Epistemic dependence and understanding: reformulating through symmetry

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Robert Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Dependence

Cultivating Reason

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harvey Siegel
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Epistemic Dependence ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Educational Ideal

The Western philosophical tradition has historically valorized the cultivation of reason as a fundamental intellectual ideal. This ideal continues to be defended by many as educationally basic. However, recent philosophical work has challenged it on several fronts, including worries stemming from relativistic tendencies in the philosophy of science, the apparent ubiquity of epistemic dependence in social epistemology, and broad critiques of objectionable hegemony launched from feminist and postmodernist perspectives. This chapter briefly reviews the historical record, connects the cultivation of reason to the educational ideal of critical thinking, spells out the latter ideal, and evaluates these challenges. It ends by sketching a general, “transcendental” reply to all such critiques of reason.

scholarly journals Narrative testimony

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Dependence ◽  
Single Sentence

AbstractEpistemologists of testimony have focused almost exclusively on the epistemic dynamics of simple testimony. We do sometimes testify by ways of simple, single sentence assertions. But much of our testimony is narratively structured. I argue that narrative testimony gives rise to a form of epistemic dependence that is far richer and more far reaching than the epistemic dependence characteristic of simple testimony.

THE DYNAMICS OF EPISTEMOLOGICAL DECOLONISATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY: TOWARDS EPISTEMIC FREEDOM

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Academic Freedom ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Global South ◽  
Epistemic Virtue ◽  
Epistemic Dependence ◽  
Knowledge Domain ◽  
Normative Foundation ◽  
Conceptual Study

The problem of the 21st century in the knowledge domain is best rendered as the ‘epistemic line’. It cascades directly from William E B Dubois’s ‘colour line’ which haunted the 20th century and provoked epic struggles for political decolonisation. The connection between the ‘colour line’ and the ‘epistemic line’ is in the racist denial of the humanity of those who became targets of enslavement and colonisation. The denial of humanity automatically disqualified one from epistemic virtue. This conceptual study, therefore explores in an overview format, how Africa in particular and the rest of the Global South in general became victims of genocides, epistemicides, linguicides, and culturecides. It delves deeper into the perennial problems of ontological exiling of the colonised from their languages, cultures, names, and even from themselves while at the same time highlighting how the colonised refused to succumb to the ‘silences’ and fought for epistemic freedom. The article introduces such useful analytical concepts as ‘epistemic freedom’ as opposed to ‘academic freedom’; ‘provincialisation’; ‘deprovincialisation’; ‘epistemological decolonisation’; ‘intellectual extroversion’; and ‘epistemic dependence’. It ends with an outline of five-ways-forward in the African struggles for epistemic freedom predicated on (i) return to the base/locus of enunciation; (ii) shifting the geo-and bio-of knowledge/moving the centre; (iii) decolonising the normative foundation of critical theory; (iv) rethinking thinking itself; and finally (v) learning to unlearn in order to relearn.

scholarly journals Mutual epistemic dependence and the demographic divine hiddenness problem

2015 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
MAX BAKER-HYTCH
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Epistemic Dependence ◽  
Divine Hiddenness ◽  
The World ◽  
Theistic Belief ◽  
The Way

AbstractIn his article ‘Divine hiddenness and the demographics of theism’ (Religious Studies, 42 (2006), 177–191) Stephen Maitzen develops a novel version of the atheistic argument from divine hiddenness according to which the lopsided distribution of theistic belief throughout the world's populations is much more to be expected given naturalism than given theism. I try to meet Maitzen's challenge by developing a theistic explanation for this lopsidedness. The explanation I offer appeals to various goods that are intimately connected with the human cognitive constitution, and in particular, with the way in which we depend upon social belief-forming practices for our acquisition of much of our knowledge about the world – features about us that God would value but that also make probable a lopsided distribution of theistic belief, or so I argue.

scholarly journals Who Speaks for Science?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Allchin
Keyword(s):  
Science Teachers ◽  
Media Literacy ◽  
Scientific Literacy ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Digital Information ◽  
Epistemic Dependence ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
The Core ◽  
Communication Practices

AbstractIronically, flat-Earthers, anti-vaxxers, and climate change naysayers trust in science. Unfortunately, they trust the wrong science. That conundrum lies at the heart of scientific literacy in an age of well-funded commercial and ideological interests and overwhelming digital information. The core question for the citizen-consumer is not philosophically “why trust science?” (Oreskes 2019) but sociologically “who speaks for science?” Teachers can help students learn how to navigate the treacherous territory of inevitably mediated communication and the vulnerabilities of epistemic dependence. Students need to understand the role of science communication practices (media literacy) and the roles of credibility, expertise and honesty and the deceptive strategies used by imitators of science to seem like credible voices for science.

scholarly journals Oral Tradition, Epistemic Dependence, and Knowledge in African Cultures

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-40
Author(s):  
Polycarp Ikuenobe
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Epistemic Dependence

Istraživanje ispituje prirodu i legitimnost usmene tradicije kao metode stjecanja, pohranjivanja, povrata i prenošenja znanja, vjerovanja, vrijednosti i praksi u tradicionalnoj afričkoj kulturnoj zajednici. Obrazlažem da usmena tradicija, koja uključuje parabole, krilatice, mitove, umjetnost i folklor, također uključuje oslanjanje na starješine kao spremišta znanja i tradicije. Obrazlažem da se ovo oslanjanje može opravdati principima spoznajna povjerenja, spoznajne ovisnosti i spoznajnog komunalizma. Pojam spoznajnog komunalizma, koji uključuje spoznajnu podjelu rada i spoznajnu komparativnu prednost, treba multidisciplinarni holistički pristup znanju u Africi. Komunalna metoda stjecanja znanja upućuje na to kako ljudi prihvaćaju vjerovanja i opravdavaju svoje prihvaćanje vjerovanja kao članovi organičke integrirane zajednice. Osnažuje se potreba za zajedničkom ovisnosti filozofije i drugih disciplina poput povijesti, antropologije, književnosti i znanosti kao izvora i osnove za afričko znanje.

Epistemic Dependence

1985 ◽  
Vol 82 (7) ◽  
pp. 335 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hardwig
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Dependence
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