What to Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues

What to Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues

What can we know and what should we believe about today's world? 

What to Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues applies the concerns and techniques of epistemology to a wide variety of contemporary issues.

Questions about what we can know – and what we should believe – are first addressed through an explicit consideration of the practicalities of working these issues out at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Coady calls for an 'applied turn' in epistemology, a process he likens to the applied turn that transformed the study of ethics in the early 1970s. Subjects dealt with include: 

• Experts – how can we recognize them? And when should we trust them?
• Rumors – should they ever be believed? And can they, in fact, be a source of knowledge?
• Conspiracy theories – when, if ever, should they be believed, and can they be known to be true?
• The blogosphere – how does it compare with traditional media as a source of knowledge and justified belief?
• Wikipedia – how does it compare with traditional encyclopedias as a source of knowledge and justified belief? 

Timely, thought provoking, and controversial, What to Believe Now offers a wealth of insights into a branch of philosophy of growing importance – and increasing relevance – in the twenty-first century.