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Group polarization--the tendency of groups to incline toward more extreme positions than initially held by their individual members--has been rigorously studied by social psychologists, though in a way that has overlooked important philosophical questions. This is the first book-length treatment of group polarization from a philosophical perspective. The phenomenon of group polarization raises several important metaphysical and epistemological questions. From a metaphysical point of view, can group polarization, understood as an epistemic feature of a group, be reduced to epistemic features of its individual members? Relatedly, from an epistemological point of view, is group polarization best understood as a kind of cognitive bias or rather in terms of intellectual vice? This book compares four models that combine potential answers to the metaphysical and epistemological questions. The models considered are: group polarization as (i) a collective bias; (ii) a summation of individual epistemic vices; (iii) a summation of individual biases; and (iv) a collective epistemic vice. Ultimately, the authors defend a collective vice model of group polarization over the competing alternatives. The Philosophy of Group Polarization will be of interest to students and researchers working in epistemology, particularly those working on social epistemology, collective epistemology, social ontology, virtue epistemology, and distributed cognition. It will also be of interest to those working on issues in political epistemology, applied epistemology, and on topics at the intersection of epistemology and ethics.

Connecting Virtues examines the significant advances within the fast-growing field of virtue theory and shows how research has contributed to the current debates in moral philosophy, epistemology, and political philosophy.-Includes groundbreaking chapters offering cutting-edge research on the topic of the virtues -Provides insights into the application of the topic of virtue, such as the role of intellectual virtues, virtuous dispositions, and the value of some neglected virtues for political philosophy -Examines the relevance of the virtues in the current debates in social epistemology, the epistemology of education, and civic education -Features work from world-leading and internationally recognized philosophers working on the virtues today.

This book presents four bridges connecting work in virtue epistemology and work in philosophy of science (broadly construed) that may serve as catalysts for the further development of naturalized virtue epistemology. These bridges are: empirically informed theories of epistemic virtue; virtue theoretic solutions to underdetermination; epistemic virtues in the history of science; and the value of understanding.0Virtue epistemology has opened many new areas of inquiry in contemporary epistemology including: epistemic agency, the role of motivations and emotions in epistemology, the nature of abilities, skills and competences, wisdom and curiosity. 0Value driven epistemic inquiry has become quite complex and there is a need for a responsible and rigorous process of constructing naturalized theories of epistemic virtue. This volume makes the involvement of the sciences more explicit and looks at the empirical aspect of virtue epistemology. 0Concerns about virtue epistemology are considered in the essays contained here, including the question: can any virtue epistemology meet both the normativity constraint and the empirical constraint? The volume suggests that these worries should not be seen as impediments but rather as useful constraints and desiderata to guide the construction of naturalized theories of epistemic virtue

"Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science: An Introduction is structured around six questions and the answers to them that have been offered by feminist epistemologists and philosophers of science. By showing how these answers differ from those of traditional philosophical approaches, the book situates feminist work in relation to philosophy more generally. The questions are: Who knows? What do we have knowledge of? How do we know? What don't we know? Why does it matter? and How can we know better? In addressing these questions, the book reviews feminist accounts of objectivity, agnotology, issues in social epistemology--including epistemic injustice--and considers how feminist epistemology and philosophy of science aim at better knowledge production. The audience for the book is upper division undergraduates, but it will be useful as a foundation for graduate students and other philosophers who are seeking a general understanding of feminist work in these areas"--

Buddhism has always produced epistemological systems, and those of the Mahāyāna, in particular, always showed knowledge and perception to be inherently delusive. "Higher" forms of Buddhism have a degenerative philosophy of history according to which a sort of Golden Age was disrupted by the rise and gradual development of knowledge and the delusion inherent in it, which have reached their apex in our time – the final phase of the "Era of Darkness." From this standpoint, this paper intends to show science, in which Marcuse saw an inherent instrumental/technological interest, to have been developed by delusion and to have simultaneously furthered the development of delusion, to the point at which they begot the deadly ecological crisis proper to this concluding phase of the Era of Darkness – which reveals as such the delusion at its root, achieving the latter's empirical reductio ad absurdum and offering us the possibility of eradicating it and thus healing our minds and, hopefully, our world.

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Preface -- 1 The Philosophy of Polarization Phenomena -- 2 The Psychology of Group Polarization -- 3 The Epistemology of Group Polarization -- 4 Four Models of Group Polarization -- 5 The Reductive Virtue/Vice Model -- 6 The Collective Heuristic/Bias Model -- 7 The Reductive Heuristic/Bias Model -- 8 The Collective Virtue/Vice Model -- 9 Mitigating the Epistemic Pitfalls of Group Polarization -- Conclusion: Future Directions -- References -- Index.