Gloria Origgi

Evolution, communication, and the proper function of language

Language is both a biological and a cultural phenomenon. Our aim here is to discuss, in an evolutionary perspective, the articulation of these two aspects of language. For this, we draw on the general conceptual framework developed by Ruth Millikan (1984) while at the same time dissociating ourselves from her view of language.

Epistemic Injustice and Epistemic Trust

Miranda Fricker has introduced the insightful notion of epistemic injustice in the philosophical debate, thus bridging concerns of social epistemology with questions that arise in the area of social and cultural studies. I concentrate my analysis of her treatment of testimonial injustice. According to Fricker, the central cases of testimonial injustice are cases of identity injustice in which hearers rely on stereotypes to assess the credibility of their interlocutors. I try here to broaden the analysis of that testimonial injustice by indicating other mechanisms that bias our credibility assessments. In my perspective, the use of identity stereotypes is just one case among many biases in our credibility judgments.

Epistemic Vigilance and Epistemic Responsibility in the Liquid World of Scientific Publications

In this paper I try to challenge some received views about the role and the function of the traditional academic practice of publishing papers in peer‐reviewed journals. I argue that our publishing practices today are rather based on passively accepted social norms and humdrum work habits than on actual needs for communicating the advancements of our research. By analysing some examples of devices and practices that are based on tacitly accepted norms, such as the Citation Index and the new role of DOI attributions in digital publishing, I advocate an epistemically vigilant stance not only towards our ways of acquiring knowledge, but also towards the implicit norms we accept when we produce research.

A Social Epistemology of Reputation

We monitor the informational environment and catch reputational cues, gather signals from our informants and develop our trustful attitudes in context. I present an epistemology of reputation as a way of using social configurations to acquire information. I review the definitions of reputation that exist in the social sciences, stress the importance of the relational/social dimension of reputation as a property of entities, and put forward a definition of reputation suitable for epistemology. I then sketch social configurations that allow us to extract reputational information and some typical heuristics we use to navigate the social information around us.

What does it mean to trust in epistemic authority

I discuss various position on trust in epistemic authority and argue for a pragmatic approach to trust in conversation.