Applied Epistemology (Engaging Philosophy)

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Coady, David (2012). What to Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons. p.3. ISBN 978-1-4051-9993-3. Within these sections, the core topics and debates are presented, analyzed, and set into broader historical and disciplinary contexts. The central topics covered include: the prehistory of applied epistemology, expertise and scientific authority, epistemic aspects of political and social philosophy, epistemology and the law, and epistemology and medicine. Unsurprisingly, wisdom has long been a topic of interest to philosophers ( Ryan, 2014). As reviewed by Sharon Ryan ( 2014), philosophical accounts have ranged in seeing wisdom as epistemic humility (i.e., a person is wise only if they believe they are not), epistemic accuracy (i.e., a person is wise if their beliefs are justified), as a species of knowledge (i.e., a person is wise if they know many things, particularly how to live well), and as a hybrid of these. One recent hybrid approach defines wisdom as a kind of 'deep rationality': a person is wise if they know a lot of valuable things, including about how to live rationally, if they are committed to living rationally, if they have few unjustified beliefs, and if they are sensitive to their limitations ( Ryan, 2012). Understanding and applied epistemology in information studies Another view is a commitment view. Group belief does not require that all members believe; rather, members of the group are jointly committed to a belief as a body merely by virtue of being members of that group (Goldman and O’Connor 2019). Group commitment to a belief creates a normative constraint on members of a group to emulate the belief. Commitment views may work for any group formed around allegiance to specific ideas. Take religious groups, for example, which coalesce around beliefs pertaining to God and religious dogma.

Applied epistemology should help us develop strategies for armoring ourselves against these PSYOPS. I wrote a brief essay on the idea here . What most people don’t realize is that PSYOPS aren’t just deployed in the battlefield, but they are currently being deployed in our day-to-day lives, and I don’t just mean via advertising and public relations. the efficiency of a practice is how well it limits the cost of getting true answers (Thagard 1997: 247). Based on this review, a conceptual epistemic framework emerges for the consideration of understanding in information studies, which is illustrated in Figure 1 and described in the following paragraphs.In general, information is taken to be an epistemic entity between data and knowledge ( Bates, 2010; Furner, 2010; Yu, 2015). According to prevailing accounts, information is data which is bundled with meaning ( Bates, 2006; Floridi, 2011; Yu, 2015). Yu ( 2015) is careful to emphasize that the bundling of meaning always occurs in a specific context. A more detailed account of information is given in the philosophy of information by Floridi ( 2011), who defines information as diaphoric data that is well-formed (according to a relevant syntax), meaningful (according to relevant semantics) and true (correct within a relevant level of abstraction, or domain of applicability). Interestingly, Budd ( 2011), without reference to Floridi's work, proposes that a satisfactory account of information must hinge on meaning and truth, lending credence to Floridi's account. Social epistemology accounts for the social nature of knowledge and justification. The quality and extent of an individual’s knowledge depends heavily on the people that individual deems trustworthy. The same is the case for group or public knowledge (knowledge generally accepted as true by a collective). Individuals and perspectives granted expert status have more influence on what is accepted, but this means that many individuals and perspectives will be ignored. Furthermore, it is often types or groups of people who are excluded, which becomes problematic if the perspectives of those groups are valuable to the task of knowledge creation. Standpoint epistemology takes this worry seriously. Standpoint epistemology studies the relationship between an individual’s social status and that individual’s epistemic position. Of particular importance to the theory is the notion that the relative power of individuals and groups influences who we consider to be reliable sources, causing us to ignore the perspectives of less powerful groups. Furthermore, standpoint theory argues that the exclusion of entire groups harms the entire enterprise of gaining knowledge.

Within information studies, seemingly the only study operationalizing applied epistemology comes from Fallis and Whitcomb ( 2009), who offer a concrete method for applying epistemology to information studies practice in the context of decision making. They describe how epistemic values (e.g., error avoidance, cost minimization, viewpoint diversity, timeliness) can be linked and weighted to guide decisions in information management. Fallis and Whitcomb argue that, for these hierarchies to be improved, information scientists need more detailed analyses of epistemic values and aims. And though epistemology is generally defined as the study of knowledge, they recognize that other epistemic aims may be possible beyond merely knowledge. (A careful reader will note that Egan and Shera's original 1952 formulation of social epistemology references, for instance, understanding.) Fallis and Whitcomb also suggest that applied epistemology could be implemented in information studies beyond decision analysis.Cameron, Nigel; Mitchell, M. Ellen (2007). Nanoscale: Issues and Perspectives for the Nano Century. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. p.147. ISBN 978-0-470-08419-9. But does the reality live up to Wikipedians’ dreams? As a normative enterprise, applied epistemology is uniquely positioned to evaluate to what extent Wikipedia actually improves or damages the landscape of human knowledge. This chapter summarizes the Wikipedia debates within applied epistemology and argues that the social organization of the Wikipedia community shapes its epistemic merits and limitations. A useful framework for the epistemology of Wikipedia is veritistic systems-oriented social epistemology (see Fallis 2011). Systems-oriented social epistemology evaluates epistemic systems according to their epistemic outcomes for community members (Goldman 2011). A veritistic social epistemology takes true belief as the fundamental epistemic good (Goldman 1992, 1999). Thus, a veritistic systems-oriented social epistemology of Wikipedia evaluates Wikipedia’s impact on the formation and dissemination of true beliefs within its community of users. Alvin Goldman ( 1992) lays out five veritistic standards, summarized by Paul Thagard as follows: Applied epistemology is also used in evaluating philosophical issues. This is the case when empirical perspective is applied to test philosophical theories. [35] While this approach does not eliminate analytic and conceptual issues, it can make them clearer. [35] It also increases the probability of theorists to examine evidences that tend to be overlooked. [35] Cybernetics [ edit ]