational inquirer and participant in a deliberative public sphere. Such alienation causes a particular kind of pain for an agent that often has harrowing material effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOCIAL epistemology, SOCIAL media, SOCIAL networks, DISINFORMATION, and EMPIRICAL research

Social epistemologists should be well-equipped to explain and evaluate the growing vulnerabilities associated with filter bubbles, echo chambers, and group polarization in social media. However, almost all social epistemology has been built for social contexts that involve merely a speaker-hearer dyad. Filter bubbles, echo chambers, and group polarization all presuppose much larger and more complex network structures. In this paper, we lay the groundwork for a properly social epistemology that gives the role and structure of networks their due. In particular, we formally define epistemic constructs that quantify the structural epistemic position of each node within an interconnected network. We argue for the epistemic value of a structure that we call the (m,k)-observer. We then present empirical evidence that (m,k)-observers are rare in social media discussions of controversial topics, which suggests that people suffer from serious problems of epistemic vulnerability. We conclude by arguing that social epistemologists and computer scientists should work together to develop minimal interventions that improve the structure of epistemic networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOCIAL epistemology and SOCIAL case work

Recent 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUICIDE prevention, SOCIAL epistemology, SUICIDE, and CONFERENCE papers

This special issue of Social Epistemology represents a departure point from the traditional field of suicidology. Unlike its predecessor, critical suicidology, or more recently, critical suicide studies, consider the scientific framework of research too narrow and argue against universalizing assumptions and applications of ideas about suicide, which often centre on Western notions of psychopathology, and individualist accounts of suicidal agency and subjectivity. Instead, critical suicidology advocates for researching suicide and suicide prevention from a contextualist, historical, subjective, political, cultural, linguistic and social perspectives. Arguably, critical suicidology has been in the making since the 1980s, as a handful of researchers persistently raised concerns about the way suicidology generated knowledge about suicide and suicide prevention. Perhaps then it is not surprising that critical suicidology, as an intellectual movement, came together in March 2016 at its very first conference, "Suicidology's Cultural Turn and Beyond". Articles in this issue have been developed from some of the papers presented at the conference. They represent a series of epistemological interventions into the way suicide and suicide prevention have been understood in different contexts, be it in relation to history, theory, knowledge production, ethics and the way suicide is represented publicly and personally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOCIAL psychology, SOCIAL epistemology, SOCIAL psychologists, GROUP identity, and DELUSIONS

Public discussions of political and social issues are often characterized by deep and persistent polarization. In social psychology, it's standard to treat belief polarization as the product of epistemic irrationality. In contrast, we argue that the persistent disagreement that grounds political and social polarization can be produced by epistemically rational agents, when those agents have limited cognitive resources. Using an agent-based model of group deliberation, we show that groups of deliberating agents using coherence-based strategies for managing their limited resources tend to polarize into different subgroups. We argue that using that strategy is epistemically rational for limited agents. So even though group polarization looks like it must be the product of human irrationality, polarization can be the result of fully rational deliberation with natural human limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THEORY of knowledge, SOCIAL epistemology, CRITICAL realism, POSTCOLONIALISM, and SOCIAL power

When critical realists consider epistemology they typically start from "epistemological relativism." We find this position necessary, but we also find it insufficient because it lacks a critique of the highly unequal social relations among observers themselves—relations that shape the very production of knowledge. While it is indeed the case that all knowledge is fallible, it is also the case that all knowledge is positioned, with a particular standpoint. What is more, the social power relations between standpoints organize the production of truth in ways that produce systematic distortions. In this paper, we propose a critical realist social epistemology. We introduce feminist standpoint theory and postcolonial theory as our suggested interventions into critical realism and we use two case studies of existing work to highlight i) the social production of truth and the real, and ii) what is at stake for radicalizing epistemology in critical realism. In so doing, our paper emphasizes the epistemic complexities that continuously shape ontology, a commitment to subaltern voices or experiences, and a thorough interrogation of the relations between positions of knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOCIAL epistemology and RESPONSIBILITY

In this paper I argue that epistemically normative claims regarding what one is permitted or required to believe (or to refrain from believing) are sometimes true in virtue of what we owe one another as social creatures. I do not here pursue a reduction of these epistemically normative claims to claims asserting one or another (ethical or social) interpersonal obligation, though I highlight some resources for those who would pursue such a reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DIGITAL libraries, SOCIAL epistemology, GENDER studies, JEWISH identity, and MATERIALIZATION

This essay revisits the concept of the theatre laboratory as a site for investigating the nexus of identity and technique in practice. Informed by new materialism, critical race and gender studies, and social epistemology, it examines the materialization of racial, religious, and other identities in song-based experimental practice and shows how the act of singing can not only illustrate the complexity of contemporary identity but also effectively generate new 'molecular' identifications. Taking jewishness as a paradigmatic category of identity in which race, religion, nation, language, and even gender are historically intertwined, the essay responds to Santiago Slabodsky's call for 'decolonial' judaism as an epistemological challenge by framing an attempt to develop new jewish decolonial identity through songwork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

argumentation, épistémologie sociale, mode de pensée, rhétorique, rationalisme critique, argumentation theory, critical rationalism, modes of thought, rhetoric, and social epistemology

On parle souvent de « dialogues de sourds », qui seraient dus à des modes de pensée trop différents. Cet article se propose de distinguer, dans ce qu’on appelle « mode de pensée » de façon un peu indéterminée, les modes de pensée proprement dits, les modes de croyance, et enfin les modes d’argumentation, qui ne se réduisent ni aux uns ni aux autres. J’expose ces différentes distinctions en prenant des exemples variés de conflits entre « modes de pensée » situés soit à un niveau local (notamment le monde de l’entreprise) soit à un niveau plus global (religieux) en lien notamment avec les conflits récents autour de l’islam. Et je cherche à identifier quelques-unes des conditions d’un accord possible qui ne soit pas un simple compromis en adoptant le point de vue d’une théorie sociale de la connaissance ou d’une « épistémologie sociale » rationaliste.
One often speaks of “dialogues of the deaf” whose origin would be the too great difference between modes of thought, especially in ethics or in politics. In order to clarify this issue, I suggest to distinguish between three notions: modes of thought in a strict sense, modes of beliefs and modes of argumentation. I explain these notions at length by taking examples chosen either at the local level (e.g. social conflicts within companies) or at the global level (in particular religious and political conflicts involving references to Islamic doctrines). By adopting a critical rationalist viewpoint in social epistemology, I try to identify the conditions that would make agreements possible without restricting them to mere compromises.

SOCIAL epistemology, SOCIAL psychologists, SOCIAL processes, and HISTORY

The mainstream epistemology of social psychology is markedly ahistorical, prioritizing the quantification of processes assumed to be lawful and generalizable. Social psychologists often consider theory to be either a practical tool for summarizing what is known about a problem area and making predictions or a torch that illuminates the counterintuitive causal force underlying a variety of disparate phenomena. I propose a third vision of critical-historical theory. From this perspective, theories should be committed to deep interdisciplinarity and historical validity claims—understanding individual and group experiences as part of historically contingent forces. Theories also should be critical, containing an awareness of the researcher as implicated in the social process and committed to actively improving society. To demonstrate its viability, I review classic works from the history of the discipline that exemplify critical-historical theory and offer concrete implications for theorists interested in employing this approach in their own work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]