[LINK] Book Review - What to Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues

[Danny Yee]

The chapter on the blogosphere may be of particular relevance, but the
treatment of rumours and conspiracy theories is also provoking.

Danny.

 What to Believe Now
 - Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues
 David Coady
 Wiley-Blackwell 2012
 202 pages, notes, index

 A book review by Danny Yee
 http://dannyreviews.com/h/What_Believe_Now.html

In _What to Believe Now_ David Coady applies epistemology to some topics
of everyday relevance, to rumours, conspiracy theories, the blogosphere,
democracy and experts.  A common theme is an emphasis on the political
implications of these different sources of or contexts for knowledge.

An introduction, which could be skipped without harm by more pragmatic
readers, surveys some theory, taking Alvin Goldman's "veritism" as a
starting point.  Coady touches on the balance between avoiding error and
"being well informed", proceduralism versus consequentialism, doxastic
voluntarism (the idea that we have some responsibility for our beliefs),
and the possibilities of virtue epistemology.  He argues that applied
epistemology is a branch of applied ethics, and one that is important
for social policy.

Self-contained chapters then address the five main topics.

Looking at the role of experts, Coady uses climate change as an example.
There are reasons for skepticism about experts, such as the value of
intellectual autonomy and the risk of information cascades, but rejection
(or "reduction") of expert testimony is unsustainable.  What do we do
when experts disagree?  It can make sense to simply go by numbers (some
Bayesian probability analysis here is not particularly interesting),
with non-independence balanced by the strength of peer evaluation,
and we need to beware of rhetoric and take into account evidence of
dishonesty or unconscious conflicts of interest.  Expertise is both
widespread and specific: there is no such thing as "a scientific expert"
per se, for example -- geologists and climate scientists have different
domains of expertise -- and in this regard science resembles morality,
with which Coady draws some comparisons.

An epistemic approach to democracy tackles some fairly traditional
questions: Are votes statements, and if so what do they say?  What
epistemic authority do elections have -- does it make sense to change
one's own opinion if an election goes the other way?  And so forth.
Coady emphasizes the importance of knowledgeable voters and sets his
conception of epistemic democracy in the context of similar ideas of
deliberative democracy.

Coady defines rumours as unofficial communications that have spread
through a large number of informants, distinguishing them from urban
legends, propaganda and other variants, and argues that they do not
deserve their bad reputation.  There are circumstances when official
sources are unreliable or unavailable, and transmission can improve as
well as degrade information quality, as people preferentially forward
rumours from trusted communicators and modify or update their content
using their own knowledge.  Where most participants have some relevant
knowledge, rumours can be highly accurate.  In the Second World War the
US military ran counter-rumour operations, concerned not that rumours
about troop movements were wrong, but that they were too accurate and
could easily spread to the enemy.

The widespread modern objection to conspiracy theories qua conspiracy
theories originated with Karl Popper.  Coady works through the obvious --
once considered -- problems with this: conspiracies are not uncommon, can
succeed, and have important consequences.  There are indeed many stupid
conspiracy theories, but their problem is that they are stupid, not that
they are conspiracy theories.  Coady concludes with the suggestion that
proper consideration of conspiracy theories is, ironically, necessary
for anything like Popper's Open Society to function.

Finally, Coady turns to the blogosphere and how it compares with the
traditional media (comparing it to the legal process or scientific
research is misguided).  He looks at journalism as a profession, the
notion of "balance", the different kinds of filtering employed, claims
of "parasitism", and so forth.  There are advantages in low barriers
to entry and interactivity and, allowing benefits to "promoting true
belief" and not just to avoiding error, the epistemic consequences of
the Internet are really not so bleak.

A conclusion touches briefly on Wikipedia, torture and political
skepticism, while a postscript presents a non-privacy argument against
extensive use of CCTV camera monitoring.

In so far as a political stance can be distinguished in _What to Believe
Now_, it is broadly anarchist, in that Coady argues for the merits of
decentralised and distributed sources of knowledge.  He is also skeptical
about the epistemic reliability of the state and institutions, certainly
much more so than theorists such as Cass Sunstein.  This comes out most
clearly, perhaps, in the chapters on rumours and conspiracy theories
and in the postscript.

_What To Believe Now_ is aimed at more practical problems than most
epistemology, but it is still rather abstract: Coady is an academic
writing as a participant in ongoing academic debates.  In particular,
he often appears to be having a kind of conversation with Alvin Goldman,
whose ideas have a high profile in almost all the chapters.  It is
certainly possible to imagine a considerably "more applied" applied
epistemology, which might consider practical guidelines for evaluating
rumours or distinguishing more reliable Wikipedia pages from less reliable
ones, among other matters.

With the possible exception of some of the introductory material, however,
everything in _What To Believe Now_ is accessible without a background
in epistemology.  Since it addresses topics of considerable importance,
it should command, if not a mass audience, then one that reaches well
outside the narrow confines of academic philosophy.  Those particularly
likely to find it useful include political theorists, students of social
networks, and perhaps some policy makers.

--

%T	What to Believe Now
%S	Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues
%A	Coady, David
%I	Wiley-Blackwell
%D	2012
%O	paperback, notes, index
%G	ISBN-13 978-1-4051-9994-0
%P	202pp

15 August 2012

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        Copyright (c) 2012 Danny Yee       http://danny.oz.au/
        Danny Yee's Book Reviews      http://dannyreviews.com/
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