I am very grateful to Ann-Sophie Barwich for taking the time to comment on my work in her paper ‘Between Electrical Light Switches and Panpsychism: Scientism and the Responsibilities of the Humanities in the Twenty-First Century’ (2022; unless otherwise stated… Read More ›
Critical Replies
Critical Replies are engagements with articles recently published in Social Epistemology.
When Is a Conspiracy Theory a Conspiracy? Jesse Walker
It has been nearly a decade since I wrote this passage, which Brian Keeley quotes in his discussion of the folk use of “conspiracy theory”:[1] People started using the phrase “conspiracy theory” to mean “implausible conspiracy theory,” then “implausible theory,… Read More ›
Echo Chambers and Social Media: On the Possibility of a Tax Incentive Solution, Megan Fritts
In “Regulating Social Media as a Public Good: Limiting Epistemic Segregation” (2023), Toby Handfield tackles a well-known problematic aspect of widespread social media use: the formation of ideologically monotone and insulated social networks. Handfield argues that we can take some… Read More ›
The Value of Shooting at a Plane with a Rifle: A Reply to Dennis Masaka, Part II, Xabier Renteria-Uriarte
Planes and Aircraft Carriers: Laws, Language, Education or Mass Media Supporting ‘Our State is a Nation-State’ At the time of the French Revolution, only half the population of France spoke varieties of present-day French, and only 10% spoke what resembled… Read More ›
The Value of Shooting at a Plane with a Rifle: A Reply to Dennis Masaka, Part I, Xabier Renteria-Uriarte
Abstract Does it make sense to shoot a rifle at a plane moving away in the sky? Moreover, does this action make sense when the plane is supported by the tanks, warships and aircraft carriers of a powerful regular army?… Read More ›
Issues about the Paradox of Demonstrating Acts of Intellectual Humility, Noel L. Clemente
Brian Robinson’s (2023) response to my paper (Clemente 2023) raised a number of important issues regarding what I described as the modeling paradox of teaching intellectual humility (IH). He questioned two crucial concepts—what I take IH to be, and what… Read More ›
Defending Wokeness: A Response to Davidson, J. Spencer Atkins
Lacey J. Davidson (2023) raises several insightful objections to the group partiality account of wokeness. The paper aims to move the discussion forward by either responding to or developing Davidson’s objections. My goal is not to show that the partiality… Read More ›
On Scientism’s Merry-Go-Round, Renia Gasparatou
A few months into the pandemic, and I was surprised so many people explicitly rejected expert advice. Mostly, I was shocked by their arguments: they said that scientists keep changing their minds; that not all scientists agree on what we… Read More ›
A Critical Response to Renteria-Uriarte’s “Counteracting Epistemic Oppression through Social Myths”, Dennis Masaka
Abstract In this article, I seek to engage Xabier Renteria-Uriarte’s contention that social myth of the oppressed people help them to launch struggles to recover or retain their social identity, culture and knowledges against the threats posed by state power… Read More ›
Algorithmic Opinion Mining and the History of Philosophy: A Response to Mizrahi’s For and Against Scientism, Andreas Vrahimis
As Moti Mizrahi’s editorial introduction points out, For and Against Scientism ‘arises from an exchange between several scholars over the pages of the Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective’ (Mizrahi 2022, 18) in response to Mizrahi (2019). Mizrahi (2019) defended… Read More ›