[AEP Explainers] Partisanship (with Hrishikesh Joshi) YouTube video by PPE at UNC

Excited to share our fifth (and final) "explainer video"! (Refresher: these are ~5 min animations introducing applied epistemology concepts for a wide audience.) This one's on partisanship, featuring a script by Rishi Joshi! Please share & consider using in teaching!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke2c...

I'm sorry for the inaccessibility! I didn't know that em dashes are inaccessible, that's good to know for the future. However, I don't appreciate the insinuation about ChatGPT. I have never used AI in any way in my writing, this paper included. You'll find just as many em dashes in my older work.

Welcome to the daily existence of a public health ethicist on a health sciences campus (So. Many. Unexplored. Value. Judgments.)

Scientism is a heckuva drug.

#SorryNotSorry #ISaidWhatISaid #PHEthx

This is for an interdisciplinary volume aimed at students and scholars from a variety of fields as well as policymakers, so it's intended to be relatively accessible/brief. If you're looking for a piece for teaching that raises worries about deference in some cases, I think it'd be a good fit. (2/2)

Alex Worsnip, Covert Value Judgments in Expert Testimony - PhilPapers Scientific experts frequently say things that encode value judgments, not least when they are called on to offer advice or recommendations. Often, however, the value judgments underlying their testimo...

New paper! I investigate cases where experts tacitly encode value judgments into their public pronouncements, and examine the complications this presents for the rationality of deference to experts, with a particular focus on pandemic policy. (1/2)
philpapers.org/rec/WORCVJ

Really excited about the lineup for this. Check out the full thread for details and for how to apply to be a respondent.

AEP research getting out there! 👏👏👏

22 new papers up at @philimprint.bsky.social, including papers by @thisishannahkim.bsky.social, @catsaintcroix.bsky.social, @wiglet1981.bsky.social & @jweisber.bsky.social, @dellsen.bsky.social, @bartstreumer.bsky.social, and @aworsnip.bsky.social.

journals.publishing.umich.edu/phimp/

For anyone who has read my "Can Pragmatists Be Moderate?" paper, this is sort of a companion to it: it articulated a problem for pragmatic encroachment views, while this paper articulates a positive (non-encroaching) view that avoids those problems while doing a lot of what PE was designed to do.

(Kinda) new paper, with the fab Z Quanbeck, finally out @ Phil Imprint! We defend a combo of epistemic permissivism + limited pragmatism re reasons for belief. This preserves some features of pragmatic encroachment views while avoiding their drawbacks.
journals.publishing.umich.edu/phimp/articl...

For one year only, the 8th Chapel Hill Normativity Workshop will (paradoxically) be in Montreal! Keynote by Jane Friedman plus 7 talks selected via open CFA. As usual, accepted papers eligible for special issue of Phil Studies. Submissions due Oct 15th; more info at normativity.web.unc.edu

[AEP Explainers] The Epistemology of Free Speech (with Robert Simpson) YouTube video by PPE at UNC

Very excited to share our third "explainer video". (Refresher: these are ~5 min animations introducing applied epistemology concepts for a wide audience.) This one's on epist of free speech, featuring a script by Rob Simpson! Please share & consider using in teaching!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMgb...

Reminder: tomorrow is the deadline to apply for this! It's a chance to get expert instruction in public writing on applied epistemology, feedback from peers, and to enjoy an in-person workshop here at UNC

🥁🎉It's time again! My colleague Thomas Grundmann is organising the Cologne Summer School in Philosophy. This year's star is @aworsnip.bsky.social (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). 🎊📢
You can find more information on the following website: cssip.uni-koeln.de
Spread the word and repost!

Congrats Sam!!

The exciting AEP announcements just keep on coming! This is a really cool initiative being spearheaded by our summer 2025 RA Devin Lane--anyone interested in writing applied epistemology for a public audience should apply!

These explainer videos (produced and animated by the fantastic Ripley Stroud) are among my favorite things we're doing at the @unc-aep.bsky.social. The second one just came out, featuring Kevin Dorst on polarization. Please check it out and share widely!

Resignations, Disagreements With Dean Roil UNC Civics School UNC professors who supported the initiative when others derided it are resigning and denouncing its leader. It’s an ironic turn for a civil discourse school.

What a gigantic surprise--the "civil discourse" folks have been having a little trouble with their civil discourse
www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

In support of #philosophymatters, this fortnight I'll be highlighting things that don't matter that are not philosophy. First up: layovers.

Fascinating new post on our blog by Emily McWilliams, discussing the denial and undertreatment of women's pain in medical procedures through the lens of applied epistemological work on testimonial injustice, manufactured ignorance, and motivated reasoning:
aep.unc.edu/2025/03/17/t...

One columnist, a professional pundit, is living in a paranoid delusion. The other, a sociologist, is living in America.

Is the unwillingness of deferring to experts really a serious societal pathology? Review by @aworsnip.bsky.social et al explores under exactly what conditions we ought to defer to experts, and under what conditions people are willing to defer to experts:
buff.ly/NXuDVSu

New Paper in Philosophical Psychology:

Trust in experts is low. Why? How bad is it? And what should we do? To answer these questions, we reviewed philosophy (when *ought* we defer to the experts) and psychology (when *do* people defer to the experts).

Link in comments!

Speedy work by @journalphp.bsky.social and their publishers--the published version of the paper is now available, open access (thanks to our grant!), here:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

It doesn't prove that Alito's judgments are false, but it gives us reason to think they're unreliable, since the motivations aren't connected with the truth.

The disease of the American political class is the inability to see, describe, or respond what is happening, when doing so would conflict with the speech norms of the American political class

I suspect Goodin's singular devotion to the journal is the key factor. If he's running it like JPP, I believe he's reading every submission & desk rejecting lots before they go further. That'll make things run v efficiently, but the downside is it puts a big burden (and a lot of power) on one person

thanks Sam!

Little bit of a preview of some of the arguments of the paper engaging with your work on this that I intend to eventually write up properly!