FROM EPISTEMOLOGY TO ETHICS: Theoretical and Practical Reason in Kant and Douglass

The aim of this essay is to provide a philosophical discussion of Frederick Douglass's thought in relation to Christianity. I expand upon the work of Bill E. Lawson and Frank M. Kirkland—who both argue that there are Kantian features present in Douglass as it relates to his conception of the individual—by arguing that there are similarities between Douglass and Kant not only concerning the relationship between morality and Christianity, but also concerning the nature of the soul. Specifically, I try to show that the moral weakness of slaveholding Christianity that Douglass attacked is found in the ecclesial formation of the slaveholding Christian church; it is a formation that begins with epistemology, but ignores ethics. I conclude, in part, that both Douglass and Kant reject a Cartesian psychological dualism in favor of a conception of the soul that is more attentive to one's moral development.     

Psychoanalytic treatments and empirical research on their efficacy: A commentary

Abstract

The author summarizes the problems inherent in nomological approaches examining the efficacy of psychoanalysis as a form of treatment. He argues that nomologically oriented research operates with assumptions lacking empirical foundation and, moreover, that studies of this type merely give the impression of the effectiveness of psychoanalytic therapies while overlooking the specificity of the psychoanalytic method. He suggests that research into psychoanalytic treatments should not be subjected to a nomological conception of science, and that structural analysis of treatment courses should be examined and systematized within the frame of psychoanalytic treatment theory relative to their outcome. Given this approach, and provided that the theory of treatment is based on conceptual common ground, such studies would enable a prognostic conclusion that psychoanalytic treatments are successful, providing that the sequences generalized in the treatment theory do actually take place in treatments that take patients’ individuality into account.     

Spaceship Archeology: Methodological Experiments in NSF Counter-Insurgency at the 2017 Oregon Eclipse Festival

Abstract

This article examines several aspects of knowledge production among practitioners of 21st century capitalism, critiquing the motivations, funding, methods, and dissemination of today’s politically and economically dominant epistemology. We document a methodological experiment undertaken during the Oregon Eclipse Festival—a week-long event coinciding with the solar eclipse that crossed the United States on August 21, 2017. As commissioned participants in the festival’s Art & Science exhibit, we designed an interactive archeological excavation that sought to produce material evidence corroborating the (un)reality of UFO activity in Oregon. From this performance, we highlight four insights into the relationship between science, evidence, and responsibility.     

Evolution of sciences and education

We have to fight against scientism if we are to escape from the clutches of an omni‐present techno‐science. But we must also answer the yearning for meaning. A solid general culture, an ability to discern and to resist, a return to epistemology are all ways of putting science back in its real place.     

Epistemic Judgments are Insensitive to Probabilities

Multiple epistemological programs make use of intuitive judgments pertaining to an individual’s ability to gain knowledge from exclusively probabilistic/statistical information. This paper argues that these judgments likely form without deference to such information, instead being a function of the degree to which having knowledge is representative of an agent. Thus, these judgments fit the pattern of formation via a representativeness heuristic, like that famously described by Kahneman and Tversky to explain similar probabilistic judgments. Given this broad insensitivity to probabilistic/statistical information, it directly follows that these epistemic judgments are insensitive to a given agent’s epistemic status. From this, the paper concludes that, breaking with common epistemological practice, we cannot assume that such judgments are reliable.     

HETEROLOGY: A POSTMODERN THEORY OF FOUNDATIONS

Epistemology has traditionally sought to discover the foundations of knowledge. Recently, anti-foundational philosophers have construed epistemo-logy's failure to discover an ultimate ground to indicate the bankruptcy of foundational theory. On closer examination, however, the history of epistemology reveals the aim of foundational theory to be different both from the reductive ideal of its traditional defenders and from the unsystematic relativism that its recent critics offer instead. An alternative history of foundational theory reveals a progress toward multiple necessary foundations which is the task of epistemology to articulate.     

How navigation systems transform epistemic virtues: Knowledge,issues and solutions

In this paper, we analyse how GPS-based navigation systems are transforming some of our intellectual virtues and then suggest two strategies to improve our practices regarding the use of such epistemic tools. We start by outlining the two main approaches in virtue epistemology, namely virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. We then discuss how navigation systems can undermine five epistemic virtues, namely memory, perception, attention, intellectual autonomy, and intellectual carefulness. We end by considering two possible interlinked ways of trying to remedy this situation: [i] redesigning the epistemic tool to improve the epistemic virtues of memory, perception, and attention; and [ii] the cultivation of cognitive diligence for wayfinding tasks scaffolding intellectual autonomy and carefulness.     

THE DEBATE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION: EXPLORING ROADS LESS TRAVELED

Abstract. The confrontation between Hellenism and Judaism goes back to the invasion of the Middle East by the armies of Alexander the Great. The differing ideologies, first rationalized by Philo of Alexandria, have emerged repeatedly for the past 2,000 years. The inability to resolve the differences can be traced to the differing epistemologies of religious fundamentalists and scientists with views that can be traced to Karl Popper, Immanuel Kant, and, ultimately, Aristotle.     

A socio-epistemological program for the philosophy of regulatory science

This 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.     

Psychoanalysis and evaluation: a stratified model focused on the uniqueness of the case

ABSTRACT

Objectives: This article addresses the methodological controversies surrounding the issue of how to evaluate the psychotherapies. It proposes to identify the principles of an integrative and stratified model in order to report the results of analytical therapy (its efficacy) based on the very effectiveness of its processes. Thus, the uniqueness of the case is put at the center of the evaluation setting.

Methods: Drawing on science studies, the authors engage in a reflexive exercise on the problem of psychoanalysis’ evaluation based on methodological questions raised in the field over time and current issues related to practice.

Results: First, the regularly asserted opposition between the norms of analytical practice and those governing standard evaluation procedures is reinterpreted as the effect of a lack of intermediate epistemic patterns.

Second, the fundamental principles of an integrative model are considered so as to translate and articulate a set of heterogeneous requirements into distinct strata.

Discussion: Since psychoanalysis is fundamentally a case-by-case practice characterized by inequivalence and unexpectedness, its utmost aim is to use a type of effectiveness based on the singularity of the case. However, this does not prevent it from being evaluable provided that the epistemic levels of the evaluation are clearly differentiated.