Bursting Our Epistemic Bubbles : On Trust, Inquiry, and Epistemic Communities

This book develops a social epistemic framework that expands our understanding of epistemic normativity such that we can get a clearer view of phenomena like epistemic bubbles and echo chambers.

Due in large part to the increased personalization of various aspects of the Internet, many people have become insulated from the epistemic influence of people with views different from their own. This book develops a social epistemic framework that expands our understanding of epistemic normativity such that we can get a clearer view of phenomena like epistemic bubbles and echo chambers. The book begins by arguing that as members of epistemic communities, we are subject to epistemic norms and values that cannot be realized by a single individual. Attention to these social epistemic values is crucial to getting to the core of the problems that plague our current social and political epistemic world. After laying out a thoroughly social epistemic framework, the author uses it to argue that there are epistemic norms specifically governing inquiry and trust. These two concepts have often been relegated to the practical realm rather than the epistemic. This is a mistake because understanding how we ought to trust and inquire is central to thinking about how to fix many of our social epistemic problems. The author argues that assuming we must choose between trust and inquiry is often the source of our social epistemic problems. Inquiring while trusting is a crucial epistemic balancing act, which anchors us in epistemic communities and assists us in the pursuit of knowing with others. Bursting Our Epistemic Bubbles will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in social and political epistemology.