Epistemic Harm, Social Consequences: A Reply to Torcello on Climate Change Disinformation, Francesca Pongiglione and Carlo Martini
By SERRC on November 21, 2022 • ( 0 )
The temperatures registered in the summer of 2022 were among the highest on record in Europe, central and eastern China, and North America (ECMWF, ERA5 2022). The summer of 2022 is, however, unlikely to be an exceptional one. Similar heat… Read More ›
Climate Change Disinformation and Culpability: A Sympathetic Reply to Pongiglione and Martini, Lawrence Torcello
By SERRC on September 13, 2022 • ( 0 )
Misinformation has hampered action on climate change for decades. Climate researchers who have been concerned with the dissemination of climate science in the public sphere know the problem well. Not least of all because it often confronts them directly, in… Read More ›
A Bibliography and Brief History of the Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories, Kurtis Hagen
The current discussion of conspiracy theories occurring in the philosophical literature began in 1995 when Charles Pigden reflected on Karl Popper's influential argument against the "conspiracy theory of society." Pigden noticed that Popper's critique was not really directed at conspiracy… Read More ›
Vaccination and Intellectual Honesty: Reflections on a Theme in Recent SERRC Articles, Kurtis Hagen
Should we be honest about vaccines? That is a serious question. Common sense says that "honesty is the best policy," and I maintain that topics related to vaccination are not exceptional in this regard. However, some serious and well-intentioned people… Read More ›
Review of Modelwork: The Material Culture of Making and Knowing, Mark D. West
By SERRC on May 9, 2022 • ( 0 )
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 ›
The Fly is Trapped Inside the Bottle: A Semiotic and Epistemological Critique of the Idea of Disability, Chema Sánchez Alcón
Abstract This article is about "disability" understood as a stand-point of view whose high performative power has influenced the identity of people with various disabilities whom we have called "disabled." From the philosophy of language, using the tools of semiotics,… Read More ›
Predictably Rational: A Further Response to Grundmann, Neil Levy
There's a certain pleasure in accounts that debunk some of our most highly prized traits, especially when they're seen to stem from science. Scientists and those who see themselves as scientifically minded often tell us that science shows that free… Read More ›
The Possibility of Epistemic Nudging: Reply to My Critics, Thomas Grundmann
In "The Possibility of Epistemic Nudging" (2021), I address a phenomenon that is widely neglected in the current literature on nudges: intentional doxastic nudging, i.e. people's intentional influence over other people's beliefs, rather than over their choices. I argue that,… Read More ›
Zombie Epistemology: Or, I Ain't Gonna Work on Zoltan's Farm, Either, Part II, William T. Lynch
Steve Fuller's work on transhumanism is interesting because it forces us to think about the long-term trajectory of the human species and the knowledge and technology it is likely to build in the future. He is surely right that the… Read More ›
Zombie Epistemology: Or, I Ain't Gonna Work on Zoltan's Farm, Either, Part I, William T. Lynch
Zombie movies express for us the horror that would take place if the dead did not go away so that the living could pursue existence unimpeded by the dead hand of history. The horror is an inversion of the desire… Read More ›