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Harms and Wrongs in Epistemic Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2018

Simon Barker ,
Charlie Crerar  and
Trystan S. Goetze
Simon Barker*
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
Charlie Crerar*
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Trystan S. Goetze*
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
*
bbarker2@sheffield.ac.uk
charlie.crerar@uconn.edu
tsgoetze1@sheffield.ac.uk
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Abstract

This volume has its roots in two recent developments within mainstream analytic epistemology: a growing recognition over the past two or three decades of the active and social nature of our epistemic lives; and, more recently still, the increasing appreciation of the various ways in which the epistemic practices of individuals and societies can, and often do, go wrong. The theoretical analysis of these breakdowns in epistemic practice, along with the various harms and wrongs that follow as a consequence, constitutes an approach to epistemology that we refer to as non-ideal epistemology. In this introductory chapter we introduce and contextualise the ten essays that comprise this volume, situating them within four broad sub-fields: vice epistemology, epistemic injustice, inter-personal epistemic practices, and applied epistemology. We also provide a brief overview of several other important growth areas in non-ideal epistemology.

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Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 84: Harms and Wrongs in Epistemic Practice , November 2018 , pp. 1 - 21
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Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2018 

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References

1 The distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory in political theory is typically traced to Rawls’, John A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972)Google Scholar. Mills, Charles W. offers a powerful defence of the significance of non-ideal theory within political philosophy in his ‘“Ideal Theory” as Ideology’, Hypatia 20 (2005), 165–184Google Scholar.

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3 Some relatively early exceptions to virtue epistemology's focus on the positive include: Swank, Casey, ‘Epistemic Vice’, in Axtell, Guy (ed.) Knowledge, Belief, and Character: Readings in Contemporary Virtue Epistemology (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 195–204Google Scholar; Fricker, Miranda, Epistemic Injustice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For discussion of why vice has been overlooked in the virtue epistemological literature, see Charlie Crerar, ‘Motivational Approaches to Intellectual Vice’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy (Forthcoming).

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26 Hanna Gunn and Michael P. Lynch, ‘Google Epistemology’, in David Coady (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Applied Epistemology (New York: Routledge, Forthcoming); Heersmink, Richard, ‘A Virtue Epistemology of the Internet’, Social Epistemology 32 (2018), 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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