Why do Different Ways of Categorising Populism Matter? A Reply to Scanni, Andrew Reid| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Rejected Experts and the Foundations of Epistemic Authority: A Reply to Censon, Charles Lassiter| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
I’m grateful for the opportunity to respond to Francesco Censon’s paper, “The Rejected Expert and the Knowledge’s Half-Blood” (2025). In what follows, I will discuss Censon’s concept of Knowledge’s Half-Bloods (KHB)—people who wrongly regard themselves as epistemically on a par... Read More ›Source| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
I am grateful to be given the opportunity to continue my conversation with Martina Rosola, and to broaden it out to include a reaction to Anna Klieber’s (2025) astute observations on our shared topic of Linguistic Hermeneutical Injustice. As Rosola... Read More ›Source| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract Just as virtue ethics considers what a good person ought to look like, so responsibilist virtue epistemology investigates what a good inquirer should be. Central to both fields, though, is the role that character traits play. In this paper,... Read More ›Source| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
This paper is the fourth stage in my debate with Bálint Békefi on the pages of SERRC (for previous details see Békefi 2024; Tőzsér 2025; Békefi 2025). Although our debate originally unfolded in connection with my book The Failure of... Read More ›Source| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
The following is an abridged version of a TRM podcast conversation between Ahmed Bouzid and Dr. Jennifer Chace. For the full conversation, please go to Part 1 and Part 2. ❧ ❧ ❧ Ahmed Bouzid (AB): Dr. Jennifer Chace, welcome... Read More ›Source| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
In spite of its first edition being quickly sold out, Éric Fassin’s last book has been met with a surprising indifference in terms of reviews, either scholar or in the mass media—something which contrasts with Fassin’s role as a public... Read More ›Source| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Valentine Dusek, who was a philosopher of science and technology at University New Hampshire, where he taught for 50 years, passed away in May 2025. With a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurry to heaven. — Truman Capote Mass suicide culture can be epistemically sound. We are not considering mass produced, bomb vested suicidal... Read More ›Source| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Volume 14, Issue 7, 1–82, July 2025 ❧ Baumann, Peter. 2025. “Transcendental Arguments in Reid? A Reply to McCraw.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 14 (7): 1–6. ❧ Huemer, Michael. 2025. “Comments on ‘Chatbot Epistemology’.” Social Epistemology Review and... Read More ›Source| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
In “Status Distrust of Scientific Experts,” Hugh Desmond (2022) argues that it can be rational for individuals of low social status to persistently distrust high-status scientific experts—particularly when they are not confident that those experts genuinely act in their best... Read More ›Source| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
My response to Colin Koopman’s “Human-Data Coupling: Informational Personhood & Artificial Intelligence Through Gilbert Simondon’s Philosophy of Technology” (2025) begins and ends from a place of admiration, and thus I must extend my gratitude to the editors of Social Epistemology for this invitation and for the opportunity to acknowledge my debt to Koopman’s thinking in the hope of advancing it even further. … [please read below the rest of the article].| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
SERRC: Volume 14, Issue 4, 1–58, April 2025| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Hinge Epistemology: No Choice but Choose? Youssef Aguisoul| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
I have learned a great deal from Karin Kukkonen’s (2024) account of literary works as ‘boundary objects’, including her discussion of how these objects may play a role in facilitating interdisciplinary exchanges. While I find Kukkonen’s argument convincing overall, I have a few qualifications and complications that I would like to formulate in my response to “Designing an Expert-Setting for Interdisciplinary Dialogue: Literary Texts as Boundary Objects.” … [please read below the...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Jodi Newman has written an extremely careful and generous review of my recent book (2024), for which I am very grateful. Toward the end, she points to a series of topics that she found herself wishing I had directed more attention to, noting my stated intention to do so in other works. These topics include the use of dogwhistles and figleaves for misogyny and transphobia, and the use of dogwhistles by people other than the far-right. … [please read below the rest of the article].| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract | Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
I wish I lived in a world where it was socially not weird to walk up to people and lay out my philosophical commitments like a collection of treasures. Deciphering other people’s commitments, as well as my own, is one of my favorite pastimes. And it seems there are always layers to what people say, even when they are being very earnest. One of my favorite things about being a scholar and a humanist is that, when I earnestly lay out my ideological commitments as best I can, sometimes it isn...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Professor Schneider’s article “Chatbot Epistemology” (2025) raises several important and timely questions regarding the use of large language models. I shall focus here on the epistemological questions, of which I think there is one that is central: Are chatbots a reliable source of information? … [please read below the rest of the article].| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
SERRC: Volume 14, Issue 3, 1–71, March 2025| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Benjamin W. McCraw’s article “A Reidian Transcendental Argument Against Skepticism” (2025) constitutes an original and thought-provoking contribution both to Reid scholarship and to the discussion of epistemic skepticism.[1] In the following I will make a few remarks about it, focusing on the discussion of skepticism. I start with a brief historical remark on Reid and Kant (§ 1) before I explain the anti-skeptical argument in some detail (§ 2). A discussion of the premises of the argu...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
I am grateful for the opportunity to have read Christoph Jäger and Nicholas Shackel’s interesting and creative “Testimonial Authority and Knowledge Transmission” (2025) and to have been invited to pen a reply. As the next time that a reader of a philosophical paper agrees with its author will no doubt be the first, it may be expected that I have some reservations regarding Jäger and Shackel’s paper. And, indeed, despite considerable admiration for it, I do. Jäger and Shackel argue ...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
SERRC: Volume 14, Issue 5, 1–102, May 2025| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
On Judging Sex/Gender—A Case of Epistemic Domination: A Reply to Talia Mae Bettcher, Resa-Philip Lunau| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Dear Talia Mae Bettcher,| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Epistemology has become an important site in the struggle for social justice. Pursuing knowledge is not an innocent process of discovering social facts using certain methodological procedures as…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Steve Fuller was Columbia University’s Kellett Fellow at Clare College, Cambridge from 1979 to 1981, from which he received an M.Phil. in History and Philosophy of Science. Charlie Standen…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
The history of modern-day philosophical counseling is short. It starts in the 1980s of the last century. Its official founder is the philosopher Gerd Achenbach, who became the first philosophical…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Recently, I wrote a review (2025) of Brian Talbot’s The End of Epistemology as We Know It. As I hope the review suggests, there was much to admire in that monograph. The book made me wonder about the…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Volume 14, Issue 5, 1–102, May 2025 ❧ Fuller, Steve. 2025. “Elon Musk Meets Max Weber: The Logic of Dogelectics.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 14 (5): 1–6. https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-9MO.| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
A few years ago, I had an experience during meditation that I cannot put into words. I can try to describe it with weak metaphors and approximations, but suffice it to say, it was one of those astonishing, sublime, blow-your-doors-off experiences that mystics and many others have recounted for centuries. I had been in the middle of writing an article about proto-communist radicals who attempted to overthrow the government in late eighteenth-century France, just before Napoleon’s coup, and c...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
On encountering Charles Lassiter’s article (2024a) “Reading the Signs: From Dyadic to Triadic Views for Identifying Experts,” I felt totally in tune with his vision. A few years ago, I too had published an article in the Italian journal Prometeo on the crisis of competence (Censon 2020) which, although it did not have the theoretical breadth of the one written by Lassiter, touched on the same points. … [please read below the rest of the article].| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Arguing against pessimists often feels silly. Why can’t one just face up to the sober truth—the truth that we have failed and should expect to fail in the future? Grasping at straws…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
“Taking It Not at Face Value: A New Taxonomy for the Beliefs Acquired from Conversational AIs” (2024), written by Japanese scholar Shun Iizuka, deals with the question of trust and belief with regard to the way humans interact with conversational AIs such as ChatGPT. This question has since garnered increasing prominence with the public releases of reasoning models, with DeepSeek releasing their R1 model in January 2025 (Sharma 2025) and OpenAI responding with their o3-mini model just 10 ...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Brian Talbot’s new book The End of Epistemology As We Know It (2023)[1] represents a challenge to mainstream analytic epistemology that goes well beyond its defiant title. Talbot argues that “standard”…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
On the Difficulty of Compromises| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee’s In COVID’S Wake (2025) provides a detailed description and analysis of the mismanagement of the COVID pandemic.[1] Major contributing factors were:| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Susan Stepney’s (2025) reconceptualisation of agential chemistry as programmable agential matter presents a potent challenge: how can matter be designed and engineered to be persuadable? This essay explores her provocation by proposing a practical framework for material persuasion by unpacking the key concept of the representational entity (RE) and combining this with two elements. First, I employ Françoise Chatelin’s non-classical mathematics—a representational framework that recasts...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Iain D. Thomson’s Heidegger on Technology’s Danger and Promise in the Age of AI offers a concise yet profoundly insightful engagement with Martin Heidegger’s later philosophy of technology, demonstrating its urgent relevance for navigating our contemporary technological predicament, particularly the rise of Artificial Intelligence. Situated within the Cambridge Elements series on Heidegger, the book aims to move beyond the often polarized and superficial reactions to technological advan...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
I was listening to a podcast the other day where yet another overwrought artist was furious that her work had been used to train a generative AI model. “They used my paintings without permission,” she said. “They owe me!” I completely understood her anger and I was full of empathy. I sincerely was. But I couldn’t help the feeling that she was making the wrong demand. Or rather, that she was fretting about losing a skirmish while fighting the wrong battle. … [please read below the ...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
The opioid epidemic in the USA claimed over half a million people over the years having a devastating impact on individuals and their families. Not many people know that Candace Pert (1946-2013) played a key role in discovering the opioid receptor in 1972 while a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University. A part of the “War on Drugs” campaign, her graduate research at Solomon Snyder laboratory aimed to understand the biological aspects of addiction so that it can be treated medically. ...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Let me begin by thanking Alexios Stamatiadis-Bréhier for his insightful discussion (2025), which has helped me think through this material more carefully and explore ways to extend it. In the following, I will first make a few quick clarificatory remarks to minimize the danger of confusion. I then take up what I take to be the most pressing response Stamatiadis-Bréhier offers to my misgivings about the epistemic use of genealogies to debunk conspiracy theories. Lastly, I briefly respond to ...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
In “Rethinking Conspiracy Theories: Method First! A Reply to Shields”, Sanja Dembić pushes back against elements of my article “Rethinking Conspiracy Theories” (2022). Dembić starts her reply by giving a clear and accurate reconstruction of my main argument. I present a novel critique of generalism—the view that conspiracy theories are epistemically defective by their very nature. (To indicate that this is the relevant meaning, I’ll continue with Quassim Cassam’s convention of...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Jennifer Mather Saul’s Dogwhistles & Figleaves: How Manipulative Language Spreads Racism and Falsehood (2024) is an important contribution to the domains of philosophy of language, social epistemology and political philosophy. As the title indicates, Saul’s primary focus is on the nature and rhetorical effects of two linguistic devices: (1) dogwhistles and (2) figleaves. These specific linguistic techniques are often employed by political leaders to manipulate a target audience and influe...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Pathology and Psychocentrism| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
I thank Kurtis Hagen for his reply (2025). It is valuable for people with very different perspectives like us to candidly lay out our disagreements. While Hagen makes several points that merit…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Steve Fuller’s most recent book is entitled To Judge and to Justify, with the subtitle Profiles of the Academic Vocation, but this hardly offers the best key to its contents. The book might rather be…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
When Tony Blair says, “But honestly, I mean, conspiracy theories,” he appears to be encouraging the dismissal of the theory in question simply by suggesting that it counts as a conspiracy theory.| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
I sincerely appreciate Professor Levy’s continued engagement with my work. I’ll keep things short this time by offering direct responses to crucial passages in his reply (2024b). There are four of…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
“Let us show a little more compassion in our caring, an important lesson that this book advocates” (2024, 289). Like much of Kathryn Waddington and Bryan Bonaparte’s previous work, this book offers numerous practical insights into teaching with compassion at the University level. This collection of chapters engages with three overarching questions:| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
There are two streams of events in the world we may call public and non-public. The first constitutes officially acknowledged, publicly certified or certifiable events and the second a rub rosa realm…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Volume 14, Issue 1, 1–84, January 2025 ❧ Armstrong, Rachel. 2025. “A Response to de Lorenzo’s ‘Towards a New Materialism’.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 14 (1): 1–9. ❧ Kapusta…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Bálint Békefi (2024) is apparently not convinced by my book—after all, I think, by nothing in it. Before answering his objections, I’d like to summarize the message of the book: where did I want to go…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Volume 13, Issue 12, 1–55, December 2024 ❧ de Lorenzo, Víctor. 2024 “Towards a New Materialism: A Comment on Armstrong’s ‘Life, Mind and Matter’.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 13…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
In 2024, the SERRC published 123 posts. The most substantive work—replies, responses, reviews, articles, interviews, essays—one can access through our list of monthly issues, by browsing our Site…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Is Post-Truth a Permanent State of Emergency? This Christmas message is written amid a chapter I’m writing for a Russian volume on the current ‘Crisis of Truth’. The context is perhaps significant.| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
I am very grateful to Kurtis Hagen (2024) for pressing me on this topic. Working through his criticisms helped me to refine, modify, and improve my thoughts about where particularist allegations…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract New Public Management (NPM) can be classified within the naturalist philosophy of science. I introduce naturalist philosophers that laid out the framework for NPM including Bacon, Galileo…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Blake Roeber and I are arguing at cross-purposes, and it’s at least partly my fault. He complains that my defence of the rationality of ordinary people, including their rationality when it comes to answering political questions (however we understand ‘political’), is irrelevant to his concern which is their reliability (Roeber 2024a). He points out that rationality doesn’t entail reliability. It’s plausible, however, that if we’re not reliable in the domain of politics, we can’t...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Recently, I reviewed Casey R. Johnson’s excellent book, Epistemic Care, for the SERRC; Professor Johnson and I have since, in these pages, engaged in the sort of pleasant exchange that makes one…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract Can AI developers be held epistemically responsible for the processing of their AI systems when these systems are epistemically opaque? And can explainable AI (XAI) provide public…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Zombie movies express for us the horror that would take place if the dead did not go away so that the living could pursue existence unimpeded by the dead hand of history. The horror is an inversion of…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Author Information: Damien Williams, Virginia Tech, damienw7@vt.edu Williams, Damien. “Cultivating Technomoral Interrelations: A Review of Shannon Vallor’s Technology and the Virtues.| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Blake Roeber’s new book (2024) is an impressive achievement. In just 150 or so pages of highly readable and accessible prose, Roeber argues for a novel view of how we should engage with politics in our highly polarized societies.[1] We should engage humbly, in full awareness of how little we can know. In this critical essay, I won’t take issue with Roeber’s prescriptions. Perhaps we should engage in politics humbly. I will, however, take issue with his arguments. I am sceptical of almos...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
In Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Dennett (2013) offers some advice when criticizing others’ views. He says, “You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Whether we like it or not, we live in interesting times for democracy. We aspire to rule by the people but for the people to rule they need to have knowledge both of political institutions and…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
This is the first in a series of three essays in which I address the following issues: (1) The pros and cons of the so-called “minimalist” definition of conspiracy theories…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
22 April 2024 will mark the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Immanuel Kant in Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). My New Year’s resolution is to finish a play that I have been planning for the last few years that involves a fictional young Kant visiting Uppsala, Sweden, shortly after the devastating 1755 Lisbon earthquake, an event that caused the intellectuals of Europe to question the nature of divine justice and the meaning of human life. … [please read belo...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
In a year with many twists and turns, the significance of one event may outlast its hype, namely, Mark Zuckerberg’s rebranding of Facebook as ‘Meta’, to coincide with the launch of the ‘Metaverse’, as the main platform for its future development. The event, which took place at the end of October 2021, was notable in two ways from a business standpoint. First, it mirrored Google’s 2015 self-transcendence into ‘Alphabet’, especially with the comparably more abstract name, which ...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
This [2019] year-end reflection will return to the state of social epistemology and how it might go forward in light of the post-truth condition. Its point of departure is threefold.| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
The historian in me surveys the academic fads of the last forty years in her field, including the overblown and rather dubious celebrations of cultural memory and cultural representation.| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Volume 13, Issue 10, 1–69, October 2024 ❧ Harris, Keith Raymond. 2024. “Motivated Reasoning and Partisan Epistemology: A Reply to van Doorn.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 13 (10): 1…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Volume 13, Issue 9, 1–62, September 2024 ❧ Turtz, Michael. 2024. “All Modes of Research are Interpretive: What is Next for Public Administration?” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 13…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
I deny your holy footage.—Alexander Baker We should consider a reevaluation of the epistemic usefulness of video and audio evidence in momentous national and global political events and our response…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Epistemic injustice wrongs someone in their “capacity as a knower” (Fricker 2007). One way to suffer epistemic injustice is to be subject to deficits of intelligibility. That is to be prevented from…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
I want to start by thanking Professor Levy for his illuminating discussion (2024) of my book. Levy is an excellent philosopher, who consistently notices things that other people miss, and it’s an honor to have him write about my work. … [please read below the rest of the article].| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
How should the pursuit of knowledge be organized, given that under normal circumstances knowledge is pursued by many human beings, each working on a more or less well-defined body of knowledge and each equipped with roughly the same imperfect cognitive capacities, albeit with varying degree of access to one another’s activities?| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Author Information: Ayesha Hardison, University of Kansas, hardison@ku.edu Hardison, Ayesha. “Theorizing Jane Crow, Theorizing Literary Fragments.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Steve Fuller (2024) conducted a comparative analysis of Western and Chinese philosophy and civilization from a Western perspective. His focus was on identifying differences between the two civilizations at their foundational starting points, with a goal of fostering mutual understanding, rather than viewing China as merely “the other” of the West. Some of his observations align with core aspects of Chinese philosophy and civilization. In the following, I will respond to Fuller’s interpr...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
I recently wrote a paper—“Caveat Auditor: Epistemic Trust and Conflicts of Interest” (2022)—arguing that a testifier’s incentives are epistemically relevant to our trust in them. People often have incentives to testify in ways that are at odds with the truth or their evidence, and sometimes they even have incentives to get you to believe what’s false or evidentially baseless. Those incentives are typically more important than a testifier’s expertise or knowledge. If you had to c...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Mark D. West has written a very helpful review (2024) of my recent book, Epistemic Care: Vulnerability, Inquiry, and Social Epistemology. I appreciate the review and this opportunity to respond to it. I agree with much of what West says in the review—questions of autonomy, independence, and obligation are central to understanding communities of inquiry and the duties incumbent upon their members. In this response, I aim to clarify a couple of issues brought to light by West’s comments and...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Abstract| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
One of the classic challenges of philosophy has been to prove the existence of the outside world. G. E. Moore, who is known for his defense of common-sense realism, believed that it was possible to…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
In this review, I will briefly summarize arguments by Diego Parente and Luciano Mascaró in their recent article…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Our starting point in “Universities as Anarchic Knowledge Institutions” (2024) is that research universities can appear to be inefficient organisations, in need of management reforms and strategic streamlining from outside forces. Despite appearances, we argue that this image usually holds only if we try to view research universities through the prism of some other type of organisation, like a business corporation. Historically, this is a relatively new idea: as Krücken and Meier (2006) ...| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
Säde Hormio and Samuli Reijula have formulated a rather novel defense of a certain form of academic freedom,[1] arguing that the threat of dysfunctional inefficiency posed by intramural squabbling and…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
It’s Hard to be Humble, Neil Levy| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
How to Destroy an Epistemic Game: Epistemic Triflers, Cheats and Spoilsports, Alfred Archer| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
How to Destroy an Epistemic Game: Epistemic Triflers, Cheats and Spoilsports, Alfred Archer| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
