As I commit my thoughts to ink on paper, I hear a fly buzzing around my ear. The fly happened to fly from a workshop about relativism, and its varieties, as it occurs in today’s society. Needless to say, I… Read More ›
Books and Book Reviews
Book Review contributions are single-authored or multiple-authored reviews of recent books in the area of social epistemology.
Philosophy Should Be Vibrant and Necessary: A Commentary on Li Zehou’s History, Adam Riggio
The career of Li Zehou has been shaped by its, at times, fortunate timing. He was able to establish his reputation as one of China’s leading philosophers during a time, after the death of Mao Zedong, when thinkers were allowed… Read More ›
Science the Corporate Way: A Review of Sergio Sismondo’s Ghost-Managed Medicine, Brian Martin
Imagine receiving an invitation to be an author of a paper, intended for publication in a leading journal. The paper has several authors; you are listed as second author. Along with the invitation comes a copy of the completed paper,… Read More ›
Warm Encouragement and Sharp Analysis for Interdisciplinary Scholars: A Review of Being an Interdisciplinary Academic, Seungmi Chung
Catherine Lyall’s Being an Interdisciplinary Academic: How Institutions Shape University Careers (2019) describes the lives of early-career interdisciplinary scholars and analyzes the difficulties and systematic problems they experience. Lyall lends encouragement both to these researchers and to those considering entering… Read More ›
Do We See Icons or Reality? A Review of Donald Hoffman’s The Case Against Reality, Brian Martin
Imagine looking at a computer desktop. You see various icons that you can modify, move around, stick into folders and delete. The desktop is a type of reality. If you wanted, you could formulate an ontology and epistemology, or laws… Read More ›
Enriching the Chinese Intellectual Legacy: A Review of Li Zehou’s A History of Classical Chinese Thought, Jana S. Rošker
Regarding the issue of social epistemology, the present book is an important source for obtaining a better understanding of such models of constructing knowledge which are based on collective experiences, and which simultaneously offer manifold insights into its social dimensions…. Read More ›
Exploring What Spaces of Serendipity, Identity, and Success Can Teach Us: A Review of Being an Interdisciplinary Academic, Emma Craddock
Catherine Lyall’s (2019) Being an Interdisciplinary Academic: How Institutions Shape University Careers draws on research data to illustrate the ‘rift between the rhetoric and reality of interdisciplinarity’ (1), with the aim of stimulating discussion that can cross and ideally reconcile… Read More ›
Making Better Innovators, but for Which America? Brice Laurent
To the question “does American need more innovators?”, the recent volume edited by Matthew Wisnioski, Eric Hintz and Marie Stettler Kleine that bears this interrogative title answers a cautious “yet, but”. The book brings together scholars and practitioners who, either… Read More ›
What’s the Fuss about Post-Truth? Brian Martin
You can learn a lot by reading books about post-truth, but conclusive answers on several key issues remain elusive. In 2016, two events shocked many observers. The first was the passing of the Brexit referendum in Britain… [please read below… Read More ›
Epistemic Vices and Epistemic Ends: A Reply to Beatson, Joly Chock, Lang, and Matheson, Quassim Cassam
In Vices of the Mind: From the Intellectual to the Political, I reflect on the claim that personal qualities like closed-mindedness, prejudice and wishful thinking are epistemic vices. This is not, in itself, a controversial claim. The interesting question is:… Read More ›