This article provides an analytical review of the collective monograph “Science Communication and Trust”, edited by Antoinette Fage-Butler, Loni Ledderer, and Kristian H. Nielsen. The monograph is distinguished by its interdisciplinary scope and by the integration of both theoretical and empirical approaches. Drawing on one of the book’s central perspectives, the review foregrounds the contemporary socio-epistemological understanding of (dis)trust as a complex, multidimensional, and context-dependent phenomenon, moving beyond the simplistic binary of “trust versus distrust”. I focus on the conceptualization of non-binary (dis)trust – how this perspective is articulated throughout the chapters and how different forms and dynamics of (dis)trust are illustrated through concrete empirical approaches, including quantitative and qualitative research, case studies, and discourse analysis. The study highlights the authors' re-examination of scientific denialism, viewing it as a socially and narratively constructed process in which a specific type of trust – embodied by the “dissident expert” – emerges as a symbol of epistemic democracy. In conclusion, I discuss both strengths and limitations of the book: on the one hand, its non-binary framework enables a nuanced analysis of trust and distrust as they actually circulate in society; on the other hand, this approach can sometimes result in postmodern ambivalence and a lack of clear answers to the challenges considered. Overall, the article emphasizes the theoretical and practical value of the book for scholars in STS, practitioners, and everyone interested in the complexities of public (dis)trust in science in the context of infodemics and socio-political transformations.
The article examines Michael Dummett’s interpretation of the ontology of time within his anti-realist project and the manifestation argument. The analysis begins with the distinction between two versions of anti-realism – T and G – which are here reconstructed on the basis of Dummett’s semantics as different ways of reconciling the manifestation principle with the idea of the past. The first strategy seeks to preserve rational discourse about the past while weakening its ontological status; the second radicalizes anti-realism, making the past entirely dependent on present linguistic and cognitive practices. Their comparison reveals the structural limits of Dummett’s anti-realist framework: any attempt to combine logical rigor with epistemic accountability generates tension between the stability of meaning and the stability of being. A central focus of the paper is the manifestation argument, according to which knowledge of meaning must be exhibited in linguistic behaviour. Through this principle, Dummett exposes a deep correlation between epistemology and ontology: if the meaning of an utterance is determined by the conditions under which it can be verified, temporal reality itself can no longer be conceived as an independent metaphysical background. Within this framework, unverifiable statements emerge not merely as a test case for distinguishing realism from anti-realism, but as a stress point that reveals the internal limits of the anti-realist position. The stricter anti-realism adheres to the manifestation principle, the closer it approaches the denial of the past as a stable domain of reality. Dummett’s two strategies mark this movement in opposite directions: T constructs a field of “possible histories” sustained by evidential coherence, whereas G dissolves the very distinction between epistemic and ontological levels. Thus, Dummett’s anti-realism does not abolish metaphysics but relocates it into the linguistic domain, where language itself becomes the site through which temporal being is constituted.
The digital today constitutes an environment of affects: it touches, enchants, captivates, incites, and frightens. What it does not do, however, is provide knowledge; rather, it takes knowledge away. Previously, the subject of cognition was the human being, though cognition itself was largely grounded in institutions, social contacts, performative rituals, and the activity of human-scale and non-human-scale collectives. Today, however, when generative AI is prone to hallucinations, when AI models are trained on content produced by other AIs – thereby accumulating errors and generating model collapse – and when algorithmic feeds and AI assistants make epistemic decisions on behalf of users by determining what is “important” or “true”, the machines of technocapitalism rupture the “contract” between human and non-human agents and monopolize the right to meaning. The fundamental stratum of reality upon which social consensus depends – namely, the experience of everyday life – becomes dubious and alien. Hence, in the context of a crisis of meaning, the right to presence assumes renewed urgency. Indeed, knowledge and science, in their foundational dimensions, are not merely a matter of institutions but rather of the ultimate aspirations of the human being – aspirations that are pre-predicative and existential in character. To this sphere belong the mystery of life, reverence before it, fate, aura – in short, the entire incomputable remainder: that ontological correlate which can be counterposed to the fatalism of algorithms and to epistemic nihilism. I seek to demonstrate that, in the era of intelligent machines, the epistemic rupture may be overcome, or at least mitigated, through a stance that may be termed existential romanticism – one in which knowledge is conceived not solely as resource, prediction, and possession, but also as event, risk, and a breakthrough toward the improbable.
This article examines the grounds for determining whether narrative can be recognized, following L. Mink, as a legitimate instrument of cognition. The primary obstacle to such recognition lies in the claim that while narratives, like scientific hypotheses, are the result of productive imagination, narrative interpretations – unlike hypotheses – cannot be confirmed or falsified. Individual statements may be verified, but a narrative is not reducible to the sum of its statements. The article demonstrates that Mink’s understanding of narrative can be developed by drawing on the analytical approach of A. Danto and the hermeneutic approach of P. Ricoeur. In this light, narrative emerges as a complex intellectual construct whose core consists in the representation of processes. The hypothesis advanced is that narrative as an instrument of cognition constitutes a highly organized form of hypothesis, one that enables the conceptualization of multifactorial, self-reinforcing processes of development within human communities.
The article begins with several critical remarks about Konstantin Ocheretyany’s paper. The conclusion of these remarks is that the dangers presented in the article under discussion, in the spirit of epistemic pessimism, are not frightening, and the problems raised are much older than the emergence of language models. The article is conceived in terms of expansion, although the conclusion seems to contrast competition for knowledge with “standing silently before the mystery”. The author sees a way out in the attitude of existential romanticism. The latter, however, presupposes a set of techniques that can only produce limited effectiveness. This article proposes an alternative: since language models today pass the Turing test quite successfully, we cannot accept large language models as a tool, and we must describe interaction with them as distributed knowledge. For objects of distributed knowledge, it is essential whether this object is accessible to everyone or whether it cannot be accessible to everyone or even many (such as secrets). Since interaction with large language models, in our view, belongs to the second class, we will need to pursue a corresponding strategy. Finally, we propose an improvement to the Turing test, the Pico test, which would require the test subject to describe a selected object (for example, a literary work) in as much detail as possible and subsequently change their perspective in describing and interpreting it. The tester would need to pay attention to the natural difficulty humans have in abandoning their initial position, whereas a machine would be more easily able to change perspective, description, and style.
The article is devoted to a revision of the classical dichotomy between “what is said” and “what is implicated”, originating from the seminal works of Paul Grice. The author challenges the thesis that the division of meaning into semantic (conventional, truthconditional) and pragmatic (inferred, not affecting truth conditions) is exhaustive. The study of meaning components is accompanied by the analysis of linguistic examples. The central focus of the work is the examination of two types of borderline phenomena that constitute this intermediate zone, or “frontier”. The first type is use-conditional meaning, which refers to conventional aspects that affect not the truth of the proposition, but the felicity conditions of the utterance’s use. This includes conventional implicatures (but, even, still), modal particles (German ja, doch, wohl), and expressives. While being tied to linguistic units, they do not alter the truth-conditional content but determine the pragmatic appropriateness of speech. The second type is pragmatic enrichments, which include explicatures and generalized conversational implicatures. Unlike particularized implicatures, these elements can intrude into the domain of semantics, directly influencing the truth conditions of the utterance. Using the example of the conjunctive and being interpreted as temporal sequence and scalar implicatures (involving words like some, warm), it is demonstrated that a pragmatically enriched interpretation can render an utterance false even if its literal meaning is true, allowing such constructions to be used to mislead. The final part of the article provides a comparative analysis of contemporary approaches to the described phenomena. The work substantiates the need for developing a new taxonomy and outlines prospects for further experimental research aimed at clarifying the boundaries and mechanisms of the interaction between semantics and pragmatics in natural language.
This article highlights a key epistemological dilemma in modern medicine: the conflict between objectivity and subjectivity. The analysis reveals a constitutive epistemological dualism in medical practice: it must simultaneously address objectively verifiable pathologies and the subjective reality of disease, which itself becomes an objective factor determining the patient’s quality of life. The author offers some criticism of the evidence-based medicine paradigm for its prioritization of population-based, averaged “gold standards” that ignore the uniqueness of the patient. On the other hand, the epistemological turn toward personalized (precision) medicine is assessed as an attempt to integrate individual biological and personal traits into clinical reasoning. The article explores the epistemological implications of cognitive biases in clinical judgment, the commercialization of medicine, and publication biases as systemic factors distorting epistemic processes. Oncology serves as a focal case for applied medical epistemology, as it embodies the fundamental dichotomies of the discipline. Ultimately, it is argued that the essence of medicine is integrative and requires constant epistemological considerations. Its scientific rigor must be harmonized with a hermeneutic understanding of the individual patient, recognizing that effective practice is rooted in the dynamic interaction between objective data, clinical experience, and philosophical reflexion on the concepts of health, illness, and evidence.
This article explores the influence of social epistemology on the functioning and development of various scientific disciplines. The development of social theory was linked to the formation of its own epistemological position. This position was largely based on the idea that sociologists cannot draw a line between themselves and society, and this distinguishes sociology from other scientific disciplines. The author demonstrates that such ideas are valid for social scientists engaged in constructing global theories, but in empirical research, the methodological arsenal allows for the distinction between researcher and object. The development of a critical social epistemology makes it possible to create a metatheory for analyzing all scientific knowledge. The author cautions against turning social epistemology into a normative “methodological censor” that dictates how scientists should conduct their research. This methodological position is compared to the principle of party spirit in Soviet historiography. By distancing itself from this principle, social epistemology does not intrude into the disciplinary domains of various sciences or dictate criteria of methodological adequacy. The productive potential of social epistemology is seen in the unification of its two projects: the critical, focused on the analysis of institutional and cultural mechanisms of knowledge production, and the analytical, focused on the study of the epistemic properties of individuals and groups. This will allow for the development of a holistic analytical framework for studying the interaction between science and society. Reflexivity, in this case, serves as a means of forming a holistic image of knowledge, which is necessary not only for improving scientific research but also for building productive communication between science and society.
The path of innovation is considerably complex. Before becoming part of everyday practice, an innovation typically overcomes public resistance and only later – neither immediately nor invariably – gains legalization (through normative and legal instruments) and legitimacy (public approval). However, along the trajectory connecting social distrust, on the one hand, with state support and social recognition, on the other, a particular kind of subject must be identified. This article is devoted to substantiating and testing the hypothesis concerning such a mediating subject. The aim of the article is to demonstrate, using the example of scientific innovations in the field of healthcare, the role of the scientific community as a social agent that – serving as an intermediary – facilitates state support and subsequent public recognition of innovations. The work is interdisciplinary in nature and integrates the conceptual tools of theory, historiography, and the sociology of law, the history of medicine, historical sociology, the sociology of knowledge, and social epistemology. As a practical methodology, a combined approach is employed, integrating concrete cases (medical cases), on the one hand, with historical and historiographical research tools drawn from the field of public health, on the other. It is shown that a scientific innovation typically first becomes legitimized and then legalized through the scientific community, which fulfills the function of a mediator between the public and the authorities – a social agent operating at the intersection of public opinion and administrative-legal decisions. Over time, certain innovations, once institutionalized, may reveal their practical or ideological shortcomings. In such instances, reverse processes occur – normative prohibitions and delegitimization. In these processes as well, the scientific community assumes the role of a leading social agent. This is facilitated both by the external openness of the community (particularly its public and interdisciplinary practices) and by its high degree of internal structure (expertise, authority, social responsibility).
This article is part of the polemics with Konstantin Ocheretyany who outlines the dangers of AI expansion and suggests as answers to this challenge the “existential romanticism” and “epistemic nihilism”. The weaknesses of AI are analyzed from the viewpoint of natural sciences – first, the fundamental imperfectness of input data due to digitalization and filtering by language models (here the metaphor of the “context of miracles”, the events of everyday life difficult to control and reproduce, is used), and second, the problems arising from the closed (or, anyway, limited) character of “digital world” where AI works. An alternative answer to the challenges of “digitalization” is suggested: the “Stoic pragmatism”.
The rapid development and widespread deployment of artificial intelligence (hereafter, AI), particularly in the form of large language models, has prompted a renewed wave of philosophical debates concerning the semantic competences of technical systems and the criteria for evaluating the outputs they generate, especially textual outputs. This article examines a set of central problem areas and their treatment in contemporary philosophical literature. Drawing on the theory of L. Floridi, the paper first raises the question of whether AI systems can possess and generate semantic capital (hereafter, SC), understood as any content that enhances an agent’s capacity for semantization. The paper argus that Floridi’s account remains largely anthropocentric, assigning neural networks the role of a “semantic broker”, that is, an entity capable of increasing SC through computational capacities while lacking meaning and content in the strict sense. The paper then analyzes the “stochastic parrot” problem within the framework of competing metasemantic theories. It shows that the same conceptual resources function both to deny and to support the claim that AI systems can produce meaning, thereby revealing a general limitation of anthropocentric approaches. Using the method of “anthropocentric abstraction”, proposed by H. Cappelen and J. Dever, the paper illustrates how Kripkean externalist semantics can be applied to the analysis of AI-based decision-making systems. Particular attention attracts the problem of alien content generated by neural networks and to the challenges it poses for human understanding; the paper outlines several scenarios for bridging the communicative gap between humans and AI systems. The conclusion argues for a symmetric approach to evaluating the semantic competences of humans and AI systems, taking into account differences in their internal organization and modes of operation. It further emphasizes the cognitive co-evolution of humans and AI systems, as well as the importance of investigating the social mechanisms that sustain SC.
This review presents a critical analysis of the first Russian-language edition of Mark Wilson’s monograph “Imitation of Rigor: An Alternative History of Analytic Philosophy” (2024, translated by V.V. Tselishchev). The primary objective is to identify sufficient grounds for the author’s central thesis: that twentieth-century analytic philosophy, in romanticizing the principles of logical empiricism, mistakenly replaced genuine scientific rigor with its imitation, manifested in procedures of formal axiomatization. Methodologically, the review is structured around a sequential examination of the key milestones of this unconventional study. It explores how Wilson contrasts rigid axiomatics with the multiscalar architectures of contemporary science, in which different levels of description interact through specific “corrective instructions”. Particular attention is paid to Wilson’s critique of philosophical categories, exemplified by causality. The review demonstrates how the author’s program of expanded realism is realized, wherein reference and truth receive a new interpretation through the concept of “corrective cycles” between levels of description.
The article discusses the antithesis proposed by Konstantin Ocheretyany between nihilistic and romantic assessments of the cognitive potential of AI technologies. I agree with a number of Ocheretyany’s arguments and propose supplementing them by pointing to the legacy of subjectivity as that non-appropriable remainder which testifies to the irreducibility of cognition to the data synthesis performed by AI technologies. Since the knowledge generated through these technologies draws on accumulated datasets, the subject is represented within it by a “digital footprint”. Importantly, this footprint itself demonstrates that the subject is non-identical to the identity formed within the “digital”. However, this kind of romantic overcoming of epistemic romanticism should not lose sight of the critique of romanticism itself from the standpoint of those who lay claim to a more realistic point of view. Such are the assertions regarding the necessity of a “katechon” to contain the destructive potentials inherent in AI technologies. Without denying the dangers of a technogenic nature, one cannot rule out the possibility that authoritarian forms of AI control, presented as “security measures”, will themselves pose a danger – including for the reason that they will be implemented precisely by means of AI technologies.
The conceptual history of immunology is replete with encounters, overlaps, and confrontations between diverse images, metaphors, vocabularies, and rhetorical strategies. Today, the dominant immunological theory remains the self/nonself theory, which emerged in the 1950s and 1960s and was associated with the adoption of cybernetic vocabulary, which became widespread in the biological sciences against the backdrop of the Cold War. However, since the 1970s, a series of competing theories has emerged in immunology, seeking to move beyond the binary logic of self/nonself and expand the semantics of immunological concepts beyond attack and defense. These theories emphasize the semantics and metaphors of flexibility, contextuality, self-regulation, and adaptability, gradually acquiring autonomy over the defensive model and shaping an alternative image of the immune system. While most contemporary critical studies of immunology focus on the militarism of immunological language and imagination, the author proposes to consider as a research problem not so much the dominance of a particular image of the immune body, but rather the coexistence of “two bodies” in immunology as such: on the one hand, the body as a closed, militarized system, strictly demarcated from a hostile environment; on the other, an open, flexible, adaptive body with mobile and permeable boundaries. This formulation of the problem allows for a slightly different perspective on the problematization of the historicity of the immune body: it is not only a body marked by the experience of fundamental biological vulnerability to infectious diseases and therefore dependent on biomedical interventions and corresponding biopolitical strategies, but also a body embedded in the economic and cultural regime of late capitalism, a “flexible body” whose interaction with its environment is mediated by the imperatives of plasticity that it must incorporate.
This article examines the evolution of the concept of rationality in social theory – from the classical distinctions of Weber and Durkheim to contemporary versions found in symbolic interactionism, phenomenological sociology, Habermas’s theory of communicative action, and Bourdieu’s structural constructivism. It is shown that the formation of two competing strands – general-communicative (lifeworld) rationality and systemic-particular (instrumental) rationality – is connected with the question of how social knowledge is possible under conditions of functional differentiation in society. The author introduces the concept of superposition in sociological observation, within which the sociologist is compelled to combine the perspective of the “internal” participant with that of the external observer. The thesis is advanced that social epistemology serves as a resource for bridging both forms of rationality, and that reflexivity – institutionalized within this discipline – enables science to distance itself from its own social embeddedness. In conclusion, the article considers the particular significance of Jurgen Habermas’s ideas for the author’s proposed resolution to the problem of the fragmentation of rationalities.
In the article “Knowledge in the Digital Age: The Redundancy of Romanticism”, a critical analysis is offered of Konstantin Ocheretyany’s argumentation as presented in his essay “Epistemic Nihilism and Existential Romanticism: Knowledge in the Digital Age”. Two scenarios proposed by the author – techno-pessimistic and techno-optimistic – are examined, and it is shown that the conclusion regarding the transformation of the status of knowledge under the influence of artificial intelligence remains insufficiently substantiated. Special attention is paid to critiquing the thesis that cognitive delegation to AI destroys the “epistemic contract” between man and the world and leads to a loss of the value of experience. An analysis of the “romantic” alternative reveals its reliance on an implicit assumption: that the epistemological value of knowledge depends on its unique human realizability. By drawing a distinction between epistemological and existential value, the article demonstrates that the loss of a monopoly over certain cognitive functions does not entail a devaluation of propositional knowledge nor necessitate a revision of its normative status. In the concluding section, an alternative model for the development of the epistemological environment in the context of AI’s expanding capabilities is proposed. It is emphasized that the transformation of the digital space is accompanied by an institutional response – the formation of new mechanisms of regulation and filtration. Artificial intelligence is considered as a factor in the reorganization of the infrastructure of access to knowledge, but not as a basis for revising the value of knowledge. In this context, epistemological romanticism appears either as an unlikely program for the future or as a redundant normative project.
When a person stops asking questions and simply requests an answer, they delegate the very structure of thinking. Instead of formulating hypotheses, testing them, confronting uncertainty, and arriving at conclusions through effort, they receive a ready-made and confident verdict, which leads to an epistemic crisis and a loss of epistemic agency. This article serves as both a complement to and a critique of certain positions in Konstantin Ocheretyany’s article. In his essay “Epistemic Nihilism and Existential Romanticism: Knowledge in the Digital Age”, Ocheretyany paints a picture of a total crisis of knowledge and meaning, in which the digital not only strips away knowledge but plunges the lifeworld into a “black box”. The problem Ocheretyany identifies is precise: man loses a common epistemic platform, faces model collapse, and experiences a devaluation of experience. However, the way he proposes to return to “existential romanticism” – relying on the “incomputable remainder” of presence, metaphor, and “epistemic terrorism” – raises questions. To what extent is this return a way out rather than a capitulation? Do metaphors and “poetics of inactivity” not become a dangerous game on a field already seized by machines? This article, while sharing Ocheretyany’s concerns, proposes a different path for overcoming the epistemic crisis. The solution lies not in rejecting computation in favor of experience, but in changing the paradigm of interaction – in transitioning from a “query-response” model to a dialogue, in which AI remains a tool that provokes thought rather than replacing it. Within this new model, AI is used not so much to obtain ready-made solutions, but as an instrument that deepens one’s own understanding and activates thinking. To understand the process of the loss of knowledge, three mechanisms are identified: the distortion of perception, the substitution of moral judgment, and the prescription of actions. Moreover, the reasons for human trust in machine-generated text are revealed.
This article addresses the normative challenge to panpsychism. This challenge stems from the need to reconcile panpsychism with both sentientism and the normative asymmetry between living and nonliving entities. Two unsuccessful strategies for addressing this challenge are considered. First, one might argue that the moral implications of panpsychism are not so significant as to have any impact on our actual practice. However, panpsychism presupposes a more inclusive approach to animal consciousness and potentially leads to the notion that our nervous system includes multiple auxiliary subjects. Second, counterexamples to sentientism can be proposed. However, such counterexamples have not yet been proposed. A more successful approach to resolving the normative challenge is panqualityism, according to which fundamental properties are unrealized qualia, or “mental qualities”. Panqualityism faces the Q-zombie objection, which stems from the conceivability of beings that have mental qualities and cognitive access to them but lack a distinct sense of self. Panqualityism can resolve this problem by denying the existence of a distinct sense of self, but this potentially undermines the idea of separateness of persons. Since this idea underlies the imposition of strict deontic constraints on our actions, it still implies counterintuitive moral consequences. Panqualitiysts have three ways to respond to this problem: embrace consequentialism, embrace agent-neutral deontology, or reject the very division of moral theories into agent-neutral and agent-relative.
This response article to A.Yu. Antonovsky and T.D. Sokolova’s work, “Types of Nature and Communicative Dimensions of Disciplinary Differentiation”, challenges the foundational assumption of their article that it is possible to analyze science as a “whole” entity, which can then be divided into separate disciplines based on communicative criteria. The response argues that science cannot be neatly “cut into parts” and instead proposes an alternative concept that prioritizes the autonomy of individual disciplines before attempting to delineate boundaries between science and non-science. While the communicative methodology introduced in the original article is acknowledged as useful for analyzing individual disciplines, it is deemed less effective for defining boundaries between them. The response outlines several key approaches: understanding the object of research through the fundamental principles of a discipline and hypothesizing about the specific role of the subject matter in shaping the scope of the discipline. It is argued that the boundaries of a discipline are primarily determined by the underlying attitudes, theories, and methodologies that define its research object and establish criteria for truth within that field. These elements are accessible primarily to researchers within the discipline itself. In this context, the response emphasizes the importance of granting scientists themselves a central role in defining the boundaries of their discipline. By exercising their right to self-determination, researchers can actively shape and delineate the contours of their field.
