I am very grateful to M R. X. Dentith (2022) for their helpful and valuable reply. I will begin by scaling back and dropping one of the claims that I made in my earlier paper. In the earlier paper, I… Read More ›
Month: August 2022
How to Think Like God: A Swedish Twitter University Course, Steve Fuller
I have recently published a piece arguing that the aphorism provides the prehistory of the tweet. Its origin lies in the following: On Christmas Day 2011, I conducted what turned out to be the penultimate ‘course’ at ‘Svenska Twitteruniversitetet’ (‘Swedish… Read More ›
When to Read a Heavy Tome, Brian Martin
In July 2018, I sat down to begin reading a mammoth book. It was not an appealing format, with tiny print packed into each page. Furthermore, the author had told me that the book, published in 2005, had received only… Read More ›
Shall Justice Prevail? Reforming the Epistemic Basic Structure in a Non-Ideal World, Petr Specian
Faik Kurtulmuş’s exploration of the epistemic basic structure (EBS) invites us to think about the generation, dissemination, and absorption of knowledge in a society, emphasizing the role of institutions in determining epistemic outcomes. Moreover, Kurtulmuş—in joint work with Gürol Irzık—offers… Read More ›
Constructive Critique: Social Value in Science Fact, Part II, Edward Sudall
Values Without Facts In my experience, science studies scholars earn their livelihood criticising scientists who fail to appreciate how scientific enterprises are embedded within society, social norms, or cultural values. Roger Pielke, a scholar cited in STS and professor at… Read More ›
Constructive Critique: Social Value in Science Fact, Part I, Edward Sudall
Some science studies scholars support creationist schooling (Steve Fuller), support free-thinking climate denialist think-tanks (Bruno Latour), lawyers’ dominance above scientists’ evidence and embrace media’s post-truth turn (Sheila Jasanoff), lament top-down reassurances of harmless mobile phone radiation (Jack Stilgoe), believe values… Read More ›
Maintaining Relations and Re-Engineering the Social: A Reply to Becker’s “The Three Problems of Robotics and AI”, Dawid Kasprowicz
In his article, Joffrey Becker (2022) gives an overview over the three main challenges for social anthropology on robotics and AI. These challenges also raise questions of different scientific fields like engineering, philosophy of technology or science-and-technology-studies. For the sake… Read More ›
Avoiding the Stereotyping of the Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories: A Reply to Hill, M R. X. Dentith
Scott Hill has recently challenged philosophers like myself, Lee Basham, and the other signatories of our 2016, for both our criticisms of an article by some social scientists which appeared in Le Monde back in 2016, and for supposedly and… Read More ›
Returning to Bloor and the Strong Program: A Brief Rejoinder to Shahryari, Finn Collin
In his article, “The Strong Program and Asymmetrical Explanation of the History of Science: A Reply to Collin” (Shahryari 2022b), Shahram Shahryari responds to my comments (in Collin 2022) upon his original article, “A Tension in the Strong Program: The… Read More ›
A Bibliography and Brief History of the Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories, Kurtis Hagen
The current discussion of conspiracy theories occurring in the philosophical literature began in 1995 when Charles Pigden reflected on Karl Popper’s influential argument against the “conspiracy theory of society.” Pigden noticed that Popper’s critique was not really directed at conspiracy… Read More ›