It’s intuitive to think that (a) the more sure you are of something, the harder it’ll be to change your mind about it, and (b) you can’t be open-minded about something if you’re very sure about it. If these thoughts are right, then, with minimal assumptions, it follows that you can’t be in a good position to both escape echo chambers and be rationally resistant to fake news: the former requires open-mindedness, but the latter is (...) inimical to it. I argue that neither thought is true and that believing them will get us all mixed up. I show that you can be open-minded and have confidently held beliefs, and that beliefs in which you are less sure are not, thereby, more fragile. I close with some reflections on the nature of rational belief change and open-mindedness and a brief sketch about what might actually help us in the fight against misinformation and belief polarization …. [please read below the rest of the article]. (shrink)

I argue that there is a prima facie tension between solutions to the problem of fake news and solutions to the problem presented by various cognitive biases that dispose us to dismiss evidence against our prior beliefs (what might seem to be the driving force behind echo chambers). We can guard against fake news by strengthening belief. But we can exit echo chambers by becoming more sensitive to counterevidence, which seems to require weakening our (...) beliefs. I resolve the tension by arguing against an injunction to weaken belief in the required ways. In particular, there is no injunction to be open-minded in all circumstances toward various counterarguments, even those whose premises seem compelling and in which we can’t expose a flaw. On the contrary, there are circumstances in which you should, in the relevant sense, be closed-minded toward such counterarguments. (shrink)

Recent conversation has blurred two very different social epistemic phenomena: echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Members of epistemic bubbles merely lack exposure to relevant information and arguments. Members of echo chambers, on the other hand, have been brought to systematically distrust all outside sources. In epistemic bubbles, other voices are not heard; in echo chambers, other voices are actively undermined. It is crucial to keep these phenomena distinct. First, echo chambers can explain the post-truth phenomena in (...) a way that epistemic bubbles cannot. Second, each type of structure requires a distinct intervention. Mere exposure to evidence can shatter an epistemic bubble, but may actually reinforce an echo chamber. Finally, echo chambers are much harder to escape. Once in their grip, an agent may act with epistemic virtue, but social context will pervert those actions. Escape from an echo chamber may require a radical rebooting of one's belief system. (shrink)

Following Cass Sunstein's popular treatment of the concept, echo chambers are often defined as environments which exclude contrary opinions through omission. C. Thi Nguyen contests the popular usage and defines echo chambers in terms of in-group trust and out-group distrust. In this paper, I argue for a more comprehensive treatment. While both exclusion by omission and out-group distrust help sustain echo chambers, neither defines the phenomenon. I develop a social network model of echo chambers which focuses (...) on the role of belief-reinforcing echoes. First, I argue that the model allows us to incorporate Nguyen's main point about distrust without construing other commentators as deeply mistaken about the nature of echo chambers. Second, I use the model to develop an account of collaborative resistance and use it to clarify the role echo chambers play in spreading misinformation. (shrink)

According to some, the current political fracture is best described as political polarization – where extremism and political separation infest an entire whole population. Political polarization accounts often point to the psychological phenomenon of belief polarization – where being in a like-minded groups tends to boost confidence. The political polarization story is an essentially symmetrical one, where both sides are subject to the same basic dividing forces and cognitive biases, and are approximately as blame-worthy. On a very different account, what's (...) going on is best described propaganda – where a discrete set of bad actors have manipulated some part of the media environ-ment. The propaganda story is usually told as a highly asymmetrical story, where only some media consumers are under the spell of the propagandists. Which is right? I consider two analyses of the 2016 American election: Robert Talisse's polarization-style account in Overdoing Democracy, and Benkler et. al.'s propaganda-style account in Network Propaganda. I suggest that the propaganda account has better empirical support. I also offer a diagnosis of the appeal of the polarization story. Those who accept a polarization account are often political centrists, who accuse those at the political extremes of motivated reasoning – of believing what they find comfortable. Such centrists also tend to treat political extremism as the product of the irrational belief polarization, arising from living in like-minded groups. But, I argue, these arguments are too quick. First, we can’t dismiss a group as irrational merely be-cause they are likeminded. The existence of like-minded group can be explained in terms of irrational belief polarization, but it can also be explained by rational convergence on the truth. Second, belief polarization is not always irrational, such as when its emotional effects are used to repair impaired self-confidence. Third, political centrists are also subject to similar debunking argument. When we accept a polarization account, we get to feel the comfort of being “above it all”. Political centrists are just as plausibly subject to the irrational effects of living in like-minded groups. Belief polarization isn’t just for extremists. (shrink)

When should you engage with difficult arguments against your cherished controversial beliefs? The primary conclusion of this book is that your obligations to engage with counterarguments are more limited than is often thought. In some standard situations, you shouldn't engage with difficult counterarguments and, if you do, you shouldn't engage with them open-mindedly. This conclusion runs counter to aspects of the Millian political tradition and political liberalism, as well as what people working in informal logic tend to say about (...) argumentation. -/- Not all misleading arguments wear their flaws on their sleeve. Each step of a misleading argument might seem compelling and you might not be able to figure out what's wrong with it. Still, even if you can't figure out what's wrong with an argument, you can know that it's misleading. One way to know that an argument is misleading is, counterintuitively, to lack expertise in the methods and evidence-types employed by the argument. When you know that a counterargument is misleading, you shouldn't engage with it open-mindedly and sometimes shouldn't engage with it at all. You shouldn't engage open-mindedly because you shouldn't be willing to reduce your confidence in response to arguments you know are misleading. And you sometimes shouldn't engage closed-mindedly, because to do so can be manipulative or ineffective. -/- In making this case, Jeremy Fantl discusses echo chambers and group polarization, the importance in academic writing of a sympathetic case for the opposition, the epistemology of disagreement, the account of open-mindedness, and invitations to problematic academic speakers. (shrink)

This article is an exercise in the virtue epistemology of the internet, an area of applied virtue epistemology that investigates how online environments impact the development of intellectual virtues, and how intellectual virtues manifest within online environments. I examine online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles (Nguyen 2020, Episteme 17(2), 141–61), exploring the conceptual relationship between these online environments and the virtue of open-mindedness (Battaly 2018b, Episteme 15(3), 261–82). The article answers two key individual-level, virtue epistemic questions: (Q1) How (...) does immersion in online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles affect the cultivation and preservation of open-mindedness, and (Q2) Is it always intellectually virtuous to exhibit open-mindedness in the context of online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles? In response to Q1, I contend that both online echo chambers and online epistemic bubbles threaten to undermine the cultivation and preservation of open-mindedness, albeit via different mechanisms and to different degrees. In response to Q2, I affirm that both a deficiency and an excess of open-mindedness can be virtuous in these online environments, depending on the epistemic orientation of the digital user. (shrink)

This article reflects on the contemporary phenomenon of ‘fake news’ from a Schutzian perspective. Discerning the truth or falsity of an utterance – whether it is true, and therefore deemed ‘real’, or not and thus ‘fake’ –, calls for a framework for determining truth value. Thus, after a brief introduction, situating fake news within the history of strategic disinformation and propaganda, we analyze Schutz’s perspective on truth and rationality. Schutz’s concept of truth and rationality are (...) centered around the paradigm of social constructivism, which situates the production of objects of thought in its sociocultural context and considers these objects socially derived or mediated. Reality, from this angle, is tied to group consensus, and, thus, can be considered objectified knowledge within the in-groups to which the members belong. This view of reality seems to follow, essentially, the logic of internet phenomena, such as filter bubbles and echo-chambers. (shrink)

I characterize epistemic trust as an intellectual virtue of a responsibilist kind. I argue that an agent H places epistemic trust in agent S that p if and only if: (1) H takes S to communicate that p; (2) H believes that p; (3) H depends upon S’s (perceived) communication for H’s belief that p; (4) H sees S as epistemically authoritative with respect to p; and (5) H is confident that S will not purposefully lie about p. The virtuous (...) epistemic truster does all the above while also being skilled at judging when it is epistemically appropriate to trust, motivated to trust out of a desire for epistemic goods, and competent at the characteristic activity of epistemic trust. Having classified epistemic trust as a virtue, I highlight its tremendous epistemic value in the age of misinformation. Today, although we have access to an ocean of information at the click of a button, we can fall victim to fake news, rumors, and echo chambers. Thus, it is critical that we are able to discern who to trust, when to trust them, and about which epistemic goods. (shrink)

Belief polarization (BP) is widely seen to threaten havoc on our shared political lives. It is often assumed that BP is the product of epistemically irrational behaviors at the individual level. After distinguishing between BP as it occurs in intra-group and inter-group settings, this paper argues that neither process necessarily reflects individual epistemic irrationality. It is true that these processes can work in tandem to produce so-called “echo chambers.” But while echo chambers are often problematic from the point (...) of view of collective rationality, it doesn't follow that individuals are doing anything wrong, epistemically speaking, in seeking them out. In non-ideal socio-epistemic contexts, echo chamber construction might provide one's best defense against systematic misinformation and deception. (shrink)

The project of veristic social epistemology is based on the evaluation of social practices directed at acquiring knowledge and avoiding error. This research aims to analyse the social and technological dimensions of information processes. A number of practices in the network environment have a significant impact on the cognitive processes of individuals. They give rise to the acquisition of both true and false beliefs, ranging from reliable information practices to unreliable disinformation practices. The prevalence of phenomena such as echo (...) chambers, fake news, clickbait or deepfakes indicates that the condition of the contemporary infosphere is under serious threat. Disinformation processes, reinforced by technological progress, prompt reflection on the reliability of social practices. In addition to the strictly veristic consequences, the importance of the phenomenon of epistemic injustice should also be pointed out. (shrink)

Charles Taber and Milton Lodge provide compelling evidence that people's minds may be closed to information that is inconsistent with their prior beliefs. This type of inconsistency has often been termed ?irrational.? However, recent research suggests that being open or closed minded is not an unchanging variable but depends on one's goals, including one's need for closure, which vary from person to person and situation to situation. In this vein, as Taber and Lodge suggest, those who have more political (...) information may, after having been open minded enough to acquire the information, become closed minded by virtue of having acquired it. At the same time, being more open minded to inaccurate information might lead one in the wrong direction; hence, open mindedness does not necessarily enhance the accuracy of one's judgments or the quality of one's decisions. We may need to rethink the concept of an enlightened, well-informed electorate, to the extent that it assumes the unqualified benefits of open mindedness. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the growing literature in social epistemology of diagnosing the epistemically problematic features of fake news. I identify two novel problems: the problem of relevant alternatives; and the problem of the degradation of the epistemic environment. The former arises among individual epistemic transactions. By making salient, and thereby relevant, alternatives to knowledge claims, fake news stories threaten knowledge. The problem of the degradation of the epistemic environment arises at the level of entire epistemic (...) communities. I introduce the notion of an epistemic environment, roughly the totality of resources and circumstances relevant to assessing the epistemically interesting statuses, such as knowledge. Fake news degrades our epistemic environment by undermining confidence in epistemic institutions and altering epistemic habits, thereby making the environment less conducive to achieving positive epistemic statuses. This is problematic even if the decrease in confidence and the altering of habits are rational. I end by considering solutions to these problems, stressing the importance of reproaching each other for proliferating fake news. I argue that we should reproach even faultless purveyors of fake news. This is because fake news typically arises in abnormal epistemic contexts, where there is widespread ignorance of, and noncompliance with, correct epistemic norms. (shrink)

In a free society, it is common to hear the request that one â ~keep an open mind.â Just what exactly is it, however, to keep an open-mind? How does open-mindedness function? How does it square with important personal commitments? These issues are particularly acute when it comes to matters of religious belief in which open-mindedness can sound to the pious a bit too much like doubt. Certainly, in a discipline whose discourse remains rational dialogue, effort (...) should be spent discerning the contours of this virtue, especially in light of its formal role in establishing responsiveness to new inquiries in matters philosophical and religious. This book provides a collection of essays serving to promote conversation about open-mindedness, its virtue, and its role and application in problems in the philosophy of religion in particular. (shrink)

Some common explanations of issue polarization and echo chambers rely on social or cognitive mechanisms of exclusion. Accordingly, suggested interventions like “be more open-minded” target these mechanisms: avoid epistemic bubbles and don’t discount contrary information. Contrary to such explanations, we show how a much weaker mechanism—the preference for belief—can produce issue polarization in epistemic communities with little to no mechanisms of exclusion. We present a network model that demonstrates how a dynamic interaction between the preference for belief and (...) common structures of epistemic communities can turn very small unequal distributions of initial beliefs into full-blown polarization. This points to a different class of explanations, one that emphasizes the importance of the initial spread of information. We also show how our model complements extant explanations by including a version of biased assimilation and motivated reasoning—cognitive mechanisms of exclusion. We find that mechanisms of exclusion can exacerbate issue polarization, but may not be the ultimate root of it. Hence, the recommended interventions suggested by extant literature is expected to be limited and the problem of issue polarization to be even more intractable. (shrink)

Open-mindedness is widely regarded as an epistemic virtue and, more recently, a moral one: its exercise is supposed to be conducive not only to the acquisition of epistemic goods such as truth, knowledge, and understanding, but also to the development of moral goods such as the promotion of social cohesion and the fostering of people’s respect and care for one another. This glossy view of open-mindedness, however, has come under challenge. Critics have argued that adopting a default stance (...) of openness can be detrimental to our epistemic and moral selves, especially in today’s world where fake news, attacks on the idea of truth, and blatant lies abound. The articles in this symposium by Howard Curzer and Jessica Gottlieb and by Matt Ferkany represent some of these challenges. Concerned with the question of when it is safe to exercise open-mindedness, both seek to identify the potential hazards that may arise as a result being open-minded and to propose ways to curtail those hazards. In this paper, I will assess each of their arguments in turn. (shrink)

Recently, there has been growing concern that increased partisanship in news sources, as well as new ways in which people acquire information, has led to a proliferation of epistemic bubbles and echo chambers: in the former, one tends to acquire information from a limited range of sources, ones that generally support the kinds of beliefs that one already has, while the latter function in the same way, but possess the additional characteristic that certain beliefs are actively reinforced. Here (...) I argue, first, that we should conceive of epistemic bubbles and echo chambers as types of epistemically pernicious groups, and second, that while analyses of such groups have typically focused on relationships between individual members, at least part of what such groups epistemically pernicious pertains to the way that members rely on the groups themselves as sources of information. I argue that member reliance on groups results in groups being attributed a degree of credibility that outruns their warrant, a process I call groupstrapping. I argue that by recognizing the groupstrapping as an illicit method of forming and updating beliefs we can make progress on some of the open questions concerning epistemically pernicious groups. (shrink)

Open-mindedness appears as a potential intellectual virtue from the beginning of the rise of the literature on intellectual virtues. It often takes up a special role, sometimes thought of as a meta-virtue rather than a first-order virtue: as an ingredient that makes other virtues virtuous. Jason Baehr has attempted to give a unified account of open-mindedness as an intellectual virtue. He argues that the conceptual core of open-mindedness lies in the fact that a person departs, moves beyond, (...) or transcends a certain default cognitive standpoint. Two of his main aims are to show that (1) one does not need to assume a doxastic conflict or disagreement to be at the heart of open-mindedness—that is, there are also instances where the virtue of open-mindedness is needed when there is no opposing view to be considered—and (2) that not all forms of open-mindedness include rational assessment—that is, sometimes being open-minded is not about weighing evidence for and against a claim. So, his main aim is to show that there are various situations that afford open-mindedness, in each of which a slightly different kind of open-mindedness is called for. To unify all these different kinds of open-mindedness is then the goal of his work. He arrives at the following definition of open-mindedness (OM): an open-minded person is characteristically (a) willing and (within limits) able (b) to transcend a default cognitive standpoint (c) in order to take up or take seriously the merits of (d) a distinct cognitive standpoint. In this article, I take seriously Baehr’s suggestion of how to understand open-mindedness as an intellectual virtue and argue that the crux lies in formulating how we can be able to transcend a default cognitive standpoint. This is not as obvious as it has been taken to be in the literature on open-mindedness. Biases, overconfidence, and wishful thinking are difficult exactly because we don’t know that we are engaging in them. That is, they are systematically hidden from our consciousness, otherwise they would not be a bias, overconfidence, or wishful thinking. Hence, the crux of making open-mindedness open-minded is to see how it is possible to make something of one’s own mind visible that is systematically hidden from oneself. I argue that this problem can be solved by looking at research on attention. I base my considerations in this article on Sebastian Watzl’s account of attention, which essentially holds that paying attention is an activity of foregrounding and backgrounding mental contents. That is, attention is the activity of structuring mental contents into a priority structure of foreground and background. If I pay attention to the scene in front of me, I foreground the black letters on my screen, and I background the coffee cup next to them. In this way, I create a priority structure between the letters (as they appear to me) and the coffee cup (as it appears to me). I argue that what allows us to make something of our own mind visible that is systematically hidden from us is a special way of paying attention, hence a special way of foregrounding and backgrounding the involved mental contents. That is, the crux of what enables us to transcend a default cognitive standpoint, the conceptual core of open-mindedness, is a special kind of attention, which I will call ‘open-minded attention’ (OMA). The claim of this article is not that open-minded attention fully describes the virtue of open-mindedness (OMA is not sufficient for open-mindedness). Rather, what I try to show is that in all cases of open-mindedness it turns out that open-minded attention is the necessary component that ensures that we can indeed get rid of prior biases, that is, transcend also those implicit beliefs and expectations that are systematically hidden from us (OMA is necessary for open-mindedness). (shrink)

We review several topics of philosophical interest connected to misleading online content. First we consider proposed definitions of different types of misleading content. Then we consider the epistemology of misinformation, focusing on approaches from virtue epistemology and social epistemology. Finally we discuss how misinformation is related to belief polarization, and argue that models of rational polarization present special challenges for conceptualizing fake news and misinformation.

Recently, the effort to counter Fake News faced a counter attack: academic »postmodernism « and »social constructivism« it was said—because they say that facts are soaked in prior interpretations—are either purveyors of Fake News or set the cultural context in which it flourishes. They do so by undermining confidence in inquiry governed by simple facts. That is erroneous, argues William E. Connolly, because postmodernism never said that facts or objectivity are ghostly, subjective or »fake«. However, (...) that what was objective at one time may become less so at a later date through the combination of a paradigm shift in theory, new powers of perception, new tests with refined instruments, and changes in natural processes such as species evolution. But the emergence of new theories and tests does not reduce objectivity to subjective opinion. Facts are real. Objectivity is important. But as you move up the scale of complexity with respect to facts and objectivity, it becomes clear that what was objective at one time may become subjective at another. Not because of Fake News or postmodernism. But because the complex relationships between theory, evidence and conduct periodically open up new thresholds. Colin Lang in turn rhetorically asks if »fake news« or »alternative facts« are a new carnival and Trump its dog and pony show? The idea of »fake news« and »alternative facts« as a carnival could not only help to see the constructedness of the media spectacle, but also provides a new perspective on Trump as an actor who is playing a particular role in this carnival, and that role is not one that any of us would describe as presidential. Many in the popular press have assumed it is just what it looks like, an infantilized narcissist, a parody of some Regan-era New York real estate tycoon straight out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. The problem is that this description is all too obvious, and misses something fundamental about alternative facts, and the part that Trump is playing. A central assumption is, then, that the creation of alternative facts is one symptom of a more structural, paradigmatic shift in the persona of a president, one which has few correlates in the annals of political history. The closest analogy for his kind of performance is actually hinted at in the title of Trump’s greatest literary achievement: The Art of the Deal. Trump is playing the part of an artist, pilfering from the tactics of the avant-garde and putting them to very different ends. (shrink)

Times of uncertainty and fear were brought on by Covid-19. The ongoing pandemic is a fruitful ground for fake news, as citizens try to find explanations that fit into their worldviews. This process polarizes society and creates echo chambers amplified by recommender systems. Our main goal is to detect anti-vaxxer echo chambers in Serbia by analyzing online reactions to the recent detention of prominent anti-vaxxer Dr. Jovana Stojkovic. A content analysis of online comments is deployed in (...) anti-regime left-leaning, anti-regime right-leaning, and pro-government media to explore attitudes towards a vaccination conspiracy theory, police action towards anti-vaxxers, and the government crisis response team. We clearly identify the anti-vaccine echo chamber among commentators of anti-regime right-leaning media (YouTube podcasts). Additionally, we describe attitudes expressed around issues related to vaccination. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Fake news is a scourge within modern society, brought about by foreign powers amplifying messages throughout the recently constructed echo chambers of social media and exacerbated by the lack of co...

«Epistemic Challenges in a Modern World» is a new book by Norwegian philosopher Gunnar Skirbekk. It has been published in 2019 in Zürich. The term “post-truth” was widely discussed during this period. That is why the book has a subtitle “From “fake news” and “post truth” to underlying epistemic challenges in science-based risk-societies”. Although an active discussion of the term is gradually decreasing at present, Skirbeckk's book is still relevant. It has been written to analyze a crisis situation (...) in society. Three factors are the causes of the crisis: new technologies (they help create information noise and echo chambers, send personal information to global corporations and politicians), globalized capitalism (it generates a lot of commercial media), and new class constellations (they cause to feelings of the instability and distrust of the traditional politicians). It is epistemic problems that are a core of the crisis of the modern world. To preserve and strengthen the position of the democracy requires to overcome them. According to Skirbekk, this is possible due to the development of three institutions such as school, university and media. However, they are also in crisis. School is not able to prepare enough competent citizens. University loses its position and becomes a center of an “argumentophobia” and an “epistemic anomaly”. Media deviate from a journalistic standard. They should ensure a normal democratic process together. Crisis of these institutions proves to be a crisis of democracy. This process we can see in our time. School should prepare future members of civil society who are ready for dialogue. University should be a model for open discussions and control over the accuracy of information in the media. Media should be a provider of information to the public and a platform for discussion in civil society. (shrink)

How should we interact with people in echo chambers? Recently, some have argued that echo-chambered individuals are not entitled to civility. Civility is the virtue whereby we communicate respect for persons to manage our profound disagreements with them. But for civil exchanges to work, people must trust one another and their testimony. Therefore, some argue, we can be moderately uncivil towards those in echo chambers who are unlikely to trust our attempts to be civil. I argue against (...) this position. I suggest the focus should be on trying to rebuild these social relationships in alignment with the Confucian value of harmony. In this tradition, we aim to manage social relationships with disagreeable others by turning inward and cultivating certain dispositions in ourselves: open-mindedness, amenability, tactfulness, and courage. I argue this helps us craft a concept of ‘reparative civility’: an ideal for managing our fraught social relations in a world of echo chambers. (shrink)

As current events around the world have illustrated, epistemological issues are at the center of our political lives. It has become increasingly difficult to discern legitimate sources of evidence, misinformation spreads faster than ever, and the role of truth in politics has allegedly decayed in recent years. It is therefore no coincidence that political discourse is currently saturated with epistemic notions like ‘post-truth,’ ‘fake news,’ ‘truth decay,’ ‘echo chambers,’ and ‘alternative facts.’ This book brings together leading philosophers (...) to explore ways in which the analytic and conceptual tools of epistemology bear on political philosophy, and vice versa. It is organized around three broad themes: truth and knowledge in politics; epistemic problems for democracy; and disagreement and polarization. The authors provide new and rich insights on topics such as: propaganda, fake news, weaponized skepticism, belief polarization, political disagreement, the epistemic value of democracy, voter ignorance, irrationality in politics, political bullshit, and identity politics. (shrink)

Evidential Preemption occurs when a speaker asserts something of the form “Others will tell you Q, but I say P,” where P and Q are incompatible in some salient way. Typically, the aim of this maneuver is to get the audience to accept P despite contrary testimony of others, who might otherwise be trusted on the matter. Phenomena such as echo chambers, conspiracy theories, and other political speech of interest to epistemologists today, all commonly involve evidential preemption, so the (...) question arises: What effect, if any, does evidential preemption have on the audience's epistemic situation? In a widely discussed paper, Begby (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2021, 102, 515) argues that evidential preemption can change the audience's epistemic situation in such a way that future testimony that Q, which would otherwise have been persuasive, can be rationally discounted to a significant degree. If so, evidential preemption is not a mere rhetorical flourish, but rather results in a rationally insulated belief that P. Since evidential preemption is a common feature of echo chambers and conspiracy theories, this would be a disturbing result. We bring good news: it is not so, at least not in the way Begby suggests. If evidential preemptions can change one's epistemic situation in a worrying way, it is a mystery how. (shrink)

Purpose This study aims to understand the allure and danger of fake news in social media environments and propose a theoretical model of the phenomenon. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative research study used the uses and gratifications theory approach to analyze how and why people used social media during the 2016 US presidential election. Findings The thematic analysis revealed people were gratified after using social media to connect with friends and family and to gather and share information and after using (...) it as a vehicle of expression. Participants found a significant number of fake news stories on social media during the 2016 US presidential election. Participants tried to differentiate between fake news and real news using fact-checking websites and news sources and interacted with the social media users who posted fake news and became part of the echo chamber. Behaviors like these emerged in the analysis that could not be completely explained by UGT and required further exploration which resulted in a model that became the core of this study. Research limitations/implications This is a small-scale exploratory study with eight diverse participants, findings should not be generalized to larger populations. Time-specific self-reporting of information from social media and fake news during the 2016 US presidential election. Upgrading public policies related to social media is recommended in the study, contributing to burgeoning policy discussions and provides recommendations for both purveyors of social media and public policymakers. Practical implications Upgrade in public policies related to social media is recommended in the study and contributes to burgeoning policy discussions and provides recommendations for both purveyors of social media and public policymakers. Social implications Social media users are spending increased time on their preferred platforms. This study increases the understanding of the nature, function and transformation of virtual social media environments and their effects on real individuals, cultures and societies.What is original/of value about the paper?This exploratory study establishes the foundation on which to expand research in the area of social media use and fake news. Originality/value This exploratory study establishes the foundation to expand research in the area of social media use and fake news. (shrink)

Public support for responses to the coronavirus pandemic has sharply diverged on partisan lines in many countries, with conservatives tending to oppose lockdowns, social distancing, mask mandates and vaccines, and liberals far more supportive. This polarization may arise from the way in which the attitudes of each side is echoed back to them, especially on social media. In this paper, I argue that echo chambers are not to blame for this polarization, even if they are causally responsible for it. (...) They are not to blame, because belief calibration in an echo chamber is a rational process; moreover, the epistemically constitutive properties of echo chambers are not optional for epistemically social animals like us. There is no special problem of echo chambers; rather, there is a problem of misleading evidence (especially higher-order evidence). Accordingly, we ought to respond to misinformation about COVID neither by attempting to dismantle echo chambers nor by attempting to make people more rational, but rather by attempting to supplant unreliable higher-order evidence with better evidence. (shrink)

Religious fundamentalism remains a significant force in global politics and religion. Despite a range of problems arising from fundamentalism, the beliefs fundamentalists hold can seem quite reasonable. This paper considers whether, in fact, fundamentalist beliefs are rational by drawing on recent ideas in contemporary epistemology. The paper presents a general theory of fundamentalist beliefs in terms of their propositional content and the high credence levels attributed to them. It then explores the way these beliefs are both acquired and retained by (...) applying ideas from the social epistemology of echo chambers and group belief. The paper then considers three accounts of the rationality of belief: evidentialist, reliabilist, and virtue-theoretic. It is argued that fundamentalist beliefs can be reasonable on evidentialist standards, but are nevertheless still problematic on reliabilist and virtue standards, since they are formed in environments that are not truth-conducive and which cultivate intellectual vice. (shrink)

There are two ways of representing rational belief: qualitatively as yes-or-no belief, and quantitatively as degrees of belief. Standard rationality conditions are: consistency and logical closure, for qualitative belief, satisfaction of the probability axioms, for quantitative belief, and a relationship between qualitative and quantitative beliefs in accordance with the Lockean thesis. In this paper, it is shown that these conditions are inconsistent with each of three further rationality conditions: fallibilism, open-mindedness, and invariance under independent conceptual expansions. Restrictions of the (...) Lockean thesis that have been suggested in the literature cannot remove the inconsistency. In the outlook we discuss two alternative ways of dealing with this problem: restricting conjunctive closure or going for a dual system account. (shrink)

One reason that fake news and other objectionable views gain traction is that they often come to us in the form of testimony from those in our immediate social circles – from those we trust. A language around this phenomenon has developed which describes social epistemic structures in terms of ‘epistemic bubbles’ and ‘epistemic echo chambers’. These concepts involve the exclusion of external evidence in various ways. While these concepts help us see the ways that evidence is (...) socially filtered, it doesn’t help us understand the social functions that these structures play, which limits our ability to intervene on them. In this paper, I introduce a new concept – that of the epistemic bunker. This concept helps us better account for a central feature of the phenomenon, which is that exclusionary social epistemic structures are often constructed to offer their members safety, either actual or perceived. Recognising this allows us to develop better strategies to mitigate their negative effects. (shrink)

This article discusses conceptions of modesty and humility and their key features. It gives a brief historical overview of debates about whether or not they’re really virtues at all. It also discusses theories of modesty and humility that root them in the presence or absence of particular beliefs, emotions, desires, and attention. it also discusses related phenomena in epistemology: rational limits on self-ascription of error, attitudes to disagreement, and openness to alternative views.

We are fallible creatures, prone to making all sorts of mistakes. So, we should be open to evidence of error. But what constitutes such evidence? And what is it to rationally accommodate it? I approach these questions by considering an evolutionary debunking argument according to which (a) we have good, scientific, reason to think our moral beliefs are mistaken, and (b) rationally accommodating this requires revising our confidence in, or altogether abandoning the suspect beliefs. I present a dilemma for (...) such debunkers, which shows that either we have no reason to worry about our moral beliefs, or we do but we can self-correct. Either way, moral skepticism doesn’t follow. That the evolutionary debunking argument fails is important; also important, however, is what its failure reveals about rational belief revision. Specifically, it suggests that getting evidence of error is a non-trivial endeavor and that we cannot learn that we are likely to be mistaken about some matter from a neutral stance on that matter. (shrink)

Anyone who's had an argument about politics with a friend may walk away wondering how this friend could possibly hold the beliefs they do. A few self-reflective people might even wonder about their own political beliefs after such an argument. This book is about the reasons that people have, and could have, for political beliefs: the evidence they might draw on, the psychological sources of their views, and the question of how we ought to form our political beliefs if we (...) want to be rational. The book's 24 chapters are divided into four larger sections, which cover: (1) the differences between political and other types of beliefs, (2) theories of political belief formation, (3) sources of our political beliefs and how we might evaluate them, and (4) contemporary phenomena-like polarization, fake news, and conspiracy theories-related to political beliefs. Along the way, the book addresses questions that will arise naturally for many readers, like: Does the news you choose to watch and your own social media leave you stuck in an "information bubble"? Are you committed to a certain ideology because of the history of your society? Are people who believe "fake news" always acting irrationally? Does democracy do a good job of figuring out what's true? Are some political beliefs good and some evil? As the book investigates these and other questions, it delves into technical, philosophical topics like epistemic normativity, the connection between belief and action, pragmatic encroachment, debunking arguments, and ideology critique. Chapter summaries and discussion questions will help students and all interested readers better grasp this new, important area on the border of politics and philosophy. (shrink)

The problem of fake news and the spread of misinformation has garnered a lot of attention in recent years. The incentives and norms that give rise to the problem, however, are not unique to journalism. Insofar as academics and journalists are working towards the same goal, i.e., publication, they are both under pressures that pervert. This chapter has two aims. First, to integrate conversations in philosophy of science, epistemology, and metaphilosophy to draw out the publishing incentives that promote (...) analogous problems of fake news and misinformation in academic research communities more broadly. Second, to argue for a (partial) solution. This chapter argues that research communities benefit when authors believe what they argue for in print and it warns against attempts to loosen our publication norms to permit publishing without belief. (shrink)

Many of U.S. President Donald Trump’s business interests—and those of his family and close associates—either conflict or could conflict with his position as the country’s top elected official. Despite concerns about the vitality of the journalism industry, these actual or potential conflicts have been reported in great detail across a number of journalism platforms. More concerning, however, are the partisan news organizations on both the right and left that deliberately sow social discord by exciting deeply polarized political tensions among (...) the U.S. populous. Often described as “fake” news, these organizations produce reports that seem designed to create outrage among audiences instead of enlightenment. This paper draws upon social epistemology and information ethics to offer a truth-based ethos for journalism to help overcome this pernicious form of exploitation. (shrink)

Are extreme beliefs constitutive of echo chambers, or only typically caused by them? Or are many echo chambers unproblematic, amplifying relatively benign beliefs? This paper details the conceptual relations between echo chambers and extreme beliefs, showing how different conceptual choice-points in how we understand both echo chambers and extreme beliefs affects how we should evaluate, study, and engage with echo chambering groups. We also explore how our theories of extreme beliefs and echo chambers shape (...) social scientific research and contribute in a practical way when treating these phenomena, focusing on examples of climate change scepticism. (shrink)

Abstract: Open-mindedness is typically at the top of any list of the intellectual or "epistemic" virtues. Yet, providing an account that simultaneously explains why open-mindedness is an epistemically valuable trait to have and how such a trait is compatible with full-blooded belief turns out to be a challenge. Building on the work of William Hare and Jonathan Adler, I defend a view of open-mindedness that meets this challenge. On this view, open-mindedness is primarily an attitude toward (...) oneself as a believer, rather than toward any particular belief. To be open-minded is to be aware of one's fallibility as a believer, and to acknowledge the possibility that anytime one believes something, one could be wrong. In order to see that such an attitude is epistemically valuable even to an already virtuous agent, some details of the skills and habits of the open-minded agent are elucidated. (shrink)

Why do we share fake news? Despite a growing body of freely-available knowledge and information fake news has managed to spread more widely and deeply than before. This paper seeks to understand why this is the case. More specifically, using an experimental setting we aim to quantify the effect of veracity and perception on reaction likelihood. To examine the nature of this relationship, we set up an experiment that mimics the mechanics of Twitter, allowing us to (...) observe the user perception, their reaction in the face of shown claims and the factual veracity of those claims. We find that perceived veracity significantly predicts how likely a user is to react, with higher perceived veracity leading to higher reaction rates. Additionally, we confirm that fake news is inherently more likely to be shared than other types of news. Lastly, we identify an activist-type behavior, meaning that belief in fake news is associated with significantly disproportionate spreading. (shrink)

Bias and prejudice are well known aspects of all societies and political arenas. They motivate a wide variety of fear-mongering policies and seem to be deeply ingrained in the hearts and minds of people, interfering with their reasoning and better judgement. In this paper, I explore how bias and prejudice come about and how they can be put to more productive use in a democratic context. Humans aren’t as rational as we might expect. We often fail to think logically and (...) applying abstract reasoning is a challenge. When concepts are difficult for us to grasp, we often use our pre-existing ideas and experiences. Our biases and pre-conceived notions allow us to make better sense of complex problems. Bias is unavoidable. If we accept that we have pre-existing beliefs and can identify them accurately, they can serve an epistemic purpose in deliberation. We can use bias and prejudice as the starting point for meaningful inquiry as well as critical self-reflection. In order to accomplish this we need to place a greater educational focus on critical thinking skills. This type of education develops both our specific skills for analysis, evaluation and problem solving, but also builds the essential dispositions for open-mindedness and tolerance that are essential for effective deliberation. (shrink)

We are consumers of drugs and news, and sometimes call ourselves addicts or junkies of one or both. I propose to take the concept of news – more generally, doxastic – addiction seriously. I define doxastic addiction and relate this type of addiction to echo chambers and religious belief. I show how this analysis directs attention to appropriate interventions to help doxastic addicts, and how it offers a new type of justification for limits on free speech. -/- (...) . (shrink)

I propose to study one problem for epistemic dependence on experts: how to locate experts on what I will call cognitive islands. Cognitive islands are those domains for knowledge in which expertise is required to evaluate other experts. They exist under two conditions: first, that there is no test for expertise available to the inexpert; and second, that the domain is not linked to another domain with such a test. Cognitive islands are the places where we have the fewest resources (...) for evaluating experts, which makes our expert dependences particularly risky. -/- Some have argued that cognitive islands lead to the complete unusability of expert testimony: that anybody who needs expert advice on a cognitive island will be entirely unable to find it. I argue against this radical form of pessimism, but propose a more moderate alternative. I demonstrate that we have some resources for finding experts on cognitive islands, but that cognitive islands leave us vulnerable to an epistemic trap which I will call runaway echo chambers. In a runaway echo chamber, our inexpertise may lead us to pick out bad experts, which will simply reinforce our mistaken beliefs and sensibilities. (shrink)

Are the members of echo chambers blameworthy for their beliefs? If we follow Sarah Stroud's account of friendship, we end up with the following conclusion: if echo chambers involve friendship, then the individuals have strong reasons not to live up to epistemic demands or ideals when the friendships are formed in the echo chambers they are members of. This result stands in striking contrast with the received view, according to which the members of echo chambers are (...) blameworthy for their epistemic vices and faulty beliefs. The received view uses individual epistemic vices to propose individualistic solutions for the problem of echo chambers. I argue that this is misleading, simply because the members of echo chambers are not blameworthy due to the friendships cultivated in the echo chambers. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that echo chambers pose a problem for moral progress because of their threat to moral reasoning. I argue for two theses about the epistemology of moral progress: (1) the practical utility thesis: moral reasoning plays an important role in improving moral judgments, and (2) the conflictive social reasoning thesis: the kind of moral reasoning that is important for moral progress involves social reasoning with disputants. Without some conflict, human beings will naturally reason in a (...) biased and otherwise poor manner. Thus, good reasoning must be social so that reasoners who disagree can keep each other in check. These two theses explain why echo chambers are a problem for moral progress. I argue that echo chambers isolate individuals from reasoning with those they disagree with. This is because echo chambers act as a mechanism for discrediting those outside the chamber. If this is true, then the members of an echo chamber will only reason with those who agree with them. The result is that echo chamber members won't reason according to the conflictive social reasoning thesis. Reasoning will only reinforce their existing echoed beliefs rather than improve them. (shrink)

Looking at the recent spate of claims about “fake news” which appear to be a new feature of political discourse, I argue that fake news presents an interesting problem in epistemology. Te phenomena of fake news trades upon tolerating a certain indiference towards truth, which is sometimes expressed insincerely by political actors. Tis indiference and insincerity, I argue, has been allowed to fourish due to the way in which we have set the terms of (...) the “public” epistemology that maintains what is considered “rational” public discourse. I argue one potential salve to the problem of fake news is to challenge this public epistemology by injecting a certain ethical consideration back into the discourse. (shrink)

In their responses to my article “Epistemically Pernicious Groups and the Groupstrapping Problem” (Boyd, 2018), Bert Baumgaertner (“Groupstrapping, Boostrapping, and Oops-strapping: A Reply to Boyd”) and C. Thi Nguyen (“Group-strapping, Bubble, or Echo Chamber?”) have raised interesting questions and opened lines of inquiry regarding my discussion of what I hope to be a way to help make sense of how members of groups can continue to hold beliefs that are greatly outweighed by countervailing evidence (e.g. antivaxxers, climate-change deniers, etc.). (...) Here I respond to these arguments and suggestions by providing three new reasons to believe that groupstrapping as I describe it occurs in epistemically pernicious groups. (shrink)

Open-mindedness is an under-explored topic in virtue epistemology, despite its assumed importance for the field. Questions about it abound and need to be answered. For example, what sort of intellectual activities are central to it? Can one be open-minded about one's firmly held beliefs? Why should we strive to be open-minded? This paper aims to shed light on these and other pertinent issues. In particular, it proposes a view that construes open-mindedness as engagement, that is, a (...) willingness to entertain novel ideas in one's cognitive space and to accord them serious consideration. (shrink)