Alex Worsnip

For one year only, the 8th Chapel Hill Normativity Workshop will (paradoxically) be in Montreal! Keynote by Jane Friedman plus 7 talks selected via open CFA. As usual, accepted papers eligible for special issue of Phil Studies. Submissions due Oct 15th; more info at normativity.web.unc.edu

YouTube video by PPE at UNC [AEP Explainers] The Epistemology of Free Speech (with Robert Simpson)

Very excited to share our third "explainer video". (Refresher: these are ~5 min animations introducing applied epistemology concepts for a wide audience.) This one's on epist of free speech, featuring a script by Rob Simpson! Please share & consider using in teaching!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMgb...

Reminder: tomorrow is the deadline to apply for this! It's a chance to get expert instruction in public writing on applied epistemology, feedback from peers, and to enjoy an in-person workshop here at UNC

🥁🎉It's time again! My colleague Thomas Grundmann is organising the Cologne Summer School in Philosophy. This year's star is @aworsnip.bsky.social (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). 🎊📢
You can find more information on the following website: cssip.uni-koeln.de
Spread the word and repost!

Congrats Sam!!

The exciting AEP announcements just keep on coming! This is a really cool initiative being spearheaded by our summer 2025 RA Devin Lane--anyone interested in writing applied epistemology for a public audience should apply!

These explainer videos (produced and animated by the fantastic Ripley Stroud) are among my favorite things we're doing at the @unc-aep.bsky.social. The second one just came out, featuring Kevin Dorst on polarization. Please check it out and share widely!

Resignations, Disagreements With Dean Roil UNC Civics School UNC professors who supported the initiative when others derided it are resigning and denouncing its leader. It’s an ironic turn for a civil discourse school.

What a gigantic surprise--the "civil discourse" folks have been having a little trouble with their civil discourse
www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

In support of #philosophymatters, this fortnight I'll be highlighting things that don't matter that are not philosophy. First up: layovers.

Fascinating new post on our blog by Emily McWilliams, discussing the denial and undertreatment of women's pain in medical procedures through the lens of applied epistemological work on testimonial injustice, manufactured ignorance, and motivated reasoning:
aep.unc.edu/2025/03/17/t...

One columnist, a professional pundit, is living in a paranoid delusion. The other, a sociologist, is living in America.

Is the unwillingness of deferring to experts really a serious societal pathology? Review by @aworsnip.bsky.social et al explores under exactly what conditions we ought to defer to experts, and under what conditions people are willing to defer to experts:
buff.ly/NXuDVSu

New Paper in Philosophical Psychology:

Trust in experts is low. Why? How bad is it? And what should we do? To answer these questions, we reviewed philosophy (when *ought* we defer to the experts) and psychology (when *do* people defer to the experts).

Link in comments!

Speedy work by @journalphp.bsky.social and their publishers--the published version of the paper is now available, open access (thanks to our grant!), here:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

It doesn't prove that Alito's judgments are false, but it gives us reason to think they're unreliable, since the motivations aren't connected with the truth.

The disease of the American political class is the inability to see, describe, or respond what is happening, when doing so would conflict with the speech norms of the American political class

I suspect Goodin's singular devotion to the journal is the key factor. If he's running it like JPP, I believe he's reading every submission & desk rejecting lots before they go further. That'll make things run v efficiently, but the downside is it puts a big burden (and a lot of power) on one person

thanks Sam!

Little bit of a preview of some of the arguments of the paper engaging with your work on this that I intend to eventually write up properly!

Samuel Alito and the Ethics of Suspicion Exploring the changing nature of public debate

I wrote a blog post about Samuel Alito as a case study in the ethics of suspicion and psychologizing
blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/openfordebat...

I don't think that's true. Obviously there's the Jason Stanley book, and more recently see e.g. Megan Hyska's work
www.meganhyska.com

First (soon to be) published paper to come out of a fun collaborative project we're doing at UNC with a group of philosophers and psychologists on deference to experts!

Like "we need to have a conversation about immigration and stop ignoring the issue"-- who is it that's refusing to talk about immigration? Certainly not other commentators. Certainly not politicians (even in center-left parties) who are constantly talking about how to address the issue. Who?

The other thing I can't stand about the line this guy's pushing (which has been expressed in literally 1000s of major newspaper op-eds across many countries and several decades) is the way it presents itself as confronting us with a "difficult truth" that no-one other than the author will face up to

It's this kind of thing that gives me hope that we live in a simulation designed by a massive joker and all the other crap that's going on is just a part of that too

Interesting to see that US safety standards focus on what happens to people inside the car on collision, whereas in the UK there’s a much greater focus on pedestrian safety and that of people in the cars you collide with.

Despite the name "summer school", the event is aimed at researchers of all career stages, and includes an opportunity for selected participants to present their own ideas on related topics. If you're into applied epistemology, consider applying to come and hang out in Cologne! (2/2)

I'm honored to be the guest lecturer at this year's Cologne Summer School in Philosophy, where I'll be delivering five lectures (plus a public lecture) on my current work in applied epistemology. (1/2)
cssip.uni-koeln.de

Genuinely never thought I'd see the day when Mitch McConnell was described by other Republicans as a "RINO". *Mitch McConnell* as "Republican in Name Only".

Because he--what?--opposed like 1% of Trump's agenda and appointments?