❦ TABLE OF CONTENTS FRONT MATTER | PREFACE | PROLOGUE | PART I: DIAGNOSIS | PART II: ETIOLOGY | | PART III: PRESCRIPTIONS | PART IV: PROGNOSIS | EPILOGUE | PART IV: PROGNOSIS ❧ 1. The Academic and the… 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.
Epilogue, Academic Agonies and How to Avoid Them, Joseph Agassi
❦ TABLE OF CONTENTS FRONT MATTER | PREFACE | PROLOGUE | PART I: DIAGNOSIS | PART II: ETIOLOGY | | PART III: PRESCRIPTIONS | PART IV: PROGNOSIS | EPILOGUE | EPILOGUE The Aims and Structure of Academe We are… Read More ›
The Epistemic Challenge of Religious Disagreement: Responding to Matheson, John Pittard
I am grateful for Jonathan Matheson’s recent review (Matheson 2020) of my book, Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment (Pittard 2019). Matheson’s excellent summary reflects a very careful reading, and his critical commentary offers important objections that deserve reflection and response…. Read More ›
A Critical Review of Post-Truth: Knowledge as a Power Game by Steve Fuller, Des Hewitt
Reviewing Steve Fuller’s book, Post-Truth: Knowledge as a Power Game, from the Greek island of Zakynthos, in the middle of a global pandemic is a surreal experience…. [please read below the rest of the article]. Article Citation: Hewitt, Des. 2020…. Read More ›
How Van Woudenberg Got How History Gets it Wrong Wrong, Alex Rosenberg
Imagine a philosopher steeped in scholasticism reacting to the Newtonian world picture: Newton’s Principia Mathematica, illustrates what can happen when one doesn’t really reflect on the foundations of what one is thinking and claiming …[please read below the rest of… Read More ›
Debating the Significance of Disagreement: A Review of John Pittard’s Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment, Jonathan Matheson
Richard Feldman’s “Reasonable Religious Disagreements” launched debates about the epistemic significance of disagreement that have been a dominant point of discussion in epistemology as of late. While most of these debates have been concerned with disagreement more generally, Feldman’s original… Read More ›
Review Of Joseph C. Pitt, Heraclitus Redux: Technological Infrastructures and Scientific Change, Andrew Aberdein
Bobby Shaftoe, one of the protagonists of Neal Stephenson’s sprawling epic Cryptonomicon, learns that some tools have infrastructure: the systems necessary for their successful operation far exceed what any one individual could hope to control… [please read below the rest… Read More ›
There is Always Time for Critique, Raphael Sassower
In this sense, the present review essay is a form of critique, just as the anthology under review comprises of fourteen critiques and as a whole is a meta-critique. In philosophical circles, critique dates back to Socrates whose dialogues are… Read More ›
Self-Defeat, Inconsistency, and the Debunking of Science, René van Woudenberg
Alexander Rosenberg’s newest book, How History Gets Things Wrong. The Neuroscience of our Addiction to Stories, is a frustrating read. After presenting an overview of the book, I explain why. I end by suggesting a more promising route…. [please read… Read More ›
Response to Mark Coeckelbergh’s Review of Transhumanism, Nature, and the Ends of Science, Robert Frodeman
The original title of the book was On Limit. My editor resisted the title; it wasn’t searchable, you know. But this remains the book’s central theme. I see the play of infinity and limit as the central dynamic of our… Read More ›