Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-p2v8j Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2024-06-03T15:46:58.943Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

JUSTIFIED BELIEF IN A DIGITAL AGE: ON THE EPISTEMIC IMPLICATIONS OF SECRET INTERNET TECHNOLOGIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2013

Boaz Miller  and
Isaac Record
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

People increasingly form beliefs based on information gained from automatically filtered internet sources such as search engines. However, the workings of such sources are often opaque, preventing subjects from knowing whether the information provided is biased or incomplete. Users' reliance on internet technologies whose modes of operation are concealed from them raises serious concerns about the justificatory status of the beliefs they end up forming. Yet it is unclear how to address these concerns within standard theories of knowledge and justification. To shed light on the problem, we introduce a novel conceptual framework that clarifies the relations between justified belief, epistemic responsibility, action and the technological resources available to a subject. We argue that justified belief is subject to certain epistemic responsibilities that accompany the subject's particular decision-taking circumstances, and that one typical responsibility is to ascertain, so far as one can, whether the information upon which the judgment will rest is biased or incomplete. What this responsibility comprises is partly determined by the inquiry-enabling technologies available to the subject. We argue that a subject's beliefs that are formed based on internet-filtered information are less justified than they would be if she either knew how filtering worked or relied on additional sources, and that the subject may have the epistemic responsibility to take measures to enhance the justificatory status of such beliefs.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 10 , Special Issue 2: Privacy, Secrecy, and Epistemology , June 2013 , pp. 117 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alston, W. 1998. ‘The Deontological Conception of Epistemic Justification.’ Philosophical Perspectives, 2: 257–99.Google Scholar
Annis, D. B. 1978. ‘A Contextualist Theory of Epistemic Justification.’ American Philosophical Quarterly, 15(3): 213–19.Google Scholar
Baird, D. 2004. Thing Knowledge: A Philosophy of Scientific Instruments. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bakshy, E. 2012. ‘Rethinking Information Diversity in Networks.’ www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-team/rethinking-information-diversity-in-networks/10150503499618859.Google Scholar
Clark, A. and Chalmers, D. 1998. ‘The Extended Mind.’ Analysis, 58(1): 7–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, A. 2010. Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Coady, D. 2011. ‘An Epistemic Defence of the Blogosphere.’ Journal of Applied Philosophy, 28(3): 277–94.Google Scholar
Colombo, F. and Fortunati, L. (eds). 2011. Broadband Society and Generational Changes. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Conee, E. and Feldman, R. 2004. Evidentialism: Essays in Epistemology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, H. 2009. Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Fantl, J. and McGrath, M. 2009. Knowledge in an Uncertain World. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Foley, R. 2005. ‘Justified Belief as Responsible Belief’. In Steup, M. and Sosa, E. (eds), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, pp. 313–26. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Giere, R. N. 2006. ‘The Role of Agency in Distributed Cognitive Systems.’ Philosophy of Science, 73(5): 710–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giere, R. N. 2007. ‘Distributed Cognition without Distributed Knowing.’ Social Epistemology, 21(3): 313–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, S. C. 2007. Anti-Individualism: Mind and Language, Knowledge and Justification. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Goldberg, S. C. 2012. ‘Epistemic Extendedness, Testimony, and the Epistemology of Instrument-Based Belief.’ Philosophical Explorations, 15(2): 181–97.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. I. 1999. ‘Internalism Exposed.’ Journal of Philosophy, 96(6): 271–93.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. I. 2008. ‘The Social Epistemology of Blogging.’ In van den Hoven, J. and Weckert, J. (eds), Information Technology and Moral Philosophy, pp. 111–22. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. I. 2011. ‘Reliabilism.’ In. Zalta, E. N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 edn): http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/reliabilism.Google Scholar
Haraway, D. 1991. ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.’ In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, pp. 149–81. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hardwig, J. 1985. ‘Epistemic Dependence.’ Journal of Philosophy, 82(7): 335–49.Google Scholar
Humphreys, P. 2004. Extending Ourselves: Computational Science, Empiricism, and Scientific Method. New York: OUP.Google Scholar
Humphreys, P. 2009. ‘Network Epistemology.’ Episteme, 6(2): 221–9.Google Scholar
Introna, L. and Nissenbaum, H. 2000. ‘Shaping the Web: Why the Politics of Search Engines Matters.’ Information Society, 16(3): 1–17.Google Scholar
Knorr-Cetina, K. 1999. Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kornblith, H. 1983. ‘Justified Belief and Epistemically Responsible Action.’ Philosophical Review, 92(1): 33–48.Google Scholar
Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Lehrer, K. 1995. ‘Knowledge and the Trustworthiness of Instruments.’ The Monist, 78(2): 156–70.Google Scholar
Longino, H. 2002. The Fate of Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCroy, P. 2005. ‘The Time Lords: Measurement and Performance in Sprinting.’ British Journal of Sports Medicine, 39: 785–6.Google Scholar
Origgi, G. 2012. ‘Designing Wisdom through the Web: The Passion of Ranking.’ In Landemore, H. and Elster, J. (eds), Collective Wisdom: Principles and Mechanisms, pp. 38–55. Cambridge: CUP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pariser, E. 2011. The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Pasquale, F. 2011. ‘Restoring Transparency to Automated Authority.’ Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law, 9: 235–53.Google Scholar
Preston, J. 2010. ‘The Extended Mind, the Concept of Belief, and Epistemic Credit.’ In Menary, R. (ed.), The Extended Mind, pp. 355–69. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Record, I. Forthcoming. ‘Technology and Knowledge.’Google Scholar
Rogers, R. 2004. Information Politics on the Web. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rothbart, D. 2007. Philosophical Instruments: Minds and Tools at Work. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Simon, J. 2010. ‘The Entanglement of Trust and Knowledge on the Web.’ Ethics and Information Technology, 12(4): 343–55.Google Scholar
Simpson, T. W. 2012. ‘Evaluating Google as an Epistemic Tool.’ Metaphilosophy, 43(4): 426–45.Google Scholar
Simson, R. S. 1993. ‘Values, Circumstances, and Epistemic Justification.’ Southern Journal of Philosophy, 31(3): 373–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sosa, E. 2006. ‘Knowledge: Instrumental and Testimonial.’ In Sosa, E. and Lackey, J. (eds), The Epistemology of Testimony, pp. 116–23. New York: OUP.Google Scholar
Stanley, J. 2005. Knowledge and Practical Interests. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Su, X. and Khoshgoftaar, T. M. 2009. ‘A Survey of Collaborative Filtering Techniques.’ Advances in Artificial Intelligence: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2009/421425.Google Scholar
Sunstein, C. 2007. Republic.com 2.0. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tollefsen, D. P. 2009. ‘Wikipedia and the Epistemology of Testimony.’ Episteme, 6: 8–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, M. 2001. Problems of Knowledge: A Critical Introduction to Epistemology. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Williams, M. 2008. ‘Responsibility and Reliability.’ Philosophical Papers, 37(1): 1–26.Google Scholar