Jeroen De Ridder

ABSTRACT Understanding is a demanding epistemic state. It involves not just knowledge that things are thus and so, but grasping the reasons why and seeing how things hang together. Understanding, then, typically requires inquiry. Many of our inquiries are conducted online nowadays, with the help of search engines, forums, and social media platforms. In this paper, I explore the idea that online inquiry easily leads to what I will call online illusions of understanding. Both the structure of online information presentation (with hyperlinks, shares, retweets, likes, etc.) and the operation of recommender systems and the like make it easy for people using them to form the impression that they are conducting inquiry responsibly, whereas they are in fact fed with irrelevant information, or, even worse, falsehoods, misinformation, disinformation, or outright conspiracy theories.

Conflict framing is key in political communication. Politicians use conflict framing in their online messages (e.g., criticizing other politicians) and journalists in their political coverage (e.g., reporting on political tensions). Conflicts can take a variety of forms and can provoke different reactions. However, the literature still lacks a systematic and theoretically-grounded conceptual framework that accounts for the multi-dimensionality of political conflict frames. Based on literature from political epistemology, political communication, and related fields such as psychology, we present four conceptual dimensions of political conflicts: (1) the style (civil/uncivil); (2) the subject (personal/substantive); (3) whether it is about underlying moral/epistemic principles or not (deep/superficial conflict); and (4) whether it concerns a normative or factual issue. Results of a content analysis of newspaper articles and politicians’ tweets confirm the usage of these conflict dimensions in the Netherlands during a non-election period. Interestingly, most of the conflicts are civil, substantive, and do not highlight deep fundamental clashes. In light of the current societal concerns about the lack of respect in political debates and the deepening of our political divides, these findings can be considered encouraging.

Both scientists and society at large have rightfully become increasingly concerned about research integrity in recent decades. In response, codes of conduct for research have been developed and elaborated. We show that these codes contain substantial pluralism. First, there is metaphysical pluralism in that codes include values, norms, and virtues. Second, there is axiological pluralism, because there are different categories of values, norms, and virtues: epistemic, moral, professional, social, and legal. Within and between these different categories, norms can be incommensurable or incompatible. Codes of conduct typically do not specify how to handle situations where different norms pull in different directions. We review some attempts to develop an ordering of different sorts of norm violations based on a common measure for their seriousness. We argue that they all fail to give adequate guidance for resolving cases of incommensurable and conflicting norms. We conclude that value pluralism is inherent to codes of conduct in research integrity. The application of codes needs careful reasoning and judgment together with an intellectually humble attitude that acknowledges the inevitability of value pluralism.

Discussions about the relationship between science and religion have never been absent from the public arena, but they seem to have made something of a comeback in the past decade or two. It is hard to say what accounts for such large-scale developments in society. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it has become increasingly clear that the secularization thesis, i.e., the claim that the modernization and rationalization of societies goes hand in hand with the gradual disappearance of religion, must be put to rest at the graveyard of disconfirmed sociological predictions. Religion is here to stay, it now appears. Thoroughly secularized societies like those we find in Western Europe may be exceptional rather than exemplary.

Conflict framing is key in political communication. Politicians use conflict framing in their online messages (e.g., criticizing other politicians) and journalists in their political coverage (e.g., reporting on political tensions). Conflicts can take a variety of forms and can provoke different reactions. However, the literature still lacks a systematic and theoretically-grounded conceptual framework that accounts for the multi-dimensionality of political conflict frames. Based on literature from political epistemology, political communication, and related fields such as psychology, we present four conceptual dimensions of political conflicts: (1) the style (civil/uncivil); (2) the subject (personal/substantive); (3) whether it is about underlying moral/epistemic principles or not (deep/superficial conflict); and (4) whether it concerns a normative or factual issue. Results of a content analysis of newspaper articles and politicians’ tweets confirm the usage of these conflict dimensions in the Netherlands during a non-election period. Interestingly, most of the conflicts are civil, substantive, and do not highlight deep fundamental clashes. In light of the current societal concerns about the lack of respect in political debates and the deepening of our political divides, these findings can be considered encouraging.

Can well-informed citizens be engaged citizens? The storming of the Capitol exposes a tension between different kinds of virtues in public life, at least if we can disregard – for the sake of argument – the morally and politically unacceptable excessive violence that accompanied it. If we think about the event as an example of a powerful protest based on deep convictions, it points to a tension between two kinds of civic virtues. A healthy political climate requires participation: engaged and motivated citizens who want to work for what they see as the common good. But in addition, reasoned argument and thinking well are also important: citizens who form their judgments carefully, are inquisitive, have an open mind, and appreciate and own the limits of their own knowledge and understanding. The context of a pluralistic liberal democracy with complex political issues causes tension between those two types of virtues. In an environment with fundamental differences of opinion and significant uncertainty, cognitive virtues often demand suspension of judgment and restraint in acting on the basis of uncertain beliefs. Participatory virtues, on the other hand, require action and commitment. I explore this tension and look for a solution that strikes a balance between these two kinds of virtues.

This work provides an overview of attempts to assess the current condition of the concept of creation order within reformational philosophy compared to other perspectives. Focusing on the natural and life sciences, and theology, this first volume of two examines the arguments for and against the beauty, coherence and order shown in the natural world being related to the will or nature of a Creator. It examines the decay of a Deist universe, and the idea of the pre-givenness of norms, laws and structures as challenged by evolutionary theory and social philosophy. It describes the different responses to the collapse of order: that given by Christian philosophy scholars who still argue for the idea of a pre-given world order, and that of other scholars who see this idea of stable creation order and/or natural law as redundant and in need of a thorough rethinking. It studies the particular role that reformational philosophy has played in the discussion. It shows how, ever since its inception, almost a century ago, the concepts of order and law (principle, structure) have been at the heart of this philosophy, and that one way to characterise this tradition is as a philosophy of creation order. Reformational philosophers have maintained the notion of law as 'holding' for reality. This book discusses the questions that have arisen about the nature of such law: is it a religious or philosophical concept; does law just mean 'orderliness'? How does it relate to laws of nature? Have they always existed or do they 'emerge' during the process of evolution?

Can only science deliver genuine knowledge about the world and ourselves? Is science our only guide to what exists? Scientism answers both questions with yes. Scientism is increasingly influential in popular scientific literature and intellectual life in general, but philosophers have hitherto largely ignored it. This collection is one of the first to develop and assess scientism as a serious philosophical position. It features twelve new essays by both proponents and critics of scientism. Before scientism can be evaluated, it needs to be clear what it is. Hence, the collection opens with essays that provide an overview of the many different versions of scientism and their mutual interrelations. Next, several card-carrying proponents of scientism make their case, either by developing and arguing directly for their preferred version of scientism or by responding to objections. Then, the floor is given to critics of scientism. It is examined whether scientism is epistemically vicious, whether scientism presents a plausible general epistemological outlook and whether science has limits. The final four essays zoom out and connect scientism to ongoing debates elsewhere in philosophy. What does scientism mean for religious epistemology? What can science tell us about morality and is a scientistic moral epistemology plausible? How is scientism related to physicalism? And is experimental philosophy really a form of scientism tailored to philosophy?