Online Echo Chambers, Online Epistemic Bubbles, and Open-Mindedness

In this ‘age of information’, some worry that we get our news from online ‘echo chambers’, news feeds on our social media accounts that contain information from like‐minded sources. Filtering our information in this way seems prima facie problematic from an epistemic perspective. I vindicate this intuition by offering an explanation of what is wrong with online echo chambers that appeals to a particular kind of motivated reasoning, or bias due to one’s interests. This sort of bias affects, not which evidence one is exposed to, but how one makes use of the evidence that one has, on the basis of one’s interests. I argue that consulting an online echo chamber often facilitates and amplifies this bias. I then draw some general conclusions about the potential downside of having ready access to so much information.

Virtue ethics, virtue epistemology, and the intellectual virtues the motivational aspects of virtue epistemology eliminative virtue epistemology justification and the intellectual virtues knowledge and the intellectual virtues the nature of the virtues the importance of the virtues.

Previous research has documented the existence of both online echo chambers and hostile intergroup interactions. In this paper, we explore the relationship between these two phenomena by studying the activity of 5.97M Reddit users and 421M comments posted over 13 years. We examine whether users who are more engaged in echo chambers are more hostile when they comment on other communities. We then create a typology of relationships between political communities based on whether their users are toxic to each other, whether echo chamber-like engagement with these communities has a polarizing effect, and on the communities' political leanings. We observe both the echo chamber and hostile intergroup interaction phenomena, but neither holds universally across communities. Contrary to popular belief, we find that polarizing and toxic speech is more dominant between communities on the same, rather than opposing, sides of the political spectrum, especially on the left; however, this mostly points to the collective targeting of political outgroups.

This paper presents a conceptual framework for the intellectual virtues in the context of online search. Intellectual virtues are dispositions and skills that enable good thinking and wise reasoning, such as intellectual humility and attentiveness. Despite their importance, today the intellectual virtues tend to be underdeveloped across society. In light of the institutional role that online search plays in life today, there is an opportunity (perhaps an obligation) for online search to facilitate the development of intellectual virtue. The framework presented in this paper locates this development in three areas: the Searcher, the System, and Society. Major issues in information ethics and virtue epistemology are discussed for each of these areas, leading to recommendations for education, design, and research. This paper provides specific suggestions in this regard along with an agenda for future research at the intersection of ethics, epistemology, and online search.

This study specifically analyzed assessed the effect of political party online electoral mobilization on national security. Human Security and Securitization Theories explained how online electoral mobilization can threaten individual safety and national stability, and how such threats are framed to justify state security responses in Nairobi’s informal settlements. The study used a mixed-method design with 400 purposively sampled respondents from Nairobi’s informal settlements. Data were collected through interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups, and thematic analysis was applied to organize qualitative insights into themes, providing a comprehensive understanding of electoral security and social dynamics. This study observed that digital platforms can enhance electoral security by enabling real-time alerts, rumour control, and peace campaigns, helping communities and authorities prevent violence. However, they also pose risks, as misinformation, hate speech, and online echo chambers can quickly escalate tensions and undermine social cohesion, creating a national security challenge. Digital platforms aid political engagement and peace-building during elections but can also spread misinformation and incite violence, posing national security risks. Addressing this requires balanced monitoring, digital literacy, and responsible platform use.

Psychology Peaceful protests sometimes turn violent. To find out why, Mooijman et al. analyzed 18 million tweets sent during the 2015 Baltimore protests related to the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. They found that tweets expressing moral rhetoric predicted daily violence and police arrests in the hours after being sent. These data did not explore specific content or level of moral agreement in social networks. Follow-up vignette experiments and attitude surveys found that people endorse violent protest when they see an issue in moral terms and perceive that everyone agrees with them. These data have implications for understanding how online echo chambers may lead to violence and how to predict, and possibly prevent, the eruption of violence in social groups. Nat. Hum. Behav. 2 , 389 (2018).

Linda Zagzebski argues that knowledge should be understood in terms of intellectual virtue. The kind of she has in mind is on the model of Aristotle's account of moral virtue: A virtue, then, can be defined as a deep and enduring acquired of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain desired end and reliable success in bringing about that end. (137) Examples of such virtues are open-mindedness, fair-mindedness, intellectual thoroughness and intellectual courage. Zagzebski calls her theory of knowledge a true theory, distinguishing it from reliabilist theories of Sosa and Goldman.' These latter authors use the terminology of intellectual and but in a way that, according to Zagzebski, misuses the language of virtue. In what follows below I will argue for two theses. First, there is an important way of dividing up the landscape so that the theories of Sosa and Goldman are indeed theories. On this understanding, all three of our authors are in the same broad camp; one which can appropriately be labeled virtue epistemology, and which can be distinguished from other broad alternatives concerning the nature of knowledge. The real disagreement between Zagzebski on the one hand, and Sosa and Goldman on the other, is over the nature of intellectual virtue, or that kind of which is required for knowledge. Once the question is put this way, it is possible to argue for my second thesis. Namely, reliabilists such as Sosa and Goldman are correct in rejecting Aristotle's account of the moral virtues as the model for understanding intellectual virtue. Contra Zagzebski, the cognitive character that grounds knowledge need not be acquired, need not include the strong motivational component of an Aristotlean moral virtue, and need not be an excellence in Aristotle's sense. Rather, the essential aspect of an intellectual is its success component, or in Sosa's and Goldman's terms, its reliability.

According to virtue epistemology, one should primarily understand knowledge in terms of the relationship between cognitive success and cognitive agency. There are various ways of understanding this thesis. Along one axis, there is the debate about whether we should focus on the agent’s reliable cognitive skills in general, or whether we should instead treat knowledge as primarily concerned with the manifestation of more elevated epistemic standings, such as intellectual virtues. Along another axis, there is the debate about whether we should understand knowledge as being exclusively defined in terms of the subject’s cognitive skills (where this category includes the intellectual virtues), or whether there need to be supplementary conditions in one’s theory of knowledge to deal with the problem posed by knowledge-undermining epistemic luck. This chapter will explore these topics, and in the process offer an overview of the contemporary debate regarding issues at the nexus of knowledge, skill and virtue epistemology.

This article examines the applicability of virtue epistemology within the philosophy of science discourse. It argues that contemporary approaches in the philosophy of science often overlook the significance of subjective epistemic characteristics in scientific practice, tending to focus either on the social conditions of knowledge production (as seen in the Science and Technology Studies project) or on methodological and demarcation criteria (as emphasized in postpositivism project). Meanwhile, the recent value turn in epistemology introduces a subject-centered perspective to the philosophy of science, suggesting that disciplinary boundaries should be understood not only in terms of methodological differences, but also in terms of intellectual virtues cultivated by scientific communities. The relevance of this study arises from the need to employ conceptual frameworks from contemporary epistemology to discuss scientific disciplinary norms that encompass both value and cognitive content. The aim of this article is to propose a method for applying virtue epistemology as a theoretical framework for evaluating the role of scientists’ subjective qualities in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. The author based his research on the hybrid virtue epistemology developed by Heather Battali and Christopher Hookway, which integrates reliabilist and responsibilist perspectives to defining intellectual virtue. This article discusses various levels of intellectual virtue, their impactмon scholarly activity, and the conceptual challenges associated with such integration. Theмmain findings underscore the importance of a hybrid approach to different intellectualмvirtues in achieving scientific objectives, such as obtaining verifiable truths and supportingмa shared understanding within the scientific community. Additionally, the study alsoмemphasizes the necessity of considering the values that underlie scientific inquiry, andмthe influence of personal beliefs on knowledge formation within the scientific domain.

How navigation systems transform epistemic virtues: Knowledge, issues and solutions

The classical Virtue Epistemology, one of the most interesting contributions of late 20th century American philosophy, proposed to analyze knowledge and epistemic evaluation in general in terms of intellectual virtues. In this approach, these virtues were understood as faculties or personal traits that contribute to the production of knowledge and other epistemic goods. However, the value of some plausible candidates for intellectual virtues, which can be called “generous virtues,” cannot be explained in those terms. This paper proposes a novel account of the general value of intellectual virtues that includes other‑regarding ones. To that end, it considers three strategies of socialization of Virtue Epistemology, and proposes original solution: Epistemic Social Environmentalism.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to better understand agenda setting by international human rights organizations in the online environment and at the same time contribute to agenda‐setting theory. The role of non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) in the area of human rights is clarified, and agenda setting and related concepts are discussed.Design/methodology/approachThe study focuses on how attention is drawn to human rights issues in online communication by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International. A content analysis of online forums of HRW and Amnesty International was conducted by monitoring their web sites and Facebook and Twitter pages over a period of three months. In addition, two expert interviews with representatives of Amnesty Finland were conducted to better understand how the organization's online communication activities relate to its policies in drawing attention to human rights.FindingsBased on this study, drawing attention to human rights issues is a goal that leads to active online communication. NGOs aim at attracting attention to their issues online by initiating a dialogue via online forums and motivating the public to participate in activities that may influence the media and the political agenda. The existing agenda‐setting research tends to emphasize the role of journalists in setting the public agenda, and mentions NGOs primarily as a source for journalists and as a political player. The online environment shows, however, that these NGOs mostly aim at setting the public agenda to create social change, while the media and political agenda are also not forgotten.Research limitations/implicationsThis study suggests that the interdependence of the media, public and political agendas is more complex than has thus far been considered in agenda‐setting theory, especially in the current online environment. It investigates online agenda setting by two international NGOs, but does not discuss the role of the media or the public at large in their relationship with these NGOs. As this study has a limited time frame, a content analysis over a longer period and interviews with representatives of a wider variety of NGOs could be a next step. Future research could also compare the online communication of NGOs with that of profit organisations.Practical implicationsThe findings show how agenda setting is supported by intricate multi‐platform activities in the present‐day online environment by the organizations studied in order to initiate a dialogue on societal issues. This suggests that in the online environment, the media, public and political agendas are becoming increasingly interrelated and within this triangle the public agenda seems to be gaining further in importance.Originality/valueThe impact that NGOs have on today's society is growing, and hence studying their online agenda setting is valuable from the perspective of corporate communication. International NGOs early on recognised the value of online communication.

Many changes has my mind gone through: here it has known no variation or vacillation of opinion. idea of a university, discourse I (1) The only advocacy that should go on in classroom, according to Stanley Fish, is that of virtues. (2) This prescription is, in first place, an antiseptic meant to discourage college and university professors from engaging in political advocacy, but it also provides basis of Fish's positive defense of enterprise of liberal education. One need not agree with his overall conception of academic life in order to join him in affirming that best defense a school could mount of its existence and activities would be framed in terms of practices and persons at its heart, practices of teaching and person of teacher. It is, then, a welcome development that intellectual virtues--the virtues that characterize good teacher--are now being discussed in several academic disciplines. Joining Fish, a literary critic, are historians of early-modern Republic of Letters and philosophers in emerging field of virtue epistemology; they all seek an account of intellectual virtue arguments and examples with which to defend liberal education. Yet compared with educational vision of Blessed John Henry Newman, these contemporary voices sound flat. Lacking a convincing account of end and ordering principle of their educational endeavors, these attempts to defend modern university by an appeal to intellectual virtue all take form of a self-referential argument from authority of contemporary academic life as we happen to find it. In marked contrast, Newman's ideal of almost perfect that would be a Catholic university seated and living in colleges, provides at once a more capacious and a more realistic account of kind of human flourishing that schools are meant to foster. (3) Newman's collegiate ideal offers an institutional model and set of academic practices that promise to form students and teachers who display in their work and their lives that joy in truth (gaudium de veritate) that is best justification for an institution of higher learning because it is sign of fruitfulness that authentic liberal education offers to world. (4) IntellectualVirtues or theVirtues of Intellectuals? Now that we have lived through dot-com and real estate bubbles, it is the education bubble that we face, if Columbia's Mark C. Taylor's prediction comes true. With steady disappearance of small classes taught by seasoned professors, rise to statistical predominance of adjunct faculty and graduate assistants made melancholy by their bleak career prospects, astounding increase in cost of higher education, dilution of quality of undergraduate students, and travails of indebtedness suffered by many institutions, it is hardly surprising that someone should write a book such as Taylor's Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming our Colleges and Universities. Although many of his suggestions have real merit and are undergirded by an acute awareness of shortcomings of contemporary academy, Taylor is not likely to find his fellow teachers ready to embrace his plan as a whole. To learn from example of for-profit universities, to abolish tenure, to restore mandatory retirement age, to encourage partnerships with corporations, to spur innovative interdisciplinary and multimedia teaching, and to abandon academic monograph: this is a program that some may regard as nothing less than abdication of an intellectual ideal in favor of sheer economic opportunism. (5) Such would seem to be likely reaction of Stanley Fish, whose Save World on Your Own Time anticipates Taylor's perspective, if not all of his arguments. Fish's essay, peppered with anecdotes from his years of service as Dean of College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at University of Illinois, Chicago, argues that universities should aggressively defend their central practices and should never apologize for their proper tasks, provided they stick to them. …

Hannah Arendt Meets QAnon: Conspiracy, Ideology, and the Collapse of Common Sense

The paper examines the integration of virtue epistemology into the philosophy of science, emphasizing its potential to deepen our understanding of scientific inquiry. The article begins by considering the limitations of traditional epistemological frameworks that focus on beliefs. The discussion is set in the context of the “value turn” in contemporary epistemology. Arguments are made to move towards recognizing the significance of intellectual virtues and the nature of epistemic agents. The current gaps in definitions of intellectual virtues about reliabilist and responsibilist approaches are examined and conceptual steps are proposed to bridge these gaps. It is suggested that the local and general epistemic goals of science should be clearly distinguished and then different ways of knowing should be attributed to these goals. These ways of knowing are proposed to be seen as exemplifying the realization of reliable skills and intellectual character traits. In sum, the article argues that adopting a virtue epistemology not only enriches the discourse on scientific knowledge but also promotes a culture of responsibility and integrity in the scientific community.