This paper addresses the relationship between epistemic difference and hermeneutical injustice, starting from an example discussed by Townsend and Townsend: the case of the Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku v. Ecuador before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. My thesis is that translation is inevitably at work in communicative exchanges involving epistemic difference, and that considering the problem of translation allows us to refine our understanding of epistemic injustice and mobilise further resources to respond to it. In (...) a first step, I will discuss McGlynn’s critique of Townsend and Townsend’s approach, and in particular the notion of discursive injustice elaborated by Kukla. Drawing on the notion of symbolic institution as theorised by the Belgian phenomenologist Marc Richir, I will show how translation is at work in this case, seeking to pinpoint the hermeneutical injustice at play. In a second step, I will reflect on the different paradigms of translation and argue for a broad, processual and layered conception of it. Building on Antonio Gramsci’s concept of translatability of languages, I will introduce the notion of epistemic translatability as that which allows translational strategies to be devised across epistemic difference in order to counter hermeneutical injustice. (shrink)

Physicians and other medical practitioners make untold numbers of judgments about patient care on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. These judgments fall along a number of spectrums, from the mundane to the tragic, from the obvious to the challenging. Under the rubric of evidence-based medicine, these judgments will be informed by the robust conclusions of medical research. In the ideal circumstance, medical research makes the best decision obvious to the trained professional. Even when practice approximates this ideal, it does (...) so unevenly. Judgments in medical practice are always accompanied by uncertainty, and this uncertainty is a fickle companion—constant in its presence but inconstant in its expression. This feature of medical judgments gives rise to the moral responsibility of medical practitioners to be epistemically humble. This requires the recognition and communication of the uncertainty that accompanies their judgment as well as a commitment to avoiding intuitive innovations. (shrink)

Is Translational Science and Medicine new? Its dramatic expansion has spelled a dizzying array of new disciplines, departments, buildings, and terminology. Yet, without novel theories or concepts, Translational Science and Medicine may appear to be nothing more than an old concept with a new brand. Yet, is this view true? As is illustrated herein, histories of TSM which treat it as merely an old product under a new name misunderstand its essential architecture. As an expressly economic transformation, modern translational approaches (...) are differentiated precisely by a set of semi-permanent architectures which render it an altogether different kind of object when compared to previous attempts by institutions to turn science into medicine. Powered by new software, embedded within campuses that now house companies, and with legal agreements that outline agreed-upon scientific activity, TSM is now powered by a set of robust and durable structures that differentiate it from previous approaches. Based on ethnographic research about translational neuroscience in North America, this paper suggests that the sense of TSM as not being new is a consequence of analytic modes that tend to see scientific enterprises in epistemic terms alone. Analyzing TSM as primarily a scientific object misses the fact that it is a principally a financial one. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the investigation of the nature of the relation between probability theory and ranking theory. The paper aims at explaining the structural harmony between the laws of probability theory and those of ranking theory in a way that respects the foundational dualistic attitude developed by Spohn in The Laws of Belief. The paper argues that the so called atomic translation family satisfies the desiderata and does so in the ‘best’ possible way. On the one hand, the atomic (...) translation can be seen as ensuring maximal order agreement between rankings and probability—more would lead to trivialising dualism. On the other hand, the atomic translation also is assumption minimal, i.e., a minimal set of justifiable correspondences or translation principles suffice to derive the translation family, and this result is relatively robust. (shrink)

The article explores the inter-relations between episteme, ideology and knowledge in biblical translations and the underlying historical and intellectual questions that emerge. Through four narratives, drawn across differing timelines, this article maps the implications of theological and temporal power. Besides, it is also argued for how translations are sites of transgressions that eventually shape knowledge and impact epistemology. In conclusion, the article argues that Jerome and Wycliffe represent the role of public intellectuals and the dissident lessons of history.

In the last decade alone, a growing body of preliminary evidence suggests that classic psychedelics (CPs) can rapidly and durably ameliorate symptoms and cognitive deficits associated with depression. However, the mechanisms by which CPs work in the brain are not well understood. Rodent translational research, in which experimental findings from rodents are translated to humans, is fundamental in achieving this goal. This chapter focuses on a representative subset of human and rodent studies investigating CPs for depression, including the various lines (...) of research that have been initiated to understand how they work. Our aim is to show that in addition to epistemic challenges that scientists face in translating findings from rodents to humans, there is also mismatch between experimental approaches used to investigate CPs in humans and rodents. We thus show current experimental practices are not conducive to mechanistic discovery. We end with a set of positive proposals to expedite the drive to translate CPs into effective treatments for depression. -/- Keywords: classic psychedelics, psychiatry, clinical trials, collaboration, extrapolation, major depressive disorder, open science, philosophy of science, rodent models, scientific practice, translation, validity . (shrink)

Epistemic logic is the logic of knowledge, and dynamic epistemic logic is the logic of effects of communicative actions on the knowledge states of a set of agents. Typical communicative actions are making public announcements, passing private messages, revealing secrets, telling lies. This paper takes its starting point from the version of dynamic epistemic logic of [3], and demonstrates a tool that can be used for showing what goes on during a series of epistemic updates: the (...) dynamic epistemic modelling tool DEMO [10]. DEMO allows modelling epistemic updates, graphical display of update results, graphical display of action models, formula evaluation in epistemic models, and translation of dynamic epistemic formulas to PDL [23] formulas. DEMO is written in Haskell. This paper intends to demonstrate its use for calculating and visualizing the model transformations that take place during epistemic updating. (shrink)

Various conceptual approaches to the notion of information can currently be traced in the literature in logic and formal epistemology. A main issue of disagreement is the attribution of truthfulness to informational data, the so called Veridicality Thesis (Floridi 2005). The notion of Epistemic Constructive Information (Primiero 2007) is one of those rejecting VT. The present paper develops a formal framework for ECI. It extends on the basic approach of Artemov’s logic of proofs (Artemov 1994), representing an epistemic (...) logic based on dependent justifications, where the definition of information relies on a strict distinction from factual truth. The definition obtained by comparison with a Normal Modal Logic translates a constructive logic for “becoming informed”: its distinction from the logic of “being informed”—which internalizes truthfulness—is essential to a general evaluation of information with respect to truth. The formal disentanglement of these two logics, and the description of the modal version of the former as a weaker embedding into the latter, allows for a proper understanding of the Veridicality Thesis with respect to epistemic states defined in terms of information. (shrink)

We present epistemic multilateral logic, a general logical framework for reasoning involving epistemic modality. Standard bilateral systems use propositional formulae marked with signs for assertion and rejection. Epistemic multilateral logic extends standard bilateral systems with a sign for the speech act of weak assertion (Incurvati and Schlöder 2019) and an operator for epistemic modality. We prove that epistemic multilateral logic is sound and complete with respect to the modal logic S5 modulo an appropriate translation. The (...) logical framework developed provides the basis for a novel, proof-theoretic approach to the study of epistemic modality. To demonstrate the fruitfulness of the approach, we show how the framework allows us to reconcile classical logic with the contradictoriness of so-called Yalcin sentences and to distinguish between various inference patterns on the basis of the epistemic properties they preserve. (shrink)

This paper introduces DEMO, a Dynamic Epistemic Modelling tool. DEMO allows modelling epistemic updates, graphical display of update results, graphical display of action models, formula evaluation in epistemic models, translation of dynamic epistemic formulas to PDL formulas, and so on. The paper implements the reduction of dynamic epistemic logic [16, 2, 3, 1] to PDL given in [12]. The reduction of dynamic epistemic logic to automata PDL from [24] is also discussed and implemented. (...) class='Hi'>Epistemic models are minimized under bisimulation, and update action models are minimized under action emulation (the appropriate structural notion for having the same update effect, cf. [13]). The paper is an exemplar of tool building for epistemic update logic. It contains the full code of an implementation in Haskell [22], in ‘literate programming’ style [23], of DEMO. (shrink)

The rapid, recent emergence of new medical knowledge models has engendered a dizzying number of new medical initiatives, programs and approaches. Fields such as evidence-based medicine and translational medicine all promise a renewed relationship between knowledge and medicine. The question for philosophy and other fields has been whether these new models actually achieve their promises to bring about better kinds of medical knowledge—a question that compels scholars to analyze each model’s epistemic claims. Yet, these analyses may miss critical components (...) that explain how these models actually work and function. Using the case of translational medicine, this paper suggests that analyses which treat these models as a primarily epistemic interventions miss the way that new approaches are increasingly shaped by specific financial and commercial agendas. Ultimately, social epistemological analyses that are attentive to market forces are required to make sense of emerging bioscientific research models, which are increasingly tethered to or a manifestation of increasingly financialized models of science research and innovation. (shrink)

The article examines the essays dedicated to the philosophy of the late Fichte, specifically to the concept of the image and the absolute (Netrebiak, 2022 and 2024). It demonstrates the issues arising, on the one hand, from neglecting the context of Fichte’s philosophy in attempts to interpret his late philosophy and, on the other hand, from misinterpreting Fichte’s terminology and incorrect translations of his texts. Additionally, it refutes the claim regarding the theological context of Fichte’s philosophy, which consistently developed Kant’s (...) program of transcendental philosophy. This program aimed at reforming Christian epistemology and ethics by considering knowledge as the source of faith. The article also deals with Kant’s thesis on the setting aside (aufheben) of knowledge in order to make room for faith (KrV, B XXX) in the context of Luther’s translation of the biblical verb καταργεῖν (Rom. 3:31) as Kant’s claim for a reformation of Christianity. The path of Christianity (and the Christian philosopher) is the justification of knowledge (law, norms) through faith. Kant, however, radically rethinks this stance by justifying faith through knowledge. At bottom, Kant revises Christianity by rejecting transcendence, the supposed source of epistemic and practical world relations, leading to his critique of Christian ethics and its golden rule of morality whithin his doctrine of categorical imperatives. From this perspective, Fichte merely continues Kant’s program of transcendental philosophy, offering a path from knowledge to faith. Attempts to put forward a theological interpretation of Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre fundamentally contradict both the early and later versions of the Wissenschaftslehre, as they disregard the epistemological context in which Fichte consistently developed Kant’s revolutionary equating of objective validity with objective reality, even though he employed his own original theoretical vocabulary. (shrink)

In order to prove the validity of logical rules, one has to assume these rules in the metalogic. However, rule-circular ‘justifications’ are demonstrably without epistemic value. Is a non-circular justification of a logical system possible? This question attains particular importance in view of lasting controversies about classical versus non-classical logics. In this paper the question is answered positively, based on meaning-preserving translations between logical systems. It is demonstrated that major systems of non-classical logic, including multi-valued, paraconsistent, intuitionistic and quantum (...) logics, can be translated into classical logic by introducing additional intensional operators into the language. Based on this result it is argued that classical logic is representationally optimal. In sec. 6 it is investigated whether non-classical logics can be likewise representationally optimal. The answer is predominantly negative but partially positive. Nevertheless the situation is not symmetric, because classical logic has important ceteris paribus advantages as a unifying metalogic. (shrink)

In international politics, bridging the gap between the real and knowledge poses a persistent challenge as translating the real into concepts and narratives can nurture the epistemic fallacy. Critical realism addresses this by separating ontology from epistemology at the meta-theoretical level, yet in practical research, critical realism tends to impose assumptions about the ontological complexity of the real at the transcendental level. This paper examines the practical difficulty of overcoming the epistemic fallacy in International Relations inquiries, asserting that (...) critical realism does not effectively guide practical inquiries in separating ontology from epistemology at a methodological level. Despite the meta-theoretical separation, research inquiries can remain theory-laden and epistemically dependent. The solution lies in problematizing ontological presentation, and sustaining critique at the discursive level on International Relations theories, methodologies, and implications. This approach maintains a critical focus on ontological aspects at the practical level to deal with the challenge of the epistemic fallacy. (shrink)

We prove that Flagg and Friedman's translation from epistemic to intuitionistic predicate logics is not faithful.

During the eighteenth century, cabinetmakers in Canton (Guangzhou) produced a large quantity of hardwood furniture for European consumers. This essay examines the knowledge culture of these cabinetmakers, focusing on epistemic negotiations and adaptations in the process of making export furniture. While export furniture was made in European styles, cabinetmakers did not parrot European techniques of carpentry but creatively mobilized their own craft knowledge. Juxtaposing material evidence from extant pieces and the carpentry manual The Classic of Lu Ban, the essay (...) argues that the knowledge of joinery formed the basis of a practice of artisanal translation that was material and syntactic. Offering modular rubrics for spatial handling, joinery allowed cabinetmakers to restructure and reinvent furniture with a European appearance. Tracing the interaction between an indigenous knowledge system and global trade commodities, the essay underlines the social and epistemic realignments of locally rooted craft in the achievement of innovation. (shrink)

Formal learning theory constitutes an attempt to describe and explain the phenomenon of learning, in particular of language acquisition. The considerations in this domain are also applicable in philosophy of science, where it can be interpreted as a description of the process of scientific inquiry. The theory focuses on various properties of the process of hypothesis change over time. Treating conjectures as informational states, we link the process of conjecture-change to epistemic update. We reconstruct and analyze the temporal aspect (...) of learning in the context of dynamic and temporal logics of epistemic change. We first introduce the basic formal notions of learning theory and basic epistemic logic. We provide a translation of the components of learning scenarios into the domain of epistemic logic. Then, we propose a characterization of finite identifiability in an epistemic temporal language. In the end we discuss consequences and possible extensions of our work. (shrink)

Recent ideas about epistemic modals and indicative conditionals in formal semantics have significant overlap with ideas in modal logic and dynamic epistemic logic. The purpose of this paper is to show how greater interaction between formal semantics and dynamic epistemic logic in this area can be of mutual benefit. In one direction, we show how concepts and tools from modal logic and dynamic epistemic logic can be used to give a simple, complete axiomatization of Yalcin's [16] (...) semantic consequence relation for a language with epistemic modals and indicative conditionals. In the other direction, the formal semantics for indicative conditionals due to Kolodny and MacFarlane [9] gives rise to a new dynamic operator that is very natural from the point of view of dynamic epistemic logic, allowing succinct expression of dependence (as in dependence logic) or supervenience statements. We prove decidability for the logic with epistemic modals and Kolodny and MacFarlane's indicative conditional via a full and faithful computable translation from their logic to the modal logic K45. (shrink)

Richard Rorty’s neopragmatism is more similar to the self-described pragmatisms of his contemporaries Jürgen Habermas and Hilary Putnam than it is dissimilar from them. Indeed, the only significant difference between Rorty’s views and those of his interlocutors, and what forms the basis of their many public exchanges, is their respective stances toward the status of epistemic norms. Rorty’s arguments against Habermas’s endorsement of transcendental conditions that ground successful communication, and against Putnam’s contention that there exists a limit conception of (...) truth upon which the possibility for critique depends speak to the very heart of his philosophical differences from the Kantian pragmatisms of Habermas and Putnam. -/- This paper engages in a detailed exploration of the debates between Rorty and Habermas and between Rorty and Putnam over these matters. These debates provide us with a direct route to understanding Rorty’s own views on epistemic norms. That is, the comparison between his own position and those of his fellow neopragmatists throws into sharp relief Rorty’s belief in the radical contingency of epistemic norms. -/- This exploration profits from engaging a feminist lens because feminist critiques, specifically of Habermas’s work, draw attention to the inadequacies of his views that Rorty seeks to correct, inadequacies that can be easily translated to Putnam’s case as well. By approaching this issue from a feminist angle, the paper highlights the dissimilarities in the theoretical positions between Rorty and his contemporaries, and shows why this difference is more significant than it might seem at first blush. The paper concludes with the suggestion that Rorty’s emphasis on the radical contingency of epistemic norms can provide a basis for the kind of revolutionary social, political, and cultural change that is central to much recent feminist theory. (shrink)

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada made it clear that understanding the historical, social, cultural, and political landscape that shapes the relationships between Indigenous peoples and social institutions, including the health care system, is crucial to achieving social justice. How to translate this recognition into more equitable health policy and practice remains a challenge. In particular, there is limited understanding of ways to respond to situations in which conventional practices mandated by the state and regulated by its legal apparatus (...) come into direct conflict with the values and autonomy of Indigenous individuals, communities, and nations. In this paper, we consider two cases of conflict between Indigenous and biomedical perspectives to clarify some of the competing values. We argue for the importance of person‐ and people‐centered approaches to health care. These value conflicts must be understood at multiple levels to clarify their personal, social, cultural, and political dimensions. Taking into account the divergence between epistemic cultures and communities allows us to understand the multiple narratives deployed in decision‐making processes in clinical, community, and juridical contexts. Recognizing the knowledge claims of Indigenous peoples in health care can help clinicians avoid reinforcing the divides created by the structural and institutional legacy of colonialism. This analysis also provides ways to adjudicate conflicts in health care decision‐making by disentangling cultural, political, medical, and pragmatic issues to allow for respectful dialogue. Insofar as the engagement with cultural pluralism in health care rights is conducted with reciprocal recognition, the medical community and Indigenous peoples can address together the difficult question of how to integrate different epistemic cultures in the health care system. (shrink)

Previous chapter In a book that was only recently translated into English, Die Form des Werdens: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Embryologie, 1760-1830, Janina Wellmann has claimed that around 1800 the concept of rhythm emerged and penetrated the entire Western culture. In literature, in theoretical reflection on art, in philosophy, and above all in the newest life sciences, rhythm became, she argues, a common scientific “Paradigm” or better yet, a new “Episteme” - Sur le concept de rythme.

This doctoral thesis examines the phenomenon of Filipinization, specifically understood as the ideological construction of a “Filipino identity” or ‘Filipino subject-consciousness” within the highly determinate context provided by the Filipino ilustrado nationalists such as José Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar and their fellow propagandists inasmuch as it leads to the nineteenth (19th) century construction of the modern Philippine nation. Utilizing Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive thinking, this study undertakes a genealogical critique engaged on the concrete historical examination of what is meant by (...) the term “Filipino” across a select historical timeline (1864-1898) and the various notions of Filipino identity implied by the different contexts within which the term “Filipino” has been employed. More specifically, it undertakes a selective philosophical excavation of three seminal texts in the history of Filipinization, viz.: 1) the Manifiesto of Padre Jose Burgos; 2) the writings of the Filipino ilustrados in La Solidaridad; and 3) Jose Rizal’s Annotations on Dr. Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. -/- The philosophical claim of this work is the idea that Filipinization, taken as the differential construction of Filipino identity, is the effective translation of the colonial epistemic violence of Eurocentric racism and its consequent “horror of absolutism” into the homo-hegemony of Filipino nationalisms. By fetishizing the notion of a carefully constructed and essential “Filipino-identity,” Filipinization and the current nationalist discourses that utilize them, unwittingly, stands complicit with the same colonial violence and hegemony that they wish to combat. This happens precisely when the very structures of colonial oppression, on the ideological and practical levels, are transmogrified into nationalist ideals that assume legal and political power unto themselves in a self-referential and self-legitimating fashion. -/- Three processes will demonstrate the above thesis: first, by examining historical texts and setting itself against established nationalist historiographies, a genealogical analysis of the term “Filipino” reveals it as a pliable signifier whose semantics have evolved through time. From its originary referent in the Spanish criollo (creole), it has come to refer to people who would have been otherwise entirely alien to this class, viz., the mestizos (both Spanish and Chinese), the principalia (native elite), and eventually, the lowland Catholicized natives themselves. The historical hermeneutic of this identity-discourse in Padre José Burgos’ Manifiesto yields the fact that what gives the term “Filipino” its semantic consistency as a class concept is its essential constitution as a Hispanic and Catholic identity. -/- Second, from this semantic identification of the term “Filipino” as a Hispano-Catholic identity, we proceed to clarify the meaning of Filipinization in terms of the nationalist propaganda carried out by the Filipino ilustrados in the fortnightly periodical La Solidaridad. Here, the specific ilustrado construction of Filipino identity as a Spanish citizen (ciudadano Español) is revealed precisely as a political and legal construct that served as the basis for their own politics of social inclusion/exclusion. Filipinization can only be applied to those who have been hispanized and Christianized and never to those tribes who have resisted and remained outside Spanish colonial authority. Filipinization is thus revealed as a process of Hispanization and Christianization whereby the recipients of Spanish colonial hegemony are transformed into the religiously docile bodies of the Spanish Empire. -/- From this highly determinate context, the study proceeds to examine Rizal’s ontological grounding of collective Filipino-ness in the mythological construction of the pre-hispanic past as the source of a unique Filipino ancestrality. In his work on de Morga’s Sucesos, what is revealed is a mythologization that grounds a native, essential Filipino identity within a past unscathed by the Spanish colonial experience. Such mythologization, however, can only be possible through an anachronistic nationalist interpretation of historical data. Here, Filipinization is revealed as an exclusive prerogative, a nationalist program by which Rizal and the ilustrado class can combat the evils and excesses of the Spanish colonial enterprise. Ironically, though, this same struggle for emancipation also became an instrument by which the ilustrado class can retain their unjustified position of power over those who belonged to the colonial underside, thus, securing the possibility of perpetuating their own ilustrado bourgeois class interests. -/- Such discursive complicity is the essence of the myth of Filipinization: it presents nationalist identity discourse as an anti-colonial enterprise while being underlined by an economy of motives designed to cater primarily to the exclusive interests of the elite and ilustrado class. Thus, instead of securing the genuine, inclusive emancipation of all colonial subjects and a more humane existence for the poor and suffering majority, ilustrado nationalism has, ironically, merely reinforced those operative structures of colonial discrimination and oppression when the ilustrados: 1) grounded their racial theory upon the very same discourse of Eurocentric superiority that they are precisely supposed to question and 2) claimed a patrimony over Filipinas as their exclusive sovereign inheritance. These two factors illustrate how the manifest transfer of power from the Spanish Empire to the Philippine sovereign nation (and later as a nation-state) illustrate how Filipinization merely has transmogrified the face of Spanish colonialism into its new, subtle, and worse form in Filipino nationalism. -/- In this vein, the existence of the 19th century modern Philippine nation merely masked and deferred the crisis that was supposed to transfer power from the Spanish Empire to the multitude of the poor and suffering native indio majority. This crisis became all the more difficult to address be-cause of the duplicitous character of the discourse of Filipinization itself. It has not only effectively transferred power into the hands of the nationalist elite but also captured authentic emancipatory discourse within the identity-trap against which it can only hope to get out. This study concludes with the claim about the impossibility of ever escaping and overcoming the epistemic and practical violence necessarily contained within the historical discourse of colonialism. Or simply, we have no language or discourse that would enable us to overcome the complicity of Filipinization with the very (epistemic) violence against which it has set itself. (shrink)

D. Miller's demonstrations of the language dependence of truthlikeness raise a profound problem for the claim that scientific progress is objective. In two recent papers (Barnes 1990, 1991) I argue that the objectivity of progress may be grounded on the claim that the aim of science is not merely truth but knowledge; progress thus construed is objective in an epistemic sense. In this paper I construct a new solution to Miller's problem grounded on the notion of "approximate causal explanation" (...) which allows for linguistically invariant progress outside an epistemic context. I suggest that the notion of "approximate causal explanation" provides the resources for a more robust theory of progress than that provided by the notion of "approximate truth.". (shrink)

The sensitivity account of knowledge is a modal epistemology, according to which S knows that p only if S's belief in p is sensitive in the sense that S would not believe that p if p were false. There are different ways to state the sensitivity condition by means of a possible worlds heuristic. The sensitivity account is thus rendered into different versions. This paper examines cases of knowledge and cases of luckily true beliefs (e.g., the Gettier cases) and argues (...) that no version of the sensitivity account accommodates all cases. Therefore, the account is unsuccessful as an account of knowledge. (shrink)

Some propositions are structurally unknowable for certain agents. Let me call them ‘Moorean propositions’. The structural unknowability of Moorean propositions is normally taken to pave the way towards proving a familiar paradox from epistemic logic—the so-called ‘Knowability Paradox’, or ‘Fitch’s Paradox’—which purports to show that if all truths are knowable, then all truths are in fact known. The present paper explores how to translate Moorean statements into a probabilistic language. A successful translation should enable us to derive a version (...) of Fitch’s Paradox in a probabilistic setting. I offer a suitable schematic form for probabilistic Moorean propositions, as well as a concomitant proof of a probabilistic Knowability Paradox. Moreover, I argue that traditional candidates to play the role of probabilistic Moorean propositions will not do. In particular, we can show that violations of the so-called ‘Reflection Principle’ in probability need not yield structurally unknowable propositions. Among other things, this should lead us to question whether violating the Reflection Principle actually amounts to a clear case of epistemic irrationality, as it is often assumed. This result challenges the importance of the principle as a tool to assess both synchronic and diachronic rationality—a topic which is largely independent of Fitch’s Paradox—from a somewhat unexpected source. (shrink)

We present data and argument to show that in Tetris - a real-time interactive video game - certain cognitive and perceptual problems are more quickly, easily, and reliably solved by performing actions in the world rather than by performing computational actions in the head alone. We have found that some translations and rotations are best understood as using the world to improve cognition. These actions are not used to implement a plan, or to implement a reaction; they are used to (...) change the world in order to simplify the problem-solving task. Thus, we distinguish pragmatic actions ñ actions performed to bring one physically closer to a goal - from epistemic actions - actions performed to uncover information that is hidden or hard to compute mentally. To illustrate the need for epistemic actions, we first develop a standard information-processing model of Tetris-cognition, and show that it cannot explain performance data from human players of the game - even when we relax the assumption of fully sequential processing. Standard models disregard many actions taken by players because they appear unmotivated or superfluous. However, we describe many such actions that are actually taken by players that are far from superfluous, and that play valuable roles in improving human performance. We argue that traditional accounts are limited because they regard action as having a single function: to change the world. By recognizing a second function of action - an epistemic function - we can explain many of the actions that a traditional model cannot. Although, our argument is supported by numerous examples specifically from Tetris, we outline how the one category of epistemic action can be incorporated into theories of action more generally. (shrink)

As an instrument for participatory technology development, Scenario-Based Design offers significant potential for an early inclusion of future users. Over the course of a 3-year research project, this method was examined as a procedure for participatory technology development. Methods and instruments aimed at achieving a potential user’s participation, and the resulting cooperation of heterogeneous social groups can be seen as translation tools. Their purpose is to act as translators between different social fields and the specific knowledge associated with them. These (...) translation capabilities and participatory methods should result in the best possible convergence of different orientations and purposes. In this paper, attempting to achieve the best possible convergence is described as a dilemma of alignment. Several approaches will be used to describe the dynamic of the alignment dilemma within the above-mentioned project. The reconstruction follows one question that is proposed as a heuristic pattern to meet the requirements of an accurate analysis of holistic participatory methods: Who or what has to adjust to whom or what, why, when, and in which way? The main conclusions include the finding that the alignment dilemma is not equally balanced, that the agency of epistemic objects within the process has to be captured, and that it is easy for translation—provided primarily by core instruments of the participatory method used—to begin to overwrite the needs and purposes of one social group with the interests and orientations of another. (shrink)

The discipline of knowledge translation (KT) emerged as a way of systematically understanding and addressing the challenges of applying health and medical research in practice. In light of ongoing and emerging critique of KT from the medical humanities and social sciences disciplines, KT researchers have become increasingly aware of the complexity of the translational process, particularly the significance of culture, tradition and values in how scientific evidence is understood and received, and thus increasingly receptive to pluralistic notions of knowledge. Hence, (...) there is now an emerging view of KT as a highly complex, dynamic, and integrated sociological phenomenon, which neither assumes nor creates knowledge hierarchies and neither prescribes nor privileges scientific evidence. Such a view, however, does not guarantee that scientific evidence will be applied in practice and thus poses a significant dilemma for KT regarding its status as a scientific and practice-oriented discipline, particularly within the current sociopolitical climate. Therefore, in response to the ongoing and emerging critique of KT, we argue that KT must provide scope for relevant scientific evidence to occupy an appropriate position of epistemic primacy in public discourse. Such a view is not intended to uphold the privileged status of science nor affirm the “scientific logos” per se. It is proffered as a counterbalance to powerful social, cultural, political and market forces that are able to challenge scientific evidence and promote disinformation to the detriment of democratic outcomes and the public good. (shrink)

Legal texts are in the focus of both lawyers and translators. This paper discusses the binary opposition of these two views especially in the light of contract law. There is one crucial epistemic difference between the point of view of the translator and the lawyer when it comes to the interpretation of legal texts. In the translator’s view legal text is traditionally conceived as static as to its nature; something that already exists in the form of text. Traditionally, the (...) translator is interested in the text itself as it was written down in a document, i.e. the translator needs to go back to the frozen moment when a legal document was constructed and finalised. The lawyer, in contrast, is very much interested not only in the text of the legal document but also in the contextual surroundings of the text. In fact, for legal interpretation, sometimes the key-elements for the interpretation come from outside of the text itself. This paper concludes that legal translation is in many cases closer to transcreation than it is to traditionally understood translation. (shrink)

It is well known that AI-based language technology—large language models, machine translation systems, multilingual dictionaries, and corpora—is currently limited to three percent of the world’s most widely spoken, financially and politically backed languages. In response, recent efforts have sought to address the “digital language divide” by extending the reach of large language models to “underserved languages.” We show how some of these efforts tend to produce flawed solutions that adhere to a hard-wired representational preference for certain languages, which we call (...) language modeling bias. Language modeling bias is a specific and under-studied form of linguistic bias were language technology by design favors certain languages, dialects, or sociolects with respect to others. We show that language modeling bias can result in systems that, while being precise regarding languages and cultures of dominant powers, are limited in the expression of socio-culturally relevant notions of other communities. We further argue that at the root of this problem lies a systematic tendency of technology developer communities to apply a simplistic understanding of diversity which does not do justice to the more profound differences that languages, and ultimately the communities that speak them, embody. Drawing on the concept of epistemic injustice, we point to the broader ethico-political implications and show how it can lead not only to a disregard for valuable aspects of diversity but also to an under-representation of the needs of marginalized language communities. Finally, we present an alternative socio-technical approach that is designed to tackle some of the analyzed problems. (shrink)

This paper argues in favor of the epistemic properties of inclusiveness in the context of democratic deliberative assemblies and derives the implications of this argument in terms of the epistemically superior mode of selection of representatives. The paper makes the general case that, all other things being equal and under some reasonable assumptions, more is smarter. When applied to deliberative assemblies of representatives, where there is an upper limit to the number of people that can be included in the (...) group, the argument translates into a defense of a specific selection mode of participants: random selection. (shrink)

Why decolonize knowledge and philosophy? Pascah Mungwini proposes that epistemic decolonization should be implemented to remain true to the spirit of philosophy and to the idea of humanity. Aaron Creller, Michael Monahan, and Esme Murdock focus on different aspects of Mungwini’s proposal in their individual responses. Creller suggests some “best practices” so that comparative epistemology can take into account the parochial embeddedness of universal reason. While Monahan underscores that world philosophy as a project must openly acknowledge its own incompleteness (...) and its instantiation in different world philosophies, Esme Murdock uses Glissant’s thoughts to make a case for the right to opacity as a strategy for subverting the dominating power of Euroamerican reason. In his reply, Mungwini underscores that philosophy will be able to increase the amount of justice, beauty, and truth in this world only when its practitioners begin to exhibit genuine pluralism in their work. (shrink)

Empirical research into the ethics of emerging technologies, often involving foresight studies, technology assessment or application of the precautionary principle, raises significant epistemological challenges by failing to explain the relative epistemic status of contentious normative claims about future states. This weakness means that it is unclear why the conclusions reached by these approaches should be considered valid, for example in anticipatory ethical assessment or governance of emerging technologies. This paper explains and responds to this problem by proposing an account (...) of how the epistemic status of uncertain normative claims can be established in ethical and political discourses based on Jürgen Habermas’ discourse ethics. To better understand the nature of the problem, the relationship between norms, facts and the future is explored in light of potential meta-ethical fallacies faced in the field of empirical ethics. Weaknesses of current approaches to anticipatory ethical assessment and governance are then explored, including the Precautionary Principle and Technology Assessment. We argue that the epistemic status of uncertain normative claims can be understood within Habermas’ approach to political discourse, which requires ‘translation’ of uncertain claims to be comprehensible to other stakeholders in discourse. Translation thus provides a way to allow for uncertain normative claims to be considered alongside other types of validity claims in discourse. The paper contributes a conceptual account of the epistemic status of uncertain normative claims in discourse and begins to develop a ‘methodology of translation’ which can be further developed for approaches to research and ethical assessment supporting anticipatory evidence-based policy, governance and system design. (shrink)

I offer an examination of trust relations in scientific inquiry as they seem to contrast with a lack of trust in an example of knowledge imposed from above by an unaccountable institutional power structure. On this basis I argue for a re-reading of John Hardwig's account of the place of trust in knowledge, and suggest that it translates less well than social epistemologists and others have assumed into a model for democratic epistemic practice.

We present a technique for automatically verifying cryptographic protocols specified in the mainstream specification language CAPSL. We define a translation from CAPSL models into interpreted systems, a popular semantics for temporal-epistemic logic, and rewrite CAPSL goals as temporal-epistemic specifications. We present a compiler that implements this translation. The compiler links to the symbolic model checker MCMAS. We evaluate the technique on protocols in the Clark-Jacobs library and in the SPORE repository against custom secrecy and authentication requirements.

This paper argues for the need of philosophical translator-advocates to overcome the (would-be) limitations produced by the linguistic narrowness of analytic philosophy. It draws on a model used to analyze epistemic communities in order to characterize a form of linguistic injustice. In particular it does so by treating language as an epistemic barrier to entry of ideas and people and by treating philosophical translator-advocates as engaged in a form of arbitrage. Along the way I specify some necessary and (...) jointly sufficient characteristics of a philosophical translator-advocate. My argument is illuminated and vivified with examples from the history of analytic philosophy and other episodes from the history of philosophy. (shrink)

This essay deals with the medical recipe as an epistemic genre that played an important role in the cross-cultural transmission of knowledge. The article first compares the development of the recipe as a textual form in Chinese and European premodern medical cultures. It then focuses on the use of recipes in the transmission of Chinese pharmacology to Europe in the second half of the seventeenth century. The main sources examined are the Chinese medicinal formulas translated—presumably—by the Jesuit Michael Boym (...) and published in Specimen Medicinae Sinicae (1682), a text that introduced Chinese pulse medicine to Europe. The article examines how the translator rendered the Chinese formulas into Latin for a European audience. Arguably, the translation was facilitated by the fact that the recipe as a distinct epistemic genre had developed, with strong parallels, in both Europe and China. Building on these parallels, the translator used the recipe as a shared textual format that would allow the transfer of knowledge between the two medical cultures. (shrink)

This paper discusses the concept and the practice of multicultural education at an Indonesian Islamic educational institution, the Pesantren Modern Walisongo. This paper employed a qualitative approach using a phenomenological type of research, and the technique of purposive and snowball samplings in gaining the data. Spradley model was applied to analyze the data; whereas the triangulation strategy and member check were implemented to gain data validity. This study concludes, the formation of the multicultural characters of santri uses the approach of (...) integrating philosophical, spiritual, psycho philosophical, and socio religious-philosophical values. (shrink)

Wittgenstein (1993), Derek Jarman’s biopic of the Austrian-born Cambridge philosopher is a fascinating – if perplexing – film. In equal measure aesthetic and didactic, its status is ambiguous, and not only because didacticism in the philosophy of art is often assumed to diminish aesthetic value. Nothing, however, of the film’s aesthetic is depreciated by the intention to instruct. Even if the objective was to teach, the film is also highly aestheticised. Composed of a series of richly theatrical set-pieces, Jarman’s film (...) aspires to a painterly aesthetic. This paper examines the aesthetic and epistemic dimensions of Wittgenstein . The consensus among professional philosophers is that the film, while idiosyncratic and stylised, nevertheless says something important about Wittgenstein’s philosophy. It is as if he has used the project to innovate ways of translating Wittgenstein’s philosophy to aesthetic form. The resultant representational strategies are best understood with reference to the picture theory developed in Wittgenstein’s early philosophy. In the Tractatus Logico - Philosophicus (1922) Wittgenstein characterised the proposition as an articulation of elements that, by virtue of shared logical form, corresponds to the disposition of objects in a possible fact. Under Jarman’s direction, cinematic tableaux are transformed into propositions in the Wittgensteinian sense. In this film, therefore, Jarman has refined his cinematic process into what, following the picture theory, I have called tractarian montage. It is because the philosophy is embedded in the film as a structural component of its form (and not just presented didactically) that Wittgenstein seems oddly right to Wittgensteinian viewers. The aesthetic and epistemic consequences that result from Jarman’s approach are precisely what make the film philosophically interesting – indeed they provide a valuable opportunity to reflect not only on the development of Wittgenstein’s philosophy but also, uniquely, on the relationship between his philosophy and his life. (shrink)

Dynamic epistemic logic is the logic of the effects of epistemic actions like making public announcements, passing private messages, revealing secrets, telling lies. This paper takes its starting point from the version of dynamic epistemic logic of [2], and demonstrates a tool that can be used for showing what goes on during a series of epistemic updates: the dynamic epistemic modelling tool DEMO [7, 9]. DEMO allows modelling epistemic updates, graphical display of update results, (...) graphical display of action models, formula evaluation in epistemic models, and translation of dynamic epistemic formulas to PDL [22] formulas. DEMO is written in Haskell. This paper intends to demonstrate its usefulness for visualizing the model transformations that take place during epistemic updating. (shrink)

This article explores the development of a novel biomedical research organism, and its potential to remake the species and spaces of translational medicine. The humanized mouse is a complex experimental object in which mice, rendered immunodeficient through genetic alteration, are engrafted with human stem cells in the hope of reconstituting a human immune system for biomedical research and drug testing. These chimeric organisms have yet to garner the same commentary from social scientists as other human–animal hybrid forms. Yet, they are (...) rapidly being positioned as central to translational medicine in immunological research and pharmaceutical development. This article explores the complex relations between species and spaces they seek to enact. Humanizing mice simultaneously moves these animal forms towards the intimate geographies of corporeal equivalence with humans and the expansive geographies of translational research. These multiple trajectories are achieved by the way humanized mice function as both uncertain ‘epistemic things’ and as expansive ‘collaborative things’, articulating mouse genetics with other research, notably stem cell science. In the context of post-genomics, their indeterminacy is critical to their collaborative value; their expansive potential follows as much from their biological openness as from specific expectations. Yet, these new research organisms have both accumulative and disruptive capacities, for there are patterns of interference between these trajectories, remaking boundaries between experimental practices and clinical contexts. (shrink)

We present data and argument to show that in Tetris—a real-time interactive video game—certain cognitive and perceptual problems are more quickly, easily, and reliably solved by performing actions in the world rather than by performing computational actions in the head alone. We have found that some translations and rotations are best understood as being used to implement a plan, or to implement a reaction. To substantiate our position we have implemented a computational laboratory that lets us record keystrokes and game (...) situations, as well as allows us to dynamically create situations. Using the data of over 30 subjects playing 6 games, tachistoscopic tests of some of these subjects, and results from our own successful efforts at building expert systems to play Tetris, we show why knowing how to use one’s environment to enhance speed and robustness are important components in skilled play. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reply to Vaidya, Guhe, and Williams on the Bloomsbury Translation of the Tattva-cintā-maṇi of GaṅgeśaStephen Phillips (bio)More or less happy with the reviews, I would like mainly, in response, to identify advances made in the study of Gaṅgeśa. Anand Vaidya articulates a clearer overview of Gaṅgeśa's theory of knowledge; Eberhard Guhe shows a better way to render the notion of vyāpti, "pervasion," which is central in the theory of (...) inference as a knowledge source; and Michael Williams, too, shows need for improvement on that score as well as for elaboration of matters taken up by classical commentators that are given short shrift in my running comments. For example, whereas long discussions are provoked by Gaṅgeśa's definition of "knowledge," pramā, major points in the purvapakṣa in the section on proving the existence of an īśvara, a "Lord," seem, as Williams says, "threadbare."Vaidya, following Burge (2003), introduces a distinction between entitlement and justification: entitlement is the kind of unreflective epistemic warrant delivered by Gaṅgeśa's pramāṇa, "knowledge sources," working automatically in our everyday lives, whereas justification requires self-conscious certification, prāmāṇya-jñapti. Thereby splitting the horns of a dilemma posed by internalist accounts of knowledge in opposition to externalist ones, Burge and Vaidya are able to incorporate the most [End Page 519] attractive features of each approach. The entitlement/justification distinction cashes out, I may add, to Vaidya's elucidation, Nyāya's deeply held doctrine of parataḥ-prāmāṇya, "certification by another," against the view of "intrinsic certification," svataḥ-prāmāṇya, of Prabhākara and others. As Williams notes, Prābhākara positions, for which Gaṅgeśa sometimes shows sympathy, may have led him to presume that an anubhava—"awareness" or "presentational experience" in my translation, "fresh news" in Matilal's snappy rendering—is an episode of knowledge, pramā, "unless one knows otherwise," bādhakam vinā.On reflection, one sees that such a presentation (it could be perceptual, inferential, analogical, or testimonial) has been produced by a pramāṇa, or, in abnormal cases, not, and so by a "pramāṇa-pretender," a pramāṇaābhāsa, as in seeing a mirage. Again, an anubhava is not just any old cognition or "thought" (pace Das 2021, p. 162); it is defined as nonrecollective. Unlike a deliverance of a genuine pramāṇa, some instances may, on examination, prove to be a-pramā, "non-knowledge," but are, nevertheless, at the animal level, sufficient to provoke and guide action that would not be unhesitating were there doubt in any way. A thirsty Maya, in Vaidya's example, would naturally move in the direction of the water she "sees." But she would hesitate were she to learn from her friend about the unreliability of water-perception in the current circumstances. At the reflective level, where she is unsure whether the anubhava she apperceives is pramā or apramā, her action, including speech (implying assertability), is altered.So far so good in Vaidya's reconstruction. But Gaṅgeśa does not himself pronounce on the question of whether, after learning about the defeater, Maya would still be entitled to her perceptual belief that there is water in the distance. In the volumes under review, I assumed that she would not be "justified" and indeed that she would no longer have the belief (if we may speak about "beliefs"). The defeater grasped at the reflective level would mean not only that she could not certify the perceptual deliverance but also that there would be no knowledge. Clearly, she can't certify it, and thus, as Vaidya reasons, loses the right to assert. But maybe he's correct that, according to Gaṅgeśa's sensibilities, she does not lose the perceptual knowledge. She would remain entitled to her belief.Personally, I think this is wrong, but Vaidya's understanding does have the merit of explaining why some later Naiyāyikas apparently took absurd positions on epistemic luck (Bhattacharya 1996, p. ix). I think that Maya would lose her entitlement, too, but what if, after being informed of the unreliability of water-perception... (shrink)

In their article ‘Who is afraid of black box algorithms? On the epistemological and ethical basis of trust in medical AI’, Durán and Jongsma discuss the epistemic and ethical challenges raised by black box algorithms in medical practice. The opacity of black box algorithms is an obstacle to the trustworthiness of their outcomes. Moreover, the use of opaque algorithms is not normatively justified in medical practice. The authors introduce a formalism, called computational reliabilism, which allows generating justified beliefs on (...) the algorithm reliability and trustworthy outcomes of artificial intelligence systems by means of epistemic warrants, called reliability indicators. However, they remark the need for reliability indicators specific to black box algorithms and that justified knowledge is not sufficient to justify normatively the actions of the physicians using medical AI systems. Therefore, Durán and Jongsma advocate for a more transparent design and implementation of black box algorithms, providing a series of recommendations to mitigate the epistemic and ethical challenges behind their use in medical practice. In this response, I argue that a peculiar form of black box algorithm transparency, called design publicity, may efficiently implement these recommendations. Design publicity encodes epistemic, that is, reliability indicators, and ethical recommendations for black box algorithms by means of four subtypes of transparency. These target the values and goals, their translation into design requirements, the performance and consistency of the algorithm altogether. I discuss design publicity applying it to a use case focused on the automated classification of skin lesions from medical images. (shrink)

Secular bioethicists do not speak from a place of distinction, but from within particular culturally, socially, and historically conditioned standpoints. As partisans of moral and ideological agendas, they bring their own biases, prejudices, and worldviews to their roles as ethical consultants, social advocates, and academics, attempting rhetorically to sway others and shift policy to a preferred point of view. Their pronouncements represent just one voice among others, even when delivered with strident rhetoric, in an educated and knowing tone, from within (...) institutional positions of power. This essay argues that, given the hegemony of progressive secular bioethics, traditional Christians routinely face epistemic injustice within medicine. That is, Christian knowledge regarding moral reality is all too often demeaned or dismissed, unless such norms can be translated into and defended within a secular ethos. Given such systemic bias, I argue, Christians also experience significant moral distress: they are fully aware of their moral obligations and what they ought to do, but institutionalized power structures make it nearly impossible to so act. But, Christian physicians are not mere technicians, obliged to provide whatever patients request from the list of legally available treatments. That antireligious critics seek to remove the rights of Christian physicians to limit how they practice medicine, where they do not offer or refer for abortion, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and other inappropriate forms of care, is unjustified and prejudicial, singling out Christians, and other religious groups, for singular treatment. Regardless of what the law requires or institutional policy demands, however, Christians are obliged to submit to God in all things. As a result, they may at times find themselves required to engage in acts of civil disobedience. (shrink)

Marx and Engels argue that capitalism must ultimately destroy itself because it contains an internal contradiction: Capitalism requires wage laborers at first to be in competitive isolation from one another, lest their common interests become transparent and they unite collectively to improve their employment conditions. At a certain later stage of capitalism's historical development, however, competition eventually forces capitalists to bring their workers together in common workplaces , where their shared interests can be immediately perceived and mutual grievances directly communicated. (...) The Communist Manifesto's argument for the inevitable downfall of capitalism is epistemically naïve in several ways, resting as it does on the idea that material interests are perceivable, and that an awareness of common problems translates automatically into a sense of shared interests powerful enough to motivate coordinated action for the sake of achieving economic-political reform. (shrink)