1,335 research outputs found
The Social Epistemology of Consensus and Dissent
This paper reviews current debates in social epistemology about the relations âbetween âknowledge âand consensus. These relations are philosophically interesting on their âown, but âalso have âpractical consequences, as consensus takes an increasingly significant ârole in âinforming public âdecision making. The paper addresses the following questions. âWhen is a âconsensus attributable to an epistemic community? Under what conditions may âwe âlegitimately infer that a consensual view is knowledge-based or otherwise âepistemically âjustified? Should consensus be the aim of scientific inquiry, and if so, what âkind of âconsensus? How should dissent be handled? It is argued that a legitimate inference âthat a âtheory is correct from the fact that there is a scientific consensus on it requires taking âinto âconsideration both cognitive properties of the theory as well as social properties of âthe âconsensus. The last section of the paper reviews computational models of âconsensus âformation.
Can Artificail Entities Assert?
There is an existing debate regarding the view that technological instruments, devices, or machines can assert âor testify. A standard view in epistemology is that only humans can testify. However, the notion of quasi-âtestimony acknowledges that technological devices can assert or testify under some conditions, without âdenying that humans and machines are not the same. Indeed, there are four relevant differences between âhumans and instruments. First, unlike humans, machine assertion is not imaginative or playful. Second, âmachine assertion is prescripted and context restricted. As such, computers currently cannot easily switch âcontexts or make meaningful relevant assertions in contexts for which they were not programmed. Third, âwhile both humans and computers make errors, they do so in different ways. Computers are very sensitive to âsmall errors in input, which may cause them to make big errors in output. Moreover, automatic error control âis based on finding irregularities in data without trying to establish whether they make sense. Fourth, âtestimony is produced by a human with moral worth, while quasi-testimony is not. Ultimately, the notion of âquasi-testimony can serve as a bridge between different philosophical fields that deal with instruments and âtestimony as sources of knowledge, allowing them to converse and agree on a shared description of reality, âwhile maintaining their distinct conceptions and ontological commitments about knowledge, humans, and ânonhumans.
Selective covering properties of product spaces
We study the preservation of selective covering properties, including classic
ones introduced by Menger, Hurewicz, Rothberger, Gerlits and Nagy, and others,
under products with some major families of concentrated sets of reals.
Our methods include the projection method introduced by the authors in an
earlier work, as well as several new methods. Some special consequences of our
main results are (definitions provided in the paper): \be
\item Every product of a concentrated space with a Hurewicz \sone(\Ga,\Op)
space satisfies \sone(\Ga,\Op). On the other hand, assuming \CH{}, for each
Sierpi\'nski set there is a Luzin set such that L\x S can be mapped
onto the real line by a Borel function.
\item Assuming Semifilter Trichotomy, every concentrated space is
productively Menger and productively Rothberger.
\item Every scale set is productively Hurewicz, productively Menger,
productively Scheepers, and productively Gerlits--Nagy.
\item Assuming \fd=\aleph_1, every productively Lindel\"of space is
productively Hurewicz, productively Menger, and productively Scheepers. \ee
A notorious open problem asks whether the additivity of Rothberger's property
may be strictly greater than \add(\cN), the additivity of the ideal of
Lebesgue-null sets of reals. We obtain a positive answer, modulo the
consistency of Semifilter Trichotomy with \add(\cN)<\cov(\cM).
Our results improve upon and unify a number of results, established earlier
by many authors.Comment: Submitted for publicatio
With Great Speed Come Small Buffers: Space-Bandwidth Tradeoffs for Routing
We consider the Adversarial Queuing Theory (AQT) model, where packet arrivals
are subject to a maximum average rate and burstiness
. In this model, we analyze the size of buffers required to avoid
overflows in the basic case of a path. Our main results characterize the space
required by the average rate and the number of distinct destinations: we show
that space suffice, where is the number of distinct
destinations and ; and we show that space is necessary. For directed trees, we describe an algorithm
whose buffer space requirement is at most where is the
maximum number of destinations on any root-leaf path
âTrust MeâIâm a Public Intellectualâ: Margaret Atwoodâs and David Suzukiâs Social Epistemologies of Climate Science
Margaret Atwood and David Suzuki are two of the most prominent Canadian public âintellectuals âinvolved in the global warming debate. They both argue that anthropogenic global âwarming is âoccurring, warn against its grave consequences, and urge governments and the âpublic to take âimmediate, decisive, extensive, and profound measures to prevent it. They differ, âhowever, in the âreasons and evidence they provide in support of their position. While Suzuki âstresses the scientific âevidence in favour of the global warming theory and the scientific âconsensus around it, Atwood is âsuspicious of the objectivity of science, and draws on an âidiosyncratic neo-Malthusian theory of âhuman development. Their implicit views âabout the cognitive authority of science may be âidentified with Critical Contextual Empiricism âand Feminist Standpoint Epistemology, respectively, âboth of which face difficulties with âproviding solid grounds for the position they advocate.â â
What is Hackingâs argument for entity realism?
According to Ian Hackingâs Entity Realism, unobservable entities that scientists carefully manipulate to study other phenomena are real. Although Hacking presents his case in an intuitive, attractive, and persuasive way, his argument remains elusive. I present five possible readings of Hackingâs argument: a no-miracle argument, an indispensability argument, a transcendental argument, a Vichian argument, and a non-argument. I elucidate Hackingâs argument according to each reading, and review their strengths, their weaknesses, and their compatibility with each othe
Is Technology Value-Neutral?
According to the Value-Neutrality Thesis, technology is morally and politically neutral, neither good nor bad. A knife may be put to bad use to murder an innocent person or to good use to peel an apple for a starving person, but the knife itself is a mere instrument, not a proper subject for moral or political evaluation. While contemporary philosophers of technology widely reject the VNT, it remains unclear whether claims about values in technology are just a figure of speech or nontrivial empirical claims with genuine factual content and real-world implications. This paper provides the missing argument. I argue that by virtue of their material properties, technological artifacts are part of the normative order rather than external to it. I illustrate how values can be empirically identified in technology. The reason why value-talk is not trivial or metaphorical is that due to the endurance and longevity of technological artifacts, values embedded in them have long-term implications that surpass their designers and builders. I further argue that taking sides in this debate has real-world implications in the form of moral constraints on the development of technology
Social Epistemology as a New Paradigm for Journalism and Media Studies
Journalism and media studies lack robust theoretical concepts for studying journalistic knowledge âgeneration. More specifically, conceptual challenges attend the emergence of big data and âalgorithmic sources of journalistic knowledge. A family of frameworks apt to this challenge is âprovided by âsocial epistemologyâ: a young philosophical field which regards societyâs participation âin knowledge generation as inevitable. Social epistemology offers the best of both worlds for âjournalists and media scholars: a thorough familiarity with biases and failures of obtaining âknowledge, and a strong orientation toward best practices in the realm of knowledge-acquisition âand truth-seeking. This paper articulates the lessons of social epistemology for two central nodes of âknowledge-acquisition in contemporary journalism: human-mediated knowledge and technology-âmediated knowledge.
Responsible Epistemic Technologies: A Social-Epistemological Analysis of Autocompleted Web Search
Information providing and gathering increasingly involve technologies like search âengines, which actively shape their epistemic surroundings. Yet, a satisfying account âof the epistemic responsibilities associated with them does not exist. We analyze âautomatically generated search suggestions from the perspective of social âepistemology to illustrate how epistemic responsibilities associated with a âtechnology can be derived and assigned. Drawing on our previously developed âtheoretical framework that connects responsible epistemic behavior to âpracticability, we address two questions: first, given the different technological âpossibilities available to searchers, the search technology, and search providers, âwho should bear which responsibilities? Second, given the technologyâs âepistemically relevant features and potential harms, how should search terms be âautocompleted? Our analysis reveals that epistemic responsibility lies mostly with âsearch providers, which should eliminate three categories of autosuggestions: those âthat result from organized attacks, those that perpetuate damaging stereotypes, and âthose that associate negative characteristics with specific individuals.â
- âŠ