“It’s time to confront conspiracy theories? We’ve always been out of time for that.” — Otto Blaast In Social Epistemology we find an essay by philosopher Steve Clarke, “Is There a New Conspiracism?”[1] He argues Muirhead and Rosenblum’s A Lot of… 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.
The Rise of the Robots: Post-Digital Being, Des Hewitt
Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies is an easy book for me to review. Why do I make such an audacious statement at the start of this review? Because this book is inextricably linked to the last two books I… Read More ›
Review of Modelwork: The Material Culture of Making and Knowing, Mark D. West
What do we mean when we talk about models? We mean simulacra, miniatures, objects which serve as physical abstractions in order to make a point or test a theory. More broadly speaking, models are mental or physical objects that belong… Read More ›
Becoming Gestalt: Human and Algorithmic Intelligence—Review of Machine Habitus, Adam Riggio
Books like Massimo Airoldi’s Machine Habitus contain radical, transformative ideas in accessible, professional prose. Airoldi’s ideas are radical because he advocates a shift of fundamental categories in what sociologists must consider the objects of their analysis in understanding modern society…. Read More ›
Curiosity and Anti-Economy: A Response to Florian Jaton, Emma Stamm
Like Florian Jaton (2022, 2021), I don’t have a lot of time for experiences that can’t be scrapped for parts and exchanged for healthcare benefits and other requisites to bare life. The book is as battered as he imagines, and… Read More ›
More Rational Disagreement, But Some Convergence Too, Keith E. Stanovich
This continuing exchange (2021a) makes it clear that Neil Levy (2021, 2022b) and I agree on many things—but we do tend to emphasize different issues and framings. Much more than he, I tend to emphasize our agreement. And I get… Read More ›
The Right To Know: Epistemic Rights and Why We Need Them: Audio Interview, Lani Watson and Daniella Meehan
Lani Watson’s The Right To Know: Epistemic Rights and Why We Need Them (Routledge 2021) “… provides the first comprehensive examination of the right to know and other epistemic rights: rights to goods such as information, knowledge and truth.” In… Read More ›
Matters of Social Epistemology: A Comment on Emma Stamm’s Review, Florian Jaton
Ironically, as an academician, there are countless reasons why I don’t successfully engage in academic book reading. Undergraduate classes to prepare and teach, field notebooks to transcribe in NVivo software, languishing joint publication projects, obscure workshops, and, in my case… Read More ›
The Bias that Unites Us: A Reply to Keith Stanovich, Neil Levy
Keith Stanovich (Stanovich 2021a) accuses me of misreading his book at multiple points. I think he’s misread my review, so I guess we’re even. Perhaps neither of us were as clear as we should have been. His main point is… Read More ›
Why Didn’t I Pick a Fight About X?: An Inquisitive Response to Harris, Alexander William Morales
My review of Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science commended Randy Allen Harris for not shying away from disciplinary controversy. Particularly, I complimented his decision to organize Case Studies (2018) and Issues and Methods (2020) around the numerous conceptual debates… Read More ›