Teaching applied social epistemology in a critical thinking course - by Carolina Flores (Rutgers)

Caught in a Bad Epistemic World: Teaching applied social epistemology in a critical thinking course

Carolina Flores (Rutgers University)

The traditional critical thinking course couples an introduction to logic and inductive reasoning with telling students how to detect a litany of fallacies. In my view, we can do much better by our students. Students in critical thinking classes are mostly not philosophy majors, and they are likely in your class because it fulfills some university-wide requirement. The best a critical thinking class can do for them is help them develop applicable skills to reason better about the world outside the classroom. Being able to detect fake news, or explain to their relatives how to do so, for example, is much more useful for that purpose than knowing truth tables for logical connectives.

More generally, we should make space to discuss questions such as: who should we trust and why? What news sources should we read? When and why should we question science and medicine? How should we engage with people we deeply disagree with? How can we make sure that we are not caught up in epistemic bubbles or echo chambers?  These are questions in applied social epistemology, a discipline concerned with the social dimensions of knowledge in real-world cases.

If you need more persuading that you should add material on applied social epistemology to your critical thinking course, here are five reasons to do so:

1. It is directly applicable material. Your students will have constant opportunities to return to this material. It is relevant every time you open social media, find yourself in a political disagreement, or check the news. This both makes it more useful for students and more likely that they will learn, given constant opportunities for reinforcement (especially if your class explicitly articulates such applications).
2. It brings up heavy-weight philosophical questions in a friendly guise. Questions about whether we should trust specific pundits or news sources and why, how we can know we are not in an echo chamber, why it is generally good to trust science though scientific findings despite bad science, and so on, are common-sensical questions that students might have thought of themselves, or which are easy to motivate. But they also get you close to traditional philosophical questions about the nature and value of trust, Cartesian skepticism, the nature of reasonable doubt, and so on. This means that this is a great way to get students to actually do philosophy in your class, applying the logic and argumentation skills a critical thinking class should help them develop and maybe motivating them to take more philosophy courses. (see Thi Nguyen’s twitter thread for more on this)
3. Students like this material and engage in the classroom. Because the material is applicable, it is easy for students to bring up their own examples. These examples are often funny or entertaining, which helps with classroom engagement. In turn, this makes this material fun to teach, and it helps you connect with students and get to know them better. It’s a win for you and a win for the students.
4. It provides opportunities to recap and apply classic critical thinking skills. Addressing questions in social epistemology requires careful argumentative reasoning, providing students with opportunities to practice their deductive argumentation skills. Considering problems with conspiracy theories, vaccine skepticism, and bad science requires students to return to material on inductive reasoning to detect what the problems with these kinds of reasoning are. If, earlier in the semester, you explicitly covered this material, this gives you a chance to reinforce that learning and show students why it matters.
5. Teaching applied social epistemology might make the world a little better. Here is a small dose of idealism. Imagine your students leaving the class with a good (or, at least, much improved) understanding of what a good news diet looks like, of how to detect fake news, of why conspiracy theories and science skepticism are dubious, of why they should make efforts to trust members of marginalized groups more than they naturally might, and so on. This is a win well beyond the classroom. It will make them more likely to form and maintain good beliefs and good epistemic habits. It will also give them tools to engage, and maybe even persuade, family members and friends who have fallen prey to some of these vices. In sum, helping students in this domain can make some difference to halting the spread of bad epistemology, which tends to seriously compromise democratic deliberation.

How to teach applied social epistemology in a critical thinking course

There are many topics one could teach in an applied social epistemology unit. In my course, I focused on the following: testimonial injustice; epistemic bubbles and echo chambers; medical skepticism; news consumption (with a focus on fake news and partisanship); and conspiracy theories. Links to all the materials I used are in this folder. You should feel free to adapt and/or use any of these in your own classes (and I would be delighted to hear from you if you do so!).

There are many other relevant online resources on topics in applied social epistemology. For example, you might want to check out the Calling Bullshit online syllabus and other resources linked there; the News Literacy Project and their ‘The Sift’ newsletter;  articles published in Aeon; and the always excellent discussions in the Teaching Philosophy Facebook group.

Here is some more detail on my social epistemology unit. It was the last unit in my course, coming after units on (1) basic deductive reasoning, (2) basic inductive and probabilistic reasoning, and (3) an introduction to the psychology of reasoning. You can see the syllabus here.

This course structure worked well. First, material in applied social epistemology provides opportunities to apply material from all these units. Second, students ended the course on a high note, with material that was somewhat more technical or abstract frontloaded to the beginning of the semester, when students are still more energized.

My classes focused on active learning. All of them included at least one group activity (in breakout rooms on Zoom, though these would also work in person) with prompts with some connection to the real world. For example, students had to identify instances of testimonial injustice one might encounter at a university, and think of policies to address them; devise their own conspiracy theory (courtesy of Kyle Ruh, whose session on ‘Teaching Conspiracy Theories at the ‘Teaching the Philosophy of Persuasion’ workshop I learned a lot from); reflect upon their news consumption with the help of online tools on news bias and partisanship; or come up with principles for deciding which experts to trust. You can see a list of these activities here.

Instead of lecturing, I focused on having students collectively address key questions for the class before I went over standard points. For example, instead of just defining epistemic bubbles and echo chambers, we started by discussing what students already knew about these topics, or examples they could come up with; and then students had to suggest what might be problems with such epistemic structures. Usually, students come up with many of the central points in the literature in class discussion, and with fairly sophisticated principles and ideas (e.g. the idea that whether someone is responsive to criticism and adjusts their views matters to their trustworthiness). All that is left for the instructor to do is organize and summarize these. You can see the Powerpoint presentations I used to structure classes here.

Finally, the assignment structure prioritized formative assessment and practice over evaluation. It focused on short weekly homework assignments, where students had autonomy over which ones they wanted to complete (they had to complete 10 out of 14). These were supplemented by a longer final assignment with a similar structure, in which students had to examine and debunk a conspiracy theory (courtesy of Eli Shupe; you can see details here, with some bonus material on writing).

The short assignments did not take the form of writing a short philosophy essay. Instead, they included reflecting on real world experiences (e.g. of trying to persuade your relatives to stop believing fake news), writing op-eds with attempts at persuasion, and writing lists of epistemic principles (e.g. a policy for one’s own news diet). You can read a list of the assignments I used here.

Students were very enthusiastic about these short writing assignments, finding them much more accessible than writing a long paper. From my perspective as an instructor, I saw these assignments as an opportunity to scaffold students’ writing skills and confidence, to ensure regular and memorable engagement with the course material, and to encourage students to see the applicability of the skills they were developing.

The main take-away is this: consider teaching an applied social epistemology unit in your lower-division critical thinking courses! It is a good service to our students and community, and it makes for a fun, engaging teaching experience. And feel free to use any of the materials I used, which are here.

Comments

[Dan Weiskopf]

This all looks terrific. In my Intro class I've been doing something similar. The course starts with a thematic trilogy of modules on scientific epistemology, trust, and technology. The first of these is on pseudoscience and citizens' trust in scientific expertise. The primary example of the latter is climate science and climate change denialism, although I also touch on vaccine skepticism. That's followed by a module on echo chambers, lies and bullshit, and conspiracy theories. To round it out there's a final module on political technology, surveillance, and panopticism. In the future I'll definitely adopt some of the readings and assignments suggested here. Thanks much for sharing.

[Guy]

I really appreciate access to all these materials; they seem super useful, and I'm eager to dig in.

I'm wondering, though, about student reactions to some of the material. For example, suppose a student is a chronic gaslighter. Does that student read the material about, say, testimonial injustice and think "Well, that's just plain wrong; there's no such thing. Yet my professor is forcing me to believe in it"? Or suppose a student has a deep commitment to some conspiracy theory. Do they just remain obstinate during that unit or engage in dissonance reduction? ("Well, sure the flat earth stuff is crazy; but I just know in my heart the QAnon stuff is real and just isn't like these other conspiracy theories.") Is this student really able to complete the assignments for the conspiracy theory section with good grades? I suppose I'm wondering (1) if some of these assignments require a certain level of self-awareness that some students just won't attain or (2) if some of these assignment grades actually require students to forego some of their beliefs in a way that some students just aren't going to do.

The reason I mention it is because if such cases occur, from that student's perspective, the reason I failed them on a short writing assignment is because they refused to agree with their professor about the authenticity of the moon landing or whether their girlfriend really was being too sensitive on one occasion. In other words, the grades will seem to that student based on creed-like professions rather than on proficiency in any learned skill. Would that do more long-term harm for that student's education? I ask for your thoughts out of genuine pedagogical concern; where possible, I like to design assignments where even that student has an "out"--a way to do the assignments well grade-wise without experiencing what they take to be some unacceptable compromise.

[Nathan M Nobis]

Something very much related here:

"Critical Thinking: What is it to be a Critical Thinker?" by Carolina Flores.

At 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology:

https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2021/09/28/critical-thinking/