Author Archives
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“They” are Back (and still want to cure everyone): Psychologists’ Latest Bid to Curtail Public Epistemology, Part Two, Lee Basham
Wagner-Egger et al. (2019) continue to defend a project of pathologizing and “curing” the public of doubts about the reliability of government, media and corporate statements and actions. They envision a mass psychological engineering project to curtail rational social epistemology, one particularly, but not limited to, targeting children in public schools. The… Read More ›
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“They” are Back (and still want to cure everyone): Psychologists’ Latest Bid to Curtail Public Epistemology, Part One, Lee Basham
Wagner-Egger et al. (2019) continue to defend a project of pathologizing and “curing” the public of doubts about the reliability of government, media and corporate statements and actions. They envision a mass psychological engineering project to curtail rational social epistemology, one particularly, but not limited to, targeting children in public schools. The… Read More ›
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Response to “The Quinean Assumption. The Case for Science as Public Reason,” Matteo Bonotti
In “The Quinean Assumption: The Case for Science as Public Reason” (2019), Cristóbal Bellolio examines an aspect that has often, and surprisingly, been overlooked in the extensive literature on public reason and political liberalism: the role of scientific arguments in… Read More ›
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More on Bad Social Science, Brian Martin
In “Bad Social Science,” (2019) I pointed to the phenomenon of non-specialists in the social science domain making claims that fall very far short of what social scientists consider best practice. I identified “several facets of bad social science: ad… Read More ›
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Why We Should Come Off the Fence When Experts Disagree, Jean H.M. Wagemans
Martin Hinton in “Why the Fence Is the Seat of Reason When Experts Disagree” (2019) discusses the use of the theory of argument schemes and their associated critical questions in the situation when experts disagree about a certain matter. In… Read More ›
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Bargaining and Intersectional Disadvantage: Reply to O’Connor, Bright, and Bruner, Julian Zucker, Daniel Rassaby, Aja Watkins, Rory Smead
In “The Emergence of Intersectional Disadvantage,” O’Connor, Bright, and Bruner model identity-based oppression as the result of bargaining interactions between groups. They find that when individuals interact both within and between groups, minorities tend to be disadvantaged and that this… Read More ›
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Preface to the Chinese Edition of Social Epistemology, Steve Fuller
It is with great pleasure that I write this introduction to the Chinese edition of Social Epistemology, which was originally published more than thirty years ago—and I especially want to thank Yaxin Yao for making the translation possible. I will… Read More ›
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Group-Strapping, Bubble, or Echo Chamber? C. Thi Nguyen
Here’s what we’re all desperately trying to explain: certain groups seem to have a wildly over-inflated devotion to their beliefs. Such groups seem to flourish online. Their members seem to resist very good contrary evidence, and to slowly become more… Read More ›
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Uptake of a Conspiracy Theory Attribution: Part 2, Brian Martin
Kylar Loussikian’s article, aided by efforts by pro-vaccination campaigners, triggered an enormous response. The online version of his article attracted hundreds of comments. A few bloggers wrote hostile commentaries about the thesis. There was an online petition against the thesis,… Read More ›
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Uptake of a Conspiracy Theory Attribution: Part 1, Brian Martin
Claiming that someone subscribes to a conspiracy theory can be a potent method of denigration. I observed this process up close. The thesis of one of my doctoral students was alleged to endorse a conspiracy theory, therefore discrediting it. Journalists,… Read More ›
