At the time of writing this review, Steve Fuller’s latest book appears in the face of what the World Health Organisation (WHO) now officially describes as a pandemic. By pure coincidence, the threat posed by Coronavirus or Covid-19 to humanity… Read More ›
Month: March 2020
Response to Joshua Mugg’s “How Not to Deal with the Tragic Dilemma,” Charles Lassiter
Localism says that one can construct local conditions to mitigate the effects of stereotype information. We should expect our capacity to construct the local environments to grow as our knowledge of triggers grows. There might be practical limits — people… Read More ›
Dismissive Incomprehension Revis(it)ed: Testimonial Injustice, Competence, Face and Silence—A New Reply to Cull, Manuel Padilla Cruz
I argued that the detrimental effects of acts of dismissive incomprehension stem from their nature as conflictive verbal actions […] which overtly damage an individual’s quality face as a knower and informer […] In other words, dismissive incomprehension undermines an… Read More ›
Overflow, Expertise, and the L’Aquila Case, Christian J. Feldbacher-Escamilla
I would like to thank Danielle DeVasto for her careful discussion of my (2019) reconstruction and for putting it into the broader context of research on the L’Aquila 2009 case. Before coming to the above outlined discussion of overflow, its… Read More ›
When a Virus Goes Viral — Life with COVID-19, Steve Fuller
Imagine the following scenario. You are a doctor working in a hospital in a very large and relatively polluted city, normally subject to a high level of seasonal respiratory ailments. Moreover, your healthcare system is stretched because of budget cuts… Read More ›
Afterword on Social Epistemology’s Special Issue on 100 Years of Max Weber’s ‘Science as a Vocation’, Mark Erickson
Max Weber’s ‘Science as a Vocation’ caused considerable controversy in the early 1920s across German academe. Significant critics weighed in on all sides including Ernst Curtius, a leading philologist, philosopher Heinrich Rickert (a close personal friend of the Webers), Arthur… Read More ›
SERRC Hosting
Were you looking forward to giving a paper at a spring conference or meeting where you sought feedback from insightful, engaged colleagues? Concerns regarding the Covid-19 pandemic have likely changed your plans. I would like to offer the Social Epistemology… Read More ›
The Context of the Current Conflict Between Iran and the US, Sam Arman
Iran and the US have charted two divergent and hostile paths over the last 30 years. Under Reagan and the successive US presidents, Saddam Hussein, firstly, and then the neighbouring countries in the region were armed to the teeth …… Read More ›
Review of Pankaj Sekhsaria’s Instrumental Lives: An Intimate Biography of an Indian Laboratory, Vivek Kant
Pankaj Sekhsaria’s Instrumental Lives: An Intimate Biography of an Indian Laboratory presents an important study at the intersection of contemporary issues in Science and Technology Studies (STS), instrumentation and knowledge, and Indian Science and Technology (S&T) practice. The book provides… Read More ›
CFP: Weak Scientism and the Future of Philosophy
CFP: Weak Scientism and the Future of Philosophy Topic areas Metaphilosophy General Philosophy of Science Philosophy of Science, Miscellaneous Details The Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective (SERRC) invites contributions to a dialogue on Weak Scientism, which will then serve… Read More ›