Robin McKenna

I want to hear more about my new argument for pragmatism

My understanding is that nowadays people think he had a point because he meant there would not be a successor ideology to liberalism/capitalism, not that nothing else would ever happen again, so the seeming dawn of a post-ideological age is not really a falsification of the thesis. Will report back.

Reading The End of History for teaching next week. Has anyone ever considered that Fukayama might have been wrong?

it is correct, and (b) am inclined to think that, however contingent it is, there is some consensus on what is and is not central and I want to locate myself with respect to it.

so here's my stance: if that's correct, then the hesitation I feel about proposing we don't have any analytic epistemology in the "core curriculum" is easily dismissed; it can be justified via my lack of desire to teach any of it. But I (a) wonder what can be said to my colleagues who do not think

I've never spent much time on it, or had any interest. It's hard enough to get more than a handful interested in the analysis of knowledge--hence why I stopped even trying a few years ago.

(I also think there are better ways of teaching the methodology--my favourite class to teach is one on philosophical problems where you need to put together your own "solution" to some classic problems and paradoxes).

Part of the context here is we're finding out students don't seem to want to use this methodology, at least based on their choices, dissertation topics, etc; they go for something more interdisciplinary (lot of joint honours students) or--when a class permits it--something more continental.

the thought was that it is based on an idea that you really don't find in the historical figures you would be covering (eg. Descartes). But perhaps I'm wrong about that, and in any case we've never really taught anything that advanced as is.

My dept has to redesign our BA Philosophy (for reasons). I am struggling to think of a good reason why a typical philosophy graduate needs to know any 20th/21st century epistemology (if they did, it would be knowledge first epistemology, but that's difficult). Am I wrong?

Chris Ranalli and I have a new paper in the International Journal for the Study of Skepticism. We argue that philosophical scepticism need not lead to political conservatism. We also suggest that scepticism may support an anti-political stance that is worth cultivating.

brill.com/view/journal...

Kornblith, Naturalism, Relativism Three core commitments run through Kornblith's work in epistemology. First, epistemologists should investigate knowledge itself rather than the concept of knowledge. Second, knowledge is a natural ki...

Very happy to see this out. It's a critical piece with @martinkusch.bsky.social on one of my very favourite philosophers, Hilary Kornblith. Published in a new book, Kornblith and His Critics, edited by Josh DiPaolo and Luis Oliveira.

doi.org/10.1002/9781...

Robin McKenna, Sophistry on Steroids? The Ethics, Epistemology and Politics of Persuasive AI - PhilPapers This paper examines the ethical, epistemological, and political implications of persuasive AI technologies. Recent research suggests that AI is roughly as persuasive as humans in many contexts. Should...

We have nothing to worry about from AI's hyper-persuasiveness...as long as we're truly masters of our own beliefs, the claims of social epistemology are wrong, and we can fully understand how & why models are influencing us. In other words, it's an issue. Great new @rbnmckenna.bsky.social article.

Academic spam from a "publication coach" at "Editage" with the subject line: "worried about standing out this conference season?"

constantly

Just got an email from a scam academic journal asking if I wanted to "explore new advances in White Psychodrama" and it's just got me like: buddy, I can watch the news myself.

Sophistry on steroids? The ethics, epistemology and politics of persuasive AI - AI & SOCIETY This paper examines the ethical, epistemological, and political implications of persuasive AI technologies. Recent research suggests that AI is roughly as persuasive as humans in many contexts. Should...

Available open access: a new paper arguing that, even though persuasive AI technologies won't destroy the world, we should be worried about them.

doi.org/10.1007/s001...

Robin McKenna & Christopher Ranalli, Skepticism and Conservatism - PhilPapers In his excellent new book Epistemic Courage Jonathan Ichikawa argues that epistemology evinces a bias towards the skeptical. In its most extreme forms (i.e. radical skepticism), this leads to complete...

New paper w/Chris Ranalli explaining why I don't think there need be a close connection between skepticism and political conservatism. It's a critical discussion of a new book, Jonathan Ichikawa's Epistemic Courage, but we sketch our favored form of skepticism at the end.
philpapers.org/rec/MCKSAC-4

Robin McKenna, Sophistry on Steroids? The Ethics, Epistemology and Politics of Persuasive AI - PhilPapers This paper examines the ethical, epistemological, and political implications of persuasive AI technologies. Recent research suggests that AI is roughly as persuasive as humans in many contexts. Should...

New paper in AI & Society on why we should be worried about persuasive AI technologies even if you are, like me, sceptical that we are about to enter a world of AI "hyper-persuasion".

philpapers.org/rec/MCKSOS-2

Robin McKenna, Sophistry on Steroids? The Ethics, Epistemology and Politics of Persuasive AI - PhilPapers This paper examines the ethical, epistemological, and political implications of persuasive AI technologies. Recent research suggests that AI is roughly as persuasive as humans in many contexts. Should...

New paper in AI & Society on why we should be worried about persuasive AI technologies even if you are, like me, sceptical that we are about to enter a world of AI "hyper-persuasion".

philpapers.org/rec/MCKSOS-2

the latter, or so he claims

it's a common mistake but actually Dr Frankenstein was the monster

Against Selective Cynicism It won’t surprise readers of this Substack to learn that I am, at heart, a cynic and a pessimist.

Short Substack post where I explain why selective cynicism--something you see quite often on the social media feeds of heterodox academics--really annoys me.

open.substack.com/pub/rbnmcken...

The Manufacture of Subjects A Review of Cory Wimberly's How Propaganda Became Public Relations

New Substack post where I talk some more about my current obsession: propaganda. This is a review of a book that I very strongly recommend, Cory Wimberly's How Propaganda Became Public Relations: Foucault and the Corporate Governance of the Public.

open.substack.com/pub/rbnmcken...

Thanks to @aidanmcglynn.bsky.social @ale1808.bsky.social @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social @neillevy.bsky.social @tays95.bsky.social @msimion.bsky.social as well as Heather Battaly, Ian James Kidd, Marie van Loon, Anne Meylan, Veli Mitova, and to my co-editor Gerry Dunne.

Robin McKenna & Gerry Dunne, Ideal and Non-Ideal Theory in Epistemology - PhilPapers This is the editors' introduction to a special issue on Ideal and Non-Ideal Theory in Epistemology in the International Journal of Philosophical Studies.

The International Journal of Philosophical Studies were kind enough to do a special issue on my book (really a hybrid: articles on ideal and non-ideal epistemology plus some critical commentaries). Thanks to everyone who contributed for making it a fantastic collection.

philpapers.org/rec/MCKIAN

Don't mind Robin, his book is great, and we (Nastja, Nora, and I) wouldn't have been able to make these criticisms without Robin's groundwork!

Non-ideal enough? In recent years, the traditional outlook and methods of analytic epistemology with its thought experiments, Gettierology and definition-mongering have beco

Good criticisms of my book on Non-Ideal Epistemology in this critical notice in Analysis. I've come to agree with a lot of the criticisms in here, so if someone wants to write a better book that does all these things please do.

academic.oup.com/analysis/adv...

Thanks for writing it. I don't know if you saw, but Dan and I both did book reviews for the Australasian Journal of Philosophy. We agree (I think) that there is less disagreement between us than you might expect.

Catharine Saint-Croix, Greco (2023) _Idealization in Epistemology_ and McKenna (2023) _Non-Ideal Epistemology_ - PhilPapers Epistemology is rife with idealization. And, although concern about particular idealizations—logical omniscience, infinite iterations of common knowledge, and so on—is long-standing, systematic metaep...

Haven't had a chance to read this double review-essay from @catsaintcroix.bsky.social on Greco and @rbnmckenna.bsky.social's books on idealisation in epistemology yet, but it looks really interesting