In his article on “Posthuman Subjectivity and Singularity in the Nature-Culture Continuum” (2020) Hyun-Shik Jun challenges Rosi Braidotti’s approach to the emergence and ontology of posthuman subjectivity from the nature-culture continuum. He analyzes the idea of the human as posthuman… Read More ›
Critical Replies
Critical Replies are engagements with articles recently published in Social Epistemology.
Finding the Snark Together: A Response to Watson and Hinton, Johnny Brennan
I would like to begin by thanking Jamie Watson (2020) and Martin Hinton (2020) for their charitable treatments of my paper (2020) and their illuminating replies. They are right to even further temper my already reserved optimism about novices’ capabilities… Read More ›
Enchantment vs Scientism in Contemporary Culture: A Reply to Mark Erickson, Elena E. Chebotareva
In these days of the COVID-19 pandemic it makes sense to recall Max Weber, who died from an epidemic virus 100 years ago, in order both to reflect on the practical value of scientific methods and the possibility of science… Read More ›
Public Science Communication: Notes on the Reality and the Ideal, Lada V. Shipovalova and Yulia V. Shaposhnikova
An ongoing discussion and its emerging provocations and conflicting interpretations indicates, perhaps more than anything else, the significance of a topic or a text. Such a text or topic brings further into focus prominent contemporary issues which require serious reconsideration…. Read More ›
Are You Looking for Trouble? A Reply to Mark Erickson’s “Afterword,” Alexander Ruser
Like Elvis, Mark Erickson is looking for trouble. Referring to Donna Haraway, Erickson argues that our vocation demands us to “stay with the trouble” (2020, 22). And while I wholeheartedly agree with him that social scientists should seek and stay… Read More ›
“Changing Behaviour:” The Hierarchical and Bureaucratic Imperative of Instrumental Reason in the Corporatized University, Christian Garland
Universities in the Anglophone world of 2020, where teaching posts are ever fewer and contracts are ‘fixed term’ to use the preferred HR euphemism—meaning precarious, temporary and renewed if at all only at the whim of institutions—armies of management and… Read More ›
Googling as Research: A Response to “(Google)-Knowing Economics,” Inna Kouper
Vicki Macknight and Fabien Medvecky’s “(Google-)Knowing Economics” (Social Epistemology 34, 3) raises many interesting questions. What does it mean to know in the digital age? Or, more specifically, what does it mean to know when the main source of knowledge… Read More ›
On “Conceptualizing the Political Imaginary,” Brian C.J. Singer
The problem with the term “imaginary” is that, like the term “social” with which it threatens to become synonymous, it can attach itself to almost everything that crosses its path. Wolfgang Knöbl, in order to counter this tendency, proposes to… Read More ›
Reply to Neil Levy’s “Is Conspiracy Theorising Irrational?” David Coady
Neil Levy says that he rejects something he calls my “solution to the problem” (2019 fn 3). This is doubly wrong, since I not only don’t advocate the so-called solution he ascribes to me, I also don’t think the so-called… Read More ›
Suicidology is for Cutting: Epistemic Injustice and Decolonial Critiques, Jennifer White
Within suicidology, “cutting” most often refers to self-harming practices, which are generally conceptualized as pathological, problematic and a target for professional intervention. And yet, there are alternative (subjugated) meanings, informed by those who engage in self-harm, which can offer some… Read More ›