Classified for decades as a “least risk medical device,” surgical staplers have been recently associated with at least 41,000 injuries and 360 deaths in the last ten years (FDA Letter to Healthcare Providers, 2019). This shocking development has generated calls for a broad investigation into the errors involved in surgical stapler use and reform of the regulatory protocol for medical devices. Current regulatory infrastructure and framework operate with understandings that combine risk inherent to the device and that which is born by the operator (FDA Classification Call, 2019). This thesis explores the aforementioned classification error and its adverse outcomes from an epistemological standpoint. Social epistemic analysis is applied to FDA regulation and to the comparison of two scenarios in reference to the current status-quo classification and to the proposed risk reclassification of surgical staples. Expert versus novice error avoidance surgical performance capabilities are discussed under these two different classificatory scenarios and epistemic social roles.

How do we establish objectivity when each person’s perspective is uniquely subjective? Borges’s “The Writing of the God” shows how an epistemically isolated subject is incapable of ever arriving at a robust sense of objectivity without reference to an Other. Donald Davidson’s theory of interpretive triangulation posits that the Other’s external perspective establishes objectivity by making the subject aware of the limits of his or her perception. Emmanuel Levinas suggests that the face of the Other establishes ethics as first philosophy through a primordial, affective discourse. The ethical relation is what undergirds the questions of epistemology which Davidson addresses.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Conciliationists hold that hold that epistemic peer disagreement about whether a proposition is true constitutes a (partial) defeater for that proposition. Non-conciliationists, on the other hand, deny that peer disagreement constitutes a (partial) defeater for a proposition under dispute. A defeater is a reason to doubt the justification one thought one had in believing a certain proposition to be true. While there are dynamic views in the literature, conciliationism and non-conciliationism represent the two most defended positions. This debate has highlighted a number of interesting and underexplored ideas in epistemology, such as the distinction between first-order and second-order reasons, the uniqueness thesis, and independence requirements. I develop and defend an underexplored argument in favour of non-conciliationism. A researcher may be reasonable to remain steadfast in the face of disagreement about a proposition related to her research if doing so will yield epistemic benefits. I draw on two main sources of evidence for this claim: (i) there are numerous real-life examples where this occurs, and (ii) there is empirical evidence to suggest that cognitive diversity helps enhance prediction and problem-solving. The most pressing objection to this argument is that it conflates practical reasons with epistemic reasons. I argue that this objection fails because the reasons in question actually are epistemic. A better distinction is one between synchronic epistemic reasons and diachronic epistemic reasons. I then explore how far, if at all, this argument can be taken beyond research contexts. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Yes / There is conflicting experimental evidence about whether the “stakes” or importance of being wrong affect judgments about whether a subject knows a proposition. To date, judgments about stakes effects on knowledge have been investigated using binary paradigms: responses to “low” stakes cases are compared with responses to “high stakes” cases. However, stakes or importance are not binary properties—they are scalar: whether a situation is “high” or “low” stakes is a matter of degree. So far, no experimental work has investigated the scalar nature of stakes effects on knowledge: do stakes effects increase as the stakes get higher? Do stakes effects only appear once a certain threshold of stakes has been crossed? Does the effect plateau at a certain point? To address these questions, we conducted experiments that probe for the scalarity of stakes effects using several experimental approaches. We found evidence of scalar stakes effects using an “evidenceseeking” experimental design, but no evidence of scalar effects using a traditional “evidence-fixed” experimental design. In addition, using the evidence-seeking design, we uncovered a large, but previously unnoticed framing effect on whether participants are skeptical about whether someone can know something, no matter how much evidence they have. The rate of skeptical responses and the rate at which participants were willing to attribute “lazy knowledge”—that someone can know something without having to check— were themselves subject to a stakes effect: participants were more skeptical when the stakes were higher, and more prone to attribute lazy knowledge when the stakes were lower. We argue that the novel skeptical stakes effect provides resources to respond to criticisms of the evidence-seeking approach that argue that it does not target knowledge / Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant (RPG-2016-193)

The term "science fiction" has in itself a contradiction: if science is truth, and fiction is make-believe, how can the two come together? The authors, readers, and fans of science fiction have come together to create a set of informal rules for how to deal with this contradiction, allowing fictional science when it is realistic, rigorous, backed up by evidence (which I call empiricism), and free of any obvious bias (which I call objectivity). There are areas, though, where these rules break down. Some of these areas are tied to genre, centered on works that may or may not be science fiction or the larger umbrella genre of speculative fiction, including fantasy. But some of these areas seem not to have a clear cause, causing friction within the larger speculative fiction community. Studies of science and engineering, I argue, offer an explanation: realism, rigor, empiricism, and objectivity are frequently used to hold women and people of color to higher standards than other community members and epistemologically privilege white and male experiences. Women and people of color in science and engineering are told that their work is incorrect or unrealistic without basis; they are told that their work is insufficiently rigorous; they are told that their evidence is not as good as it is, or their work is attributed to someone else entirely; and they are told that they are not capable of being unbiased and producing unbiased work. I argue that these expectations have been translated into science fiction, potentially contributing to arguments and disputes that have caused significant conflict in the community. I look at novels that were nominated for a major speculative fiction award, the Hugo Award, between 2008 and 2012 to see how authors establish made-up facts in their texts. I then analyze online book reviews of those same texts to see if there are patterns in how readers respond to these speculations. Lastly, I look at statements by the authors themselves to document their experiences of both writing and how readers have interacted with them about the reception of their texts. I find that, much like in science and engineering, the rules about realism, rigor, empiricism, and objectivity are enforced differently against women and people of color, which potentially indicates that the cultural view of science has these inequitable norms embedded into it. / Doctor of Philosophy / The term "science fiction" has in itself a contradiction: if science is truth, and fiction is make-believe, how can the two come together? The authors, readers, and fans of science fiction have come together to create a set of informal rules for how to deal with this contradiction, allowing fictional science when it is realistic, rigorous, backed up by evidence (which I call empiricism), and free of any obvious bias (which I call objectivity). There are areas, though, where these rules break down. Some of these areas are tied to genre, centered on works that may or may not be science fiction or the larger umbrella genre of speculative fiction, including fantasy. But some of these areas seem not to have a clear cause, causing friction within the larger speculative fiction community. Studies of science and engineering, I argue, offer an explanation: realism, rigor, empiricism, and objectivity are frequently used to hold women and people of color to higher standards than other community members. Women and people of color in science and engineering are told that their work is incorrect or unrealistic without basis; they are told that their work is insufficiently rigorous; they are told that their evidence is not as good as it is, or their work is attributed to someone else entirely; and they are told that they are not capable of being unbiased and producing unbiased work. I argue that these expectations have been translated into science fiction, potentially contributing to arguments and disputes that have caused significant conflict in the community. I look at novels that were nominated for a major speculative fiction award, the Hugo Award, between 2008 and 2012 to see how authors establish made-up facts in their texts. I then analyze online book reviews of those same texts to see if there are patterns in how readers respond to these speculations. Lastly, I look at statements by the authors themselves to document their experiences of both writing and how readers have interacted with them about the reception of their texts. I find that, much like in science and engineering, the rules about realism, rigor, empiricism, and objectivity are enforced differently against women and people of color.