Epistemological Theory Research Articles

An image too many: the contemporary biopic, the historical body, and the documentary footage trope

Abstract This article explores the inclusion of historical footage at the end of biopics. The impact of such footage, commonly appended to recent films, varies depending on the specific film. By drawing on theories of viewership, historical film, ontology, and epistemology, this investigation attempts to shed light on why this footage is sometimes, but not inevitably, troubling. Its analysis of the use of such footage in Bohemian Rhapsody and I’m Not There delves into the viewer’s relationship with images and the complexities arising from the intersection of reality and fiction. By exploring the shifting modes of engagement that influence the viewer’s experience, the analysis suggests that this choice may imply a claim to historical authenticity or truth. In questioning the reasons for the increasing prevalence of this trope in contemporary biopics, this article considers the implications of blurring the boundaries between the real and the imaginary.

Epistemology of Interpretation of Women's Leadership Verses in the Qur'an ( Comparative Study of Tafsir Al-Ibriz and Tafsir Al-Mishbah )

The epistemology of interpretation critically analyzes the foundation of the theory of knowledge in interpretation. This study examines the sources, methods, and validity of interpretation, focusing on two mufassirs: Bisri Mustofa in Tafsir Al-Ibriz and Quraish Shihab in Tafsir Al-Mishbah. The research method employed is library research, with the interpretation of women's leadership verses as the object, using a descriptive-analytical approach. The author analyzes these verses and epistemological theories as analytical tools. The results reveal the epistemological structure of the two mufassirs: First, the source of interpretation: Bisri Mustofa relies on intellect (ra'yu), while Quraish Shihab uses Qur'anic texts, hadith, opinions of scholars and scientists, reason (ra'yu), and historical data. Second, the methodology of interpretation: both mufassirs use the tahlili (analysis) method; however, Bisri Mustofa adopts a textual approach, whereas Quraish Shihab adopts a more contextual approach. Third, the validity of interpretation: in terms of coherence, both interpretations maintain consistency; in terms of correspondence, Bisri Mustofa's interpretation lacks relevance to the contemporary reality, while Quraish Shihab's interpretation is more aligned with societal realities. Pragmatically, Bisri Mustofa's textual interpretation contributes inadequately to societal issues, whereas Quraish Shihab's contextual approach provides more significant contributions in addressing societal problems.

Knowledge transfer, not just true beliefs: virtue epistemology as a philosophical basis for education

Introduction. Modern pedagogical practice is being reformed due to systemic changes in the ways of social interaction. Knowledge transfer is being significantly modified under the influence of technical innovations, although it remains traditionally one of the main tasks of the educational process. The development of artificial intelligence, neural networks and other analytical computer systems shows that propositional knowledge is not the privilege of the human mind. This state of affairs changes the idea of knowledge as such. In this regard, the participants of the educational process face the task of revising the philosophical basis of modern learning in terms of finding a new definition of knowledge. It is also necessary to develop new methodological recommendations that would correspond to modern epistemological theories of knowledge, belief and understanding. Materials and research methods. The article uses the methods of conceptual analysis and comparative study characteristic of philosophy. The research materials are sources on theory of knowledge, education and also on applied epistemology. Results. Virtue epistemology is one of the most actively developing theories of knowledge in contemporary philosophy and humanities. It is based on the idea that knowledge cannot be an accidental belief, but must be the merit of a cognitive agent. This approach solves many problems of the philosophical theory of knowledge and creates a subjectoriented view of the nature of the cognitive process. This attitude allows us to use virtue epistemology in debates about applied issues, including those related to the explanation of the tasks and content of education. Discussion. A feature of the analysis within virtue epistemology is attention to cognitive skills (reliabilism) and sustained intellectual dispositions (responsibilism) in their relationship to the process of formation of true beliefs. Virtue epistemology defines knowledge through the notion of merit in the manifestation of subjective qualities, so the student's motivation and the context of belief formation should be taken into account when developing specific methodological recommendations. Such an approach explains why standardized testing cannot serve as the sole and primary means of assessing learners. At the same time, the general semantic peculiarity of the notions of virtue allows us to appeal to examples of individuals as ideal types of certain qualities (this is called exemplarism). At the same time, it is necessary to explain why these traits are the excellences that make their bearer better in epistemic terms. Conclusion. In explaining the knowledge transfer, pedagogy can be based on the philosophical principles of virtue epistemology. Such integration enriches both disciplines: pedagogy gets a conceptual scheme adequate to the modern social and technological situation, and epistemology gets a practical application.

Individual values and inductive risk: remotivating the Bayesian alternative

The argument from inductive risk has become widely accepted as good reason to reject the value-free ideal. The literature that follows is then focused on where inductive risk judgements are required and whose values ought to determine them. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to offer motivation for aiming at the value-free ideal, and therefore avoiding inductive risk. To do so I show that there is a tension between principles in science ethics and value encroachment because of inductive risk. Secondly, I offer a renewed defence of Jeffrey’s response to the argument from inductive risk. By appealing to theories in epistemology about rational belief modelling, I argue that the Bayesian belief model offers a suitable alternative to current belief modelling in science, despite criticism that is either explicit in the literature or fairly expected to arise.

How Partisanship Can Moderate the Influence of Communicated Information on the Beliefs of Agents Aiming to Form True Beliefs

ABSTRACT Partisan epistemology – individuals granting greater credibility to co-partisan sources in evaluating information – is often taken to be evidence of directionally motivated reasoning in which concerns about group membership override concerns about accuracy. Against this dominant view, I outline a novel accuracy-based account of this mode of reasoning. According to this account, partisan epistemology stems from the inference that co-partisans are more likely to be right as they have superior epistemic access to the relevant facts and seek to realize the correct values. I argue that this theory fits better with relevant findings than motivated-reasoning theories of partisan epistemology. Finally, I suggest it has adequate explanatory power vis-à-vis patterns of misinformation belief.

PROBLEMS OF EPISTEMOLOGICAL FUNDAMENTALISM

The article attempts to identify the problems of epistemological fundamentalism. The author compares some types of fundamentalism and alternative epistemological theories — coherentism, pragmatism and infi nitism. The author argues that the main problems of epistemological fundamentalism should be considered the fundamen-tal inability to defend the declared infallibility and incorrigibility of basic beliefs, the existence of other minds and the inevitability of mistakes of a knowing agent. It is concluded that fundamentalism cannot be discarded, despite a large number of critical reservations.

The Transmission of Cumulative Cultural Knowledge — Towards a Social Epistemology of Non-Testimonial Cultural Learning

ABSTRACT Cumulative cultural knowledge (CCK), the knowledge we acquire via social learning and has been refined by previous generations, is of central importance to our species’ flourishing. Considering its importance, we should expect that our best epistemological theories can account for how this happens. Perhaps surprisingly, CCK and how we acquire it via cultural learning has only received little attention from social epistemologists. Here, I focus on how we should epistemically evaluate how agents acquire CCK. After sampling some reasons why extant theories cannot account for CCK, I suggest that things aren’t as bleak as they might look. I explain how agents deserve epistemic credit for how CCK is transmitted in cultural learning by promoting a central need of their social group: the efficient and safe transmission of CCK. A good initial fit exists between this observation and Greco’s knowledge-economy framework. Ultimately, however, Greco’s account doesn’t straightforwardly account for CCK because of its strict focus on testimony. I point out two issues in the framework due to this focus. The resulting view advocates giving epistemic credit to agents when they act to promote their communities’ epistemic needs in the right way and highlights the various ways in which agents come to do this.

Towards an explanatory critique of social reality: how critical realism can frame the application of critical discourse analysis in educational research

ABSTRACT Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is known for its capacity to reveal ideology reproduced through discourse, but when applied to educational research, its focus on mere language constrains its utility for understanding and improving social reality. In this paper, through the example of a textbook study, we explore how CDA can be strengthened by critical realism. As a theory of ontology and epistemology, critical realism seeks to explain how causal mechanisms in society constrain and enable the emergence of human agency. As a practical framework, it can offer a research design for the textbook study, featured by a stratified ontology, a dialectic epistemology and a methodological requirement for self-reflexivity. Such a design can overcome the limitations of positivism and interpretivism. It can enable CDA to demonstrate both criticalness and a higher level of explanatory power, with the potential to identify real (rather than Utopian) possibilities for human emancipation.

Teoria nie jest dla amatorów. Hugo Merlo rozmawia z Estêvão De Rezende Martins

In this interview, Professor Estêvão de Rezende Martins, an emeritus professor at the University of Brasilia, discusses his intellectual journey and research interests in the theory, philosophy, and methodology of history and historiography. The conversation delves into the development of historical thinking and consciousness, exploring how human existence is inherently historical and how individuals relate to their experiences through cognitive operations and historical culture. Moreover, the interview explores the evolution of the theory of history in Brazil, emphasising the shift from the speculative reflections of the philosophy of history to the meth-odological rigour of the theory of history or epistemology of history. The role of academic historiography in the face of contemporary challenges, such as the recognition of non‑human or post‑human planetary agencies, is also addressed. Martins discusses the diversification of his-toriography and its autonomy in exploring previously neglected topics, along with the need for historical education to empower individuals to think independently and critically in our border-less, globalised world. Ultimately, the interview sheds light on the ongoing theoretical experi-mentation in the field of history and the potential impact on historiographical practice in the future.

Climate Advocacy Ethical Issues and Challenges of Moral Responsibility

Climate change around the world is changing in accordance with the changing environment. The science of climate change confirms that the main cause of this change is caused by human activities. When anthropology tries to understand the concept of climate change, it notices that significant ethical issues surround it and the question of responsibility is important. Some of the ethical issues, including responsibility related to climate change, are discussed in this paper. The research paper examines and reviews some common or traditional notions of individual and collective responsibility in relation to climate change responsibility. Central to the arguments is that individual efforts to reduce carbon emissions will have little or no effect on climate change unless everyone acts. This recognizes the need to propose a different way of affirming moral obligation in climate change. An epistemological theory of ethical relativity is recommended for this. This theory expects agents to act in light of existing knowledge and explains that obligations at the individual level cannot be different from obligations at the collective level if existing knowledge exists in today’s world during climate change. It is concluded that this knowledge-based ethical theory is a viable way of assigning responsibility in climate change, but it is acknowledged that this theory may face some limitations.

Justifying the Epistemological Theory of Argumentation

This article discusses Harvey Siegel’s general justification of the epistemological theory of argumentation in his seminal essay “Arguing with Arguments." On the one hand, the achievements of this essay are honoured—in particular, a thorough differentiation of the different meanings of ‘argument’ and ‘argumentation,’ the semantic justification of the fundamentality of arguments as sequences of propositions, and the detailed critiques of alternative theories of argumentation. On the other hand, suggestions for strengthening the theory are added to Siegel's expositions, which make different perspectives within the epistemological theory of argumentation recognisable.

Trans Epistemology and Methodological Radicalism: Un Œuf, But Enough

AbstractThere have now been a few attempts in trans theory to give an account of trans epistemology (see Radi 2019; Meadow 2016; and Dickson 2021). I will suggest that despite an admirable goal—that of giving an epistemology that provides a methodologically radical and distinctively trans break from other contemporary epistemological theory—thus far no account has been successful. Instead, I suggest that, in the absence of a more satisfactory radical account of trans epistemology, we can think of trans epistemology as a methodologically moderate (though politically radical) extension of mainstream epistemology.

Injury Epistemology: Notes on a Silencing and Narrative Accompaniment

Through an analysis of Lacy Crawford’s 2020 memoir Notes on a Silencing, this essay forwards a theory of injury epistemology and highlights how epistemic violence attends sexual violence. We define injury epistemology as the ways in which being injured can lead one to feminist knowledge or understanding.

Nauczyciel jako artysta: perspektywy roli i cech nauczyciela jako artysty w dobie zmian i niestabilności

This article aims to provide new viewpoints on the role of the teacher by combining epistemological and artistic perspectives on education. In the age embossed by change and instability, the teacher must build a role that facilitates the development of resilient and independent pupils. A point of emphasis in the article is to renegotiate the view of knowledge and how knowledge can be attained. The “abyssal thinking” of Western modernity, which is heavily reliant on abstract intellectual thinking, is imbedded in the current educational system, which causes profound challenges in the encounter between individuals and education. These challenges come to expression in increasing mental illness and pedagogical challenges in schools and classrooms, as more pupils cannot cope with current demands and expectations. To address these complex challenges, the teacher needs new conceptual and practical tools to provide an education that can accommodate the entirety of human existence and potential. This is where artistic perspectives and approaches can prove highly potent and beneficial for further development of education. The article utilizes perspectives on education from Pestalozzi, Steiner, Freire, and Biesta. The educational dimensions are discussed in light of epistemological theories from Buber and Heron, which is expanded by the relation between art and freedom as formulated by Arendt, Tolle, Klein and Csikszentmihalyi. The complexity of society is likely to increase even further, and hence pupils will need new and more profound tools. These tools are necessary not only to tackle life, but to become resilient and independent creators of it. The article aims to point out areas of potential development, that can provide pupils with necessary emotional and existential support and means of expression.

Categories First

Abstract Vaidya and Wallner [2021] claim that most relevant theories in recent epistemology of modality, that is, Conceivability-Theory, Counterfactual-Theory, and Deduction-Theory, face what they name “the problem of modal epistemic friction”, in a nutshell, the need to add some relevant information about the nature of the world that is not provided by the theories as such. Their proposal is that essences supply the needed information. In this paper I will agree with Vaidya and Waller’s detection of the problem of modal epistemic friction, but I will importantly disagree with their solution in terms of a metaphysics and epistemology of essences. I will argue that knowledge of essence is neither necessary nor sufficient for metaphysical modal knowledge and claim instead that modal knowledge is firstly grounded in the categories that conform the facts of reality. Categorial knowledge does the job of creating the friction needed in all cases of modal metaphysical knowledge.Moreover, given the structural character of metaphysical categories, intuition is the basic proper form of modal knowledge. In fact, I will contend that intuition is the source of a priori knowledge invoked in Kripkean schemas for a posteriori modal truths.

Ludic Epistemology: What Game-Based Learning Can Teach Curriculum Studies

"Ludic epistemology" references the need for educational game studies to remediate traditional (linguistically mediated) epistemologies. Its guiding questions are about what it means to encode knowledge in the form of a game, and how we might conceive coming to know as a process of playing. In digital game studies, a theory of ludic epistemology is concerned with the distinctive demands of-and the particular constraints upon knowledge representation in the development of computer-supported game-based learning environments. Its primary theoretical questions are about the re-mediation of educational knowledge and its representation. What educational game studies does for curriculum is to radically stir things up. Its core theoretical project of formulating a "ludic epistemology" can advance epistemic inquiries into media and learning, and respond to what have become serious questions for educators about how game-based technologies for learning, and emergent digital epistemologies, reform and re-forge relations between learning and play.

The dynamic nature of scientific knowledge: an epistemological look at the research activity of human hand anthropometry

This research focuses on analyzing the dynamic nature of scientific knowledge from an epistemological perspective, focusing specifically on anthropometric research of the human hand. The main objective of this study is to examine how knowledge is generated and evolves in this field, in the light of epistemological theories such as Lakatos'. Key concepts of epistemology and philosophy of science are addressed, including the theories of Lakatos, Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend. Subsequently, Lakatos' theory of Scientific Investigation Programs (SIPs) is applied to the field of hand anthropometry, identifying its fundamental core (which refers to the belief in the relevance of hand measurements) and its protective belt (comprising auxiliary theories and methods). It discusses how both heuristics and empirical evidence drive the evolution of knowledge in this field, also emphasizing the importance of creative inquiry, scientific debate, and methodological rigor. Ultimately, it is concluded that anthropometric research eloquently exemplifies the inherent dynamic nature of scientific knowledge.

Al-Ghazali's Theory of Real Knowledge: An Exploration of Knowledge Integration in Islamic Epistemology through Contemporary Perspectives

Abstract
 This research aims to explore Al-Ghazali's theory of real knowledge and elucidate the concept of knowledge and its integration features in grounding Islamic knowledge according to the contemporary theories of epistemology. The study delves into Al-Ghazali's perspectives on knowledge, analyzing and interpreting them in light of modern knowledge theories. The research finds that the cognitive integration features in Al-Ghazali's philosophy lie in the integration of knowledge sources, methods, sciences, and scholars. This is achieved through a comprehensive review of some of Al-Ghazali's works, as well as relevant studies, books, and research about his contributions to Islamic epistemology. Al-Ghazali encourages scholars to collaborate and integrate their knowledge to attain true understanding, a principle evident in this research through the exploration of modern epistemological concepts. The research utilized both inductive and descriptive methods to identify the characteristics of knowledge and demonstrate its integration aspects in Al-Ghazali's teachings. The research is structured into an introduction and three main sections: the first section introduces Al-Ghazali and his era, the second section explores the concept of knowledge and its integration in Islamic epistemology according to Al-Ghazali, and the third section examines knowledge sources, methods, types of knowledge, and scholars in Al-Ghazali's philosophy.

Gender in Climate Litigation in Latin America: Epistemic Justice Through a Feminist Lens

Abstract Emerging strategic litigation in Latin America, in particular, and the Global South more broadly, brings visibility to marginalized groups and allows novel approaches to promote climate action. Rights-based claims have taken centre stage in Global South climate litigation, strengthening the links between human rights and the environment. However, the gendered impacts of the climate crisis are not broadly discussed within the climate litigation movement. This article focuses on how gender has impacted marginalized groups’ participation in knowledge production regarding climate change and litigation. This article draws on feminist epistemology theories to problematize epistemic injustices that fail to acknowledge socially situated knowledge of marginalized groups as relevant and vital. Knowledge production regarding climate change tends to reproduce power dynamics that exclude local and marginalized groups’ knowledge. It also recreates epistemic injustices through objectification and exploitation of the epistemic agent. Moreover, knowledge production in climate litigation fails to recognize marginalized groups’ agency. Drawing from the emerging body of climate cases in Latin America, this article assesses how gender is portrayed and understood by scholars, petitioners and judges working in the region and how this understanding, or the lack of it, impacts knowledge production and power dynamics that intersect with other forms of discrimination.

A socio‐epistemological program for the philosophy of regulatory science

AbstractThis paper presents a program of action for the philosophy of regulatory science, based on a general theory of social epistemology. Two candidates are considered. The first one, offered by Alvin Goldman, is not fit for our purposes because it is focused on a veritism incompatible with non‐epistemic aims of regulatory science. The second, championed by Steve Fuller, sociologically investigates the existing means of producing knowledge, to modify them with the goal of obtaining democratic aims through action on a legislative meta‐level. The program has been built upon this procedure, instantiated by the identification, characterization, and modification of epistemic policies.