The social space of doubt
Denialism, skepticism and the construction of knowledge
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52780/res.v28iesp.1.17300Keywords:
Denialism, Skepticism, Doubts, Epistemology, ConstructivismAbstract
It might seem that any restriction on doubting is contrary to the progression of knowledge and undemocratic. This argument is used by different flavors of denialism. However, an examination of the way doubts work shows us that there are epistemic requirements for the legitimacy of doubt that are not met by denialisms. A consequence of this argument is that epistemic normativity is not absorbed by political normativity. The specificity of epistemic normativity, which explains why denialists' doubt is not legitimate, disappears in constructivist theories. Constructivist theses result from a confusion between the fact that theories are social constructs and the thesis that they construct the facts upon which the theory itself stands. The legitimacy of doubt depends on epistemic social filtering processes. Socially constructed epistemic filters reflect a profound fact of the evolution of human culture: the cumulative, social and asymmetrical production of knowledge.
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