Epistemology Commons^™

Epistemic Injustice In Physical Education And Sport: A Critical Disability Studies Perspective, Janine Coates, Justin A. Haegele, Anthony J. Maher, Maria Luiza Tanure Alves, Martin Giese, Sebastian Ruin, Lesley Sharpe

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Faculty Publications

This paper examines epistemic injustice as a valuable epistemological lens for critical disability studies (CDS) researchers examining issues of equity and social justice in physical education (PE) and sport. Drawing on the work of Miranda Fricker, we examine the ways in which knowledge production related to PE and sport for disabled youth may perpetuate injustices through affording excess credibility to those in positions of power who may have no lived, embodied experience of disability. We argue that disabled young people are frequently marginalised in knowledge production about PE and sport, with non-disabled adults often afforded greater epistemic authority. Building on …

How Should Ai Talk About Us? Llms And Social Generics, Tiffany A. Zhu

Philosophy Faculty Publications

How should AI-generated speech balance epistemic aims, such as precision and accuracy, with ethical and social considerations? This paper examines a subtle yet consequential aspect of LLM-driven communication: the use of generic generalizations that convey information about social groups (e.g., “immigrants work low-wage jobs”). While central to human epistemic and pedagogical practices, generics are theorized to reinforce stereotypes, essentialism, and injustice. Using ChatGPT-3.5 as a case study, I uncover tendencies for AI chatbots to inconsistently hedge and refuse generics, including those that reflect well-documented social structural patterns, such as “women are more likely to get attacked while walking alone at …

Large Language Model-Assisted Research Question Development In Public Health: A Case Study In The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program For Women, Infants, And Children (Wic), Qi Zhang, Bidusha Neupane, Priyanka Patel, Futun N. Alkhalifah, Yi He, Leslie Hodges

Health Behavior, Policy & Management Faculty Publications

Objective:

To assess the feasibility of using large language models (LLMs) to develop research questions about changes to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food packages.

Design:

We conducted a controlled experiment using ChatGPT-4 and its plugin, MixerBox Scholarly, to generate research questions based on a section of the USDA summary of the final public comments on the WIC revision. Five questions weekly for three weeks were generated using LLMs under two conditions: fed with or without relevant literature. The experiment generated 90 questions, which were evaluated using the FINER criteria (Feasibility, Innovation, Novelty, Ethics, …

Believing In Simulation Theory, Aeve Boucher

Undergraduate Research Symposium

This paper utilizes the frameworks, terms, and methodology used by David Chalmers in his recent book “Reality+”, along with ancient Chinese philosophers Zhuangzi and Mozi in order to make an argument for why we ought to believe that we are currently living in a simulation while at the same time withholding judgment on the metaphysical reality of whether or not we are currently living in a simulation. The argument uses Chalmers’ five different concepts of reality along with his own views of how being in a simulation would not negatively impact our currently held beliefs, especially in regards to language …

Self-Identifying Minoritized Doctoral Students’ Experiences Of Epistemic Injustice In Counselor Education And Supervision, Francisca Rivas

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine and understand how epistemic injustice (EI) is experienced by minoritized doctoral students in Counselor Education and Supervision programs. The primary researcher performed a phenomenological study examining the experiences of EI for minoritized CES students (n = 8). There were three female participants with an average age of 31, two male participants with an average age of 31, and three nonbinary/trans participants with the average age of 33. Five participants were BIPOC, one being an international student, and six participants were LGBTQPA+. Five participants held Ph.Ds. at time of their interview, having …

Dismantling The Master's House: Epistemological Tensions And Revelatory Interventions For Reimagining A Transformational Family Science, Janine Jones, Andrea G. Hunter, Shuntay Z. Tarver

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

Using Audre Lorde's The Master's Tools as an epistemic guide, we propose two practice interventions for family science (FS) transformative praxes. The first, inspired by the thought of philosopher Charles Mills, challenges FS practitioners (research, practice, and policy) to explore differences in peripheral and positivist & post‐positivist (P&PP) ideologies responsible for differences in beliefs regarding the salience or non‐salience of power differentials within FS. The second, inspired by the thought of philosopher Rudolph Carnap, encourages FS practitioners to consider differences in peripheral and P&PP practitioners' understandings of what FS is at its core, and the beliefs and actions guided by …

Automating Autism: Disability, Discourse, And Artificial Intelligence, Os Keyes

The Journal of Sociotechnical Critique

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems shift to interact with new domains and populations, so does AI ethics: a relatively nascent subdiscipline that frequently concerns itself with questions of “fairness” and “accountability.” This fairness-centred approach has been criticized for (amongst other things) lacking the ability to address discursive, rather than distributional, injustices. In this paper I simultaneously validate these concerns, and work to correct the relative silence of both conventional and critical AI ethicists around disability, by exploring the narratives deployed by AI researchers in discussing and designing systems around autism. Demonstrating that these narratives frequently perpetuate a dangerously dehumanizing model …

A Metacognitive Approach To Trust And A Case Study: Artificial Agency, Ioan Muntean

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

Trust is defined as a belief of a human H (`the trustor') about the ability of an agent A (the `trustee') to perform future action(s). We adopt here dispositionalism and internalism about trust: H trusts A iff A has some internal dispositions as competences. The dispositional competences of A are high-level metacognitive requirements, in the line of a naturalized virtue epistemology. (Sosa, Carter) We advance a Bayesian model of two (i) confidence in the decision and (ii) model uncertainty. To trust A, H demands A to be self-assertive about confidence and able to self-correct its own models. In the Bayesian …

A New Peircean Response To Radical Skepticism, Justin Remhof

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The radical skeptic argues that I have no knowledge of things I ordinarily claim to know because I have no evidence for or against the possibility of being systematically fed illusions. Recent years have seen a surge of interest in pragmatic responses to skepticism inspired by C.S. Peirce. This essay challenges one such influential response and presents a better Peircean way to refute the skeptic. The account I develop holds that although I do not know whether the skeptical hypothesis is true, I still know things I ordinarily claim to know. It will emerge that although this reply appears similar …

Scientific Fictionalism And The Problem Of Inconsistency In Nietzsche, Justin Remhof

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In this article, I begin to develop Nietzsche’s scientific fictionalism in order to make headway toward resolving a central interpretive issue in his epistemology. For Nietzsche knowledge claims are falsifications. Presumably, this is a result of his puzzling view that truths are somehow false. I argue that Nietzsche thinks knowledge claims are falsifications because he embraces a scientific fictionalist view according to which inexact representations, which are false, can also be accurate, or true, and that this position is not inconsistent.

Diseases, Patients And The Epistemology Of Practice: Mapping The Borders Of Health, Medicine And Care, Michael Loughlin, Robyn Bluhm, Jonathan Fuller, Stephen Buetow, Kirstin Borgerson, Benjamin R. Lewis, Brent M. Kious

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Last year saw the 20th anniversary edition of JECP, and in the introduction to the philosophy section of that landmark edition, we posed the question: apart from ethics, what is the role of philosophy at the bedside'? The purpose of this question was not to downplay the significance of ethics to clinical practice. Rather, we raised it as part of a broader argument to the effect that ethical questions - about what we should do in any given situation - are embedded within whole understandings of the situation, inseparable from our beliefs about what is the case (metaphysics), what it …

Preservice Teachers' Epistemological Beliefs: A Study Of Student And Course Characteristics, Peter B. Baker

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

The research project described herein was designed to measure teacher education students' epistemological beliefs. Teacher education students' epistemological beliefs were compared according to participants' academic and demographic characteristics as well as characteristics of the courses in which students are enrolled at the time of study data collection. Participants included teacher education students currently studying in Old Dominion University's Darden College of Education. Results indicated that, while participants' epistemological beliefs and the development thereof are both, at times, related to their demographic and academic characteristics as well as the characteristics of the courses in which they were enrolled during the study, …

Towards A Diagnostic Framework For Understanding Complex Situations, José J. Padilla, Andres Sousa-Poza, Arturo Tejada, Samuel Kovacic

VMASC Publications

This paper presents a theoretical framework for the concept of understanding and how it can be used for assessing complex situations. Understanding is presented as a cognitive process on how an individual perceives and represents a complex domain based on his/her own predispositions, and how he/she selects knowledge or what may not be knowledge based on the same predispositions towards finding a set of solutions for the situation. Predispositions, in this case, are based on his/her epistemological, ontological and teleological biases while the domain is represented by irreducible and transient conditions. The final outcome is the match or mismatch of …

Portals To Knowledge: Confluence And Conflict Between Enlightenment And Postmodern Currencies, Benjamin G. Lanier-Nabors

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[Editors' Introduction]

In order to provide any viable critique of twenty-first-century discourses -- whether signified by late capitalism, epistemological hegemony, cultural domination, or globalization (the catch-word for all of these) -- one must not employ an ahistorical or static lens; alternatively, one must dredge up and analyze the sediments that underlie current discourses, and many of these sediments are found in the eighteenth century. More specifically, by reading the thoughts of such writers as Joseph Addison and Jonathan Swift, one is forced to read the links and antipathies between the discursive economies of epistemology -- philosophical, scientific, and economic -- …

Finding Godot: Postmodernism And Truth, Robert T. Gregory Jr.

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Postmodernism has enjoyed a wide range of influence as a critical enterprise, often being accused as nothing more than a method of critique. In addition, it is often objected that postmodernism advocates a radical relativism which is ultimately self-contradictory and lacks an overall sense of agency that can apply to concrete action. These issues are particularly significant when considering theories of truth. Given postmodernism criticizes traditional notions of truth and objectivity, it is appropriate to ask if postmodernism possesses a positive position on truth as an alternative. I argue in this work that while postmodernism has a significant critical enterprise, …