What to Believe Now

Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues

David Coady

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781405199940
  9781405199933
• eBook ISBN:
  9781444362107
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Epistemology in Philosophy

What can we know and what should we believe about today's world? What to Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues applies the concerns and techniques of epistemology to a wide variety of contemporary issues. Questions about what we can know-and what we should believe-are first addressed through an explicit consideration of the practicalities of working these issues out at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Coady calls for an 'applied turn' in epistemology, a process he likens to the applied turn that transformed the study of ethics in the early 1970s. Subjects dealt with include:

• Experts-how can we recognize them? And when should we trust them?
• Rumors-should they ever be believed? And can they, in fact, be a source of knowledge?
• Conspiracy theories-when, if ever, should they be believed, and can they be known to be true?
• The blogosphere-how does it compare with traditional media as a source of knowledge and justified belief?

Timely, thought provoking, and controversial, What to Believe Now offers a wealth of insights into a branch of philosophy of growing importance-and increasing relevance-in the twenty-first century.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication 1
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Experts and the Laity
• 3 Epistemic Democracy
• 4 Rumors and Rumor-Mongers
• 5 Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracy Theorists1
• 6 The Blogosphere and the Conventional Media
• 7 Conclusion
• Postscript
• References
• Index