The Communicative Dimensions of Social Epistemologies
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| Title: | The Communicative Dimensions of Social Epistemologies |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Nicholas C. Burbules (ORCID |
| Source: | Educational Theory. 2025 75(2):192-207. |
| Availability: | Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 16 |
| Publication Date: | 2025 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Evaluative |
| Descriptors: | Epistemology, Beliefs, Social Attitudes, Communication (Thought Transfer), Evidence, Perspective Taking, Persuasive Discourse, Communities of Practice, Learning Processes |
| DOI: | 10.1111/edth.70005 |
| ISSN: | 0013-2004 1741-5446 |
| Abstract: | Like other papers in this symposium, this essay approaches the question of responsible belief through the lens of social epistemology: what are the processes by which knowledge claims, evidence, perspectives, and arguments get shared within knowledge-making communities? In this paper, Nicholas Burbules argues that these processes are essentially communicative, and that we need to examine the conditions that make such communication knowledge-productive. Among these conditions are the enactment of "communicative virtues": skills, attitudes, habits, and dispositions that are more likely to support responsible dialogue and deliberation about knowledge claims. In this argument, each of these communicative virtues is actually a cluster of interrelated qualities, not a laundry list of discrete items. Burbules explores how these virtues are learned and enacted in practice, not things that people "have" or possess. Finally, he discusses a number of potential candidates for consideration as communicative virtues. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2025 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1465921 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwFxCdXhE3sACZSblIhCkDNxAAAA4zCB4AYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHSMIHPAgEAMIHJBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDMiMFGNriW3NgJaVfwIBEICBmw6nLbK8R4w09qMM4yk9uJAKGoQStFxMSzGFbo2JpIXsz3Gr4dUeibYKwqEir14D8Gc3cdeu4Kpt2h7OnCDr9DZkcnRNNkOBQ-3o_Kf_Ih2yuvmtPM-D5yN71swFQNYK_ffSccdKvAPy-i-pDpiL3i49ZWQ5G6jIRPpv92I1hdmAVivAhmMn7rDzZafQQCl4imQ00D207vn_gfms Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0184274062;ety01apr.25;2025Apr08.06:10;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0184274062-1">The Communicative Dimensions of Social Epistemologies </title> <p>Like other papers in this symposium, this essay approaches the question of responsible belief through the lens of social epistemology: what are the processes by which knowledge claims, evidence, perspectives, and arguments get shared within knowledge‐making communities? In this paper, Nicholas Burbules argues that these processes are essentially communicative, and that we need to examine the conditions that make such communication knowledge‐productive. Among these conditions are the enactment of communicative virtues: skills, attitudes, habits, and dispositions that are more likely to support responsible dialogue and deliberation about knowledge claims. In this argument, each of these communicative virtues is actually a cluster of interrelated qualities, not a laundry list of discrete items. Burbules explores how these virtues are learned and enacted in practice, not things that people "have" or possess. Finally, he discusses a number of potential candidates for consideration as communicative virtues.</p> <p>Keywords: social epistemology; communicative virtues; listening; speaking; being reasonable</p> <p>In an earlier version of this paper, I tried to distinguish positive and productive epistemic communities, like universities, from flawed and deceptive ones, like online conspiracy networks. The idea was that the first are characterized, by and large, by practices of collaboration, knowledge sharing, encouragement of new ideas, and collegial cross‐checking and testing of knowledge claims; the latter are characterized, by and large, by insularity, "echo chambers" of inbred ideas, resistance to countervailing evidence, and a sense of clannishness and superiority toward those not "in the know." Now I think it is better to see these as coexisting trends within <emph>any</emph> epistemic community, in different degrees and in tension with one another.</p> <p>Social epistemology is generally concerned with the first kinds of activities: how groups, as opposed to sole individuals, co‐construct knowledge and negotiate their understandings with one another — a shift in focus from the Cartesian <emph>I know</emph> to the collective <emph>we know</emph>. But insofar as social epistemologies are <emph>social</emph>, they ought to be seen, like any other social grouping, with the full range of good and bad interactions that arise when human beings get together. In this sense, social epistemology has a favorable side and a dark side. Even relatively positive epistemic communities, like universities, partake in the habits and prejudices of more insular epistemic communities; we are not protected from group‐think, from smugly reinforcing one another's prejudices, and from a sense of clannishness and superiority toward outsiders. At the same time, even problematic epistemic communities, like online conspiracy networks, do sometimes conduct themselves according to the standards of responsible belief: they share information, seek out evidence, strive to strengthen their arguments — indeed, by their own lights, <emph>they</emph> are the true critical thinkers, and it is the rest of us who fail to see the patterns, who are dupes. (And sometimes, to be fair, there <emph>really is</emph> a conspiracy.) I do not mean to treat these different kinds of epistemic community as equivalent, but I think we will not understand how social epistemologies work, and where they can go awry, if we do not have greater modesty and skepticism toward "ours" and a degree of generosity and curiosity toward "theirs." As we worry about growing trends toward belief in "alternative facts" and other symptoms of epistemic tribalism, and how to counteract them through education, we must consider how and why they have the appeal that they do.</p> <p>One way to analyze these features of different kinds of epistemic community is to think of them in terms of different communicative practices. Communication is at the heart of the social processes by which knowledge claims are created, shared, and negotiated within epistemic communities. Communication is an imperfect human practice that we learn, enact, and work to improve in our relations with one another. It takes place under social conditions that encourage or discourage better and more productive, or more constrained and distorted, forms of communication. This then leads to my central question here: How do we cultivate the conditions of better communication, in educational contexts and elsewhere? What does "better" mean, given the diversity of language games, and given that "communicating the truth" is only one of many of them? The standard model of communication, as a process of sending and receiving information, is utterly inadequate to understanding communication as a social, interpersonal, and moral <emph>relation</emph>.</p> <hd id="AN0184274062-2">How We Learn and Enact Communicative Virtues</hd> <p>In this paper, I want to explore what I call <emph>communicative virtues</emph>. This starts with a certain view of virtues that, while drawn from Aristotle, is not exactly Aristotelian.[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref1">1</reflink>] It is not a perfectionist model — we sometimes think that if people come to acquire the proper virtues, they will act rightly in all situations: that if we were all more honest, more civil, or more open‐minded, we could more effectively pursue truth and understanding. This perfectionist model assumes too much: there is not just one way of enacting virtues under different circumstances — <emph>what it means</emph> to be honest, civil, or open‐minded partly depends on those circumstances. <emph>Phronesis</emph>, or practical judgment, and context‐sensitive adaptability are crucial. People do not just have or possess virtues — we learn to enact them and we work to improve at them. Sometimes we make mistakes; virtues are not a guarantee of rightness. Through our social interactions (including our communicative interactions) we learn, practice, and seek to improve at these virtues — and our partners have a crucial effect on us in this learning process, for better or for worse.</p> <p>Virtues operate in clusters, and to understand and learn them, we should view them as <emph>clusters</emph>. (And sometimes as <emph>clusters of clusters</emph>.) The "laundry list" approach to citing the virtues as discrete traits of character (honesty, courage, friendship, etc.) is overly neat and simple. Virtues interrelate with one another in complex ways: to tell the truth under difficult or dangerous circumstances — is that honesty or courage, or both? Virtues can also conflict with, or be in tension with, one another. A close friend asks me what I think about their horrible new haircut. Is it the friendly thing to do to shade the truth in order to avoid hurting their feelings? Or does an honest friend tell the uncomfortable truth? How will <emph>this</emph> friend receive such comments, as opposed to another friend with, perhaps, thicker skin? Here again, <emph>phronesis</emph> plays a key role in the balancing and weighing of different virtue considerations in any concrete circumstance.</p> <p>In what will follow, this clustered view of virtues leads to a certain complexity: since they are related to each other, exploring these clusters, and clusters of clusters, means that as we start with one virtue, we end up talking about others. Wherever we start, we find ourselves returning again to a familiar virtue in a new context; questions of priority get blurry; simple distinctions or classifications (or lists) do not capture these interdependencies. At the end of this paper, when I discuss educational issues, this complexity poses certain challenges — and certain opportunities.</p> <p>Because virtues are learned, we can also get better at exercising and practicing them. Every new instance in which we make judgments about what to do is another potential lesson in improving at them. While we often say that people have or possess virtues, I think it is better to say that virtues are <emph>doings</emph>: we learn them; we learn to exercise them; we navigate the complexities of what it means to enact them in specific circumstances; we make mistakes that we try to correct and learn from — all through interactions with others. We learn virtues from and within these social interactions, and we seek to get better at them. So, for example, we learn to be good listeners, in large part, by how others have listened to us. It is easier to be a good listener with certain people, given how they express themselves; and it is harder to be a good listener when trying to listen to some others. Some things may be very difficult to listen to. In certain cases, specific people might say specific kinds of hurtful or hateful things that one has no obligation to listen to at all. The exercise of virtues always takes place in a social context.</p> <p>The communicative virtues fall into three clusters (although there are connections even between these): (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref2">1</reflink>) a cluster of virtues related to <emph>listening</emph>, or receptivity; (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref3">2</reflink>) a cluster of virtues related to <emph>speaking</emph>, or how we express ourselves; and (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref4">3</reflink>) a cluster of virtues related to thinking and reflection that mediate between what we hear and what we say, which together I call <emph>being reasonable</emph>. When I say that these three clusters are themselves connected, for example: we think of listening as remaining silent and focusing on hearing what another is saying — but a key part of good listening is asking clear and timely questions that can help us make sense of what we are hearing and even, in some cases, help the other person better understand and express what it is they are trying to say. We sometimes paraphrase what another has said in order to be sure we have understood them. Listening is an active, and not only a passively receptive process. We listen not only with our ears, but with our gestures, our facial expressions, our body language, our encouragement, and sometimes our questions.</p> <p>The communicative virtues span the typical distinction between moral and intellectual virtues: because they pertain to fundamental ways in which we interact with other people, they are inseparably moral. Our practices of speaking with and listening to one another manifest virtues such as respect, consideration, empathy, patience, and care. At the same time, they manifest intellectual virtues such as honesty, open‐mindedness, a willingness to admit that we may be mistaken, as well as a willingness to change our minds. It is not only that communication encompasses both moral and intellectual dimensions; it is that these too are "clustered" and inseparable at the level of practice. We hear out someone who disagrees with us not only out of an intellectual curiosity or willingness to consider counterarguments, but as an expression of interpersonal respect and decency — this is the kind of person we want to be, and the kind of person they <emph>help</emph> us to become. The epistemological dimension of intellectual virtues such as open‐mindedness or fallibilism may sometimes be foregrounded in understanding and justifying them; but the moral dimension is not only inseparable, it is in many cases the stronger incentive for people to adopt them. I will return to this issue in the final section.</p> <p>This, then, is the heart of my project here: to translate fairly familiar epistemic norms and values into specific, enacted, communicative interactions, learned and practiced as personal virtues, and not only as abstract principles. Because they entail contextual sensitivities and judgments, there are phronetic dimensions to deciding how much or too little of a good thing is appropriate in communicating with <emph>this</emph> person (or persons), about <emph>this</emph> subject matter, under <emph>these</emph> circumstances. Because they operate as clusters, more than one virtue consideration weighs upon these choices, and here too balancing and judgment play a key role. There is rarely only one right way to enact a virtue, and different people, given who they are and the specific circumstances they face, may enact the same virtue through different kinds of choices and behaviors. While in a broad sense we expect virtuous people to act with some kind of consistency — we call a person a good listener because we see them doing it often and with different people discussing different topics — the social and contextual nature of enacting virtues entails that sometimes, for example, even a good listener will say, "I won't, or can't, listen to that." Virtues are a kind of habit, but they are not automated systems that kick in; they take work, and effort, and commitment. Their enactment requires phronetic judgments that are sensitive to context, identity, and the nature of our different social relations. <emph>Phronesis</emph> itself is a complex virtue — some call it a "meta‐virtue" because it shapes how we enact other virtues — which I have written about elsewhere, and which also needs to be learned, practiced, and improved.[<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref5">2</reflink>]</p> <hd id="AN0184274062-3">Communicative Virtues as Clusters</hd> <p>In the remainder of this paper, I will explore some of the communicative virtues that seem especially important in educational contexts, and give a flavor of what it means to reformulate them in the way I am describing here. These interrelate around the three overall communicative virtue clusters, <emph>listening</emph>, <emph>speaking</emph>, and <emph>being reasonable</emph> — and those three clusters also interrelate and interact with each other. As we have seen, listening is more than just receptivity or having good hearing: it is an active effort to reach toward and understand someone. (I include here also the practice of reading — books, letters, or messages — as closely akin to listening.) Listening to someone, <emph>really</emph> listening, is a way of respecting and valuing them, and they feel that, too — there is something deeply satisfying and gratifying about someone making the effort to listen to us.</p> <p>The virtue of empathy can play a part in motivating good, careful listening; but it is equally true that listening sometimes can have the effect of making us more empathetic. The same might be said of respect, or other similar virtues. In this clustered view, sharp distinctions are not always possible and the "which comes first" question is sometimes pointless — by exercising and improving at some virtues, we also come to improve at others. While in some circumstances it will be fairly clear what it means to be a good listener, and how to enact it, in other circumstances there may be a number of considerations to take into account that weigh against one another, and the process of enactment might be extremely complex and indeterminate; here again <emph>phronesis</emph> plays a key role. We do not listen to everyone, or everything others might say, in the same way or with the same focus and commitment; when to listen and when to speak — to ask a question, to ask for clarification or more detail, to offer a response — is never entirely straightforward. When can we stop listening, or pretend to listen, or listen with, as we say, "half an ear"?[<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref6">3</reflink>] There is no single right way to enact this virtue.</p> <p>Speaking is a similarly complex cluster virtue. Here, I will focus on truthfulness, or honesty, and avoiding group‐think, as constitutive examples; but other communicative virtues also play a role. The overarching consideration is to take responsibility for what we say and to be willing to speak out even when it means going against a group consensus. As I said earlier, speaking even has a relation to listening in the sense that asking questions, follow‐ups, or probing responses ("Let me be sure I have understood you; are you saying ...?") are a key part of active listening. Thinking about speaking socially and relationally includes asking, What will be the effects of my saying this, in this context, to this person or these people? Too often we focus on the truth value of speech; but we know that there are different kinds of speech acts, or language games — and providing truthful information is not always the point. Just for example, Iris Young emphasizes the importance of "activist speech," where protestors or others are railing <emph>at</emph>, or <emph>against</emph>, a political adversary.[<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref7">4</reflink>] This is not deliberative speech, and communication with the target is not the primary goal (often the real audience for these comments are some third parties who witness it). Slogans, chants, criticisms, or calls for action are all fair game — even though in other deliberative or communicative contexts these might be viewed as incomplete, unfair, or even, strictly speaking, not entirely true. When might activist speech be virtuous, and when might it not be? How should circumstances, intent, and the specific targets of such speech influence our judgments about its appropriateness?</p> <p>The third cluster I call <emph>being reasonable</emph>: a set of virtues related to how we move from what we hear to what we say; how we evaluate new ideas or information and integrate them into our own beliefs and assertions. Being reasonable is not the same as <emph>rationality</emph>, although it certainly includes critically weighing reasons and evidence for what we believe and say.[<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref8">5</reflink>] Rationality, in thought or action, is primarily oriented toward seeking the best or right deliberative outcome: truth or efficacy, respectively. Being reasonable is not opposed to rationality. But a reasonable person is also asking questions about the limits, or appropriateness, of a purely rational response under certain circumstances. It can be unreasonable to be overly rational, at times; logic is appropriate for thinking through certain kinds of questions, but not others. A reasonable person has a generally fallibilistic attitude: they are willing to question and to be questioned; they have a tolerance for ambiguity and recognize that it is sometimes important to withhold judgment; they are careful and prudent about making broad, unconditional assertions; they are critically minded, not only toward others but also self‐critical and questioning about their own prejudices and blind spots. It includes the willingness, often called open‐mindedness (which also closely relates to the virtue of listening), to be fair‐minded, to consider and hear out other points of view or knowledge claims, and, under some circumstances, to actually change one's mind — or if not to change one's mind, at least to try to understand better why others have arrived at a different view. Being reasonable, like the others, is a social virtue: we enact it in our communicative interactions with people, and so we find that we can be more reasonable within some interactions, with some people, than with others.</p> <p>I treat these three communicative virtues (listening, speaking, and being reasonable) as clusters: they are each composed of a set of interrelated, more specific virtues, and these three themselves also interrelate. They do not fall into simple or discrete categories: aspects of listening, such as being willing to hear out other points of view, are also essential aspects of fallibilism, which is part of being reasonable; but fallibilism is not just a matter of considering, in one's own mind, that one might be mistaken, in certain contexts it entails also admitting so to others — which is an aspect of plain speaking or truthfulness; and so on. In the remainder of this paper, I want to explore further some of these specific virtues, and how they relate to each other. This is not a comprehensive list — it is not a <emph>list</emph> at all — but is meant to illustrate a way of thinking about virtues that bridges intellectual and moral considerations by formulating them in explicitly social and communicative ways.</p> <hd id="AN0184274062-4">Fallibilism</hd> <p> <emph>Fallibilism</emph> is normally described as an epistemic principle that all of our beliefs should be tested against relevant evidence and argument, and that only beliefs thus tested merit the status of knowledge. This knowledge is never absolutely certain, however, because beliefs are always subject to unexpected new evidence, or new arguments; even longstanding truths are in this sense still provisional. Fallibilism is a kind of postpositivistic compromise between a quest for certainty and relativism: not all views are equally valid or equally supported by evidence, and we can make real comparisons and judgments between competing truth claims. At the same time, what communities of inquiry settle on as received truths are always open to further question. We never arrive at a place of certainty. Our progress is often marked, not by arriving at the truth, but in trying to recognize and move away from error. This epistemic attitude, however, also reflects a moral attitude: an acceptance of error, making mistakes, even outright failure, as an inevitable experience in life — difficult to accept, sometimes, but also an opportunity to grow. Why did this happen, and what can I learn from it?</p> <p>What does it mean to think of fallibilism as a communicative virtue; what does it mean to actually <emph>practice</emph> fallibilism? There is a gap between the abstract acceptance of the possibility that one might be wrong, and the actual willingness to acknowledge that one is wrong. The latter requires an attitude of humility and a sense of accountability to others; and it is not always an easy thing to do. Here again, fallibilism has a moral, as well as epistemic, dimension; it entails honest commentary and reflection on what it <emph>feels like</emph> to be mistaken, and to actually admit it to oneself, and to others. Fallibilism is a crucial dimension of what I call here <emph>being reasonable</emph>, but as I am describing it, it also has listening and speaking dimensions. When we choose to say to others that something is true, what if we are wrong? What responsibilities are we undertaking in making such claims? Fallibilism is a kind of relational accountability toward others, as well as a matter of personal intellectual integrity and self‐awareness.</p> <p>There are many ways that counterevidence can be discounted, discredited, or simply ignored, given sufficient motivation to protect longstanding beliefs that one might be reluctant to abandon — and, indeed, sometimes further testing or additional evidence shows that the apparent falsification was not as conclusive as it appeared. So there are times when a certain persistence in belief, despite apparent evidence otherwise, can be productive at least in the short term. At the same time, however, this can be a handy excuse for refusing to abandon positions even in the face of disconfirming evidence. Clever people can almost always find a way of deflecting counterevidence or counterarguments. Fallibilism, therefore, effectively requires more than just subscribing to an epistemic principle: it entails also an <emph>actual willingness</emph> to admit that one is wrong, an actual sense of responsibility to others to take their counterevidence and counterarguments seriously, and a good faith willingness to change or even sometimes abandon one's views, however difficult that might be.</p> <p>This relational and communicative framing also entails an analysis of the social conditions that encourage or discourage the enactment of this virtue. Others help us to be more fallibilistic by seriously engaging and questioning our views; it is not only an individual achievement. Conversely, being around other "true believers" can foster a sense of personal and collective superiority to those others who "just don't get it." All of us are susceptible sometimes to this sense of personal and collective superiority; it can play a central role in what I will later call "group‐think." When you are around other people who are disinclined to admit that they are wrong, it does not make it easier to do so yourself. There are powerful social disincentives to admitting that one is, or may be, mistaken; for many intellectuals, academics, or prominent cultural or political figures, the price of admitting that one is wrong is often not receiving praise for intellectual integrity, but a loss of status or authority. When your opponents in a particular argument or dispute are disinclined to accept the possibility that <emph>they</emph> could be wrong, you might be more reluctant to do so in their presence.</p> <p>Therefore, a key feature of creating educational contexts and communities involves working to create learning environments, and modeling one's self, that it is not only "okay," but a <emph>good thing</emph> to be willing to admit that you are wrong — indeed, one might argue that this is an essential condition for any context and community that would call itself "educational."</p> <hd id="AN0184274062-5">Questioning Group‐Think</hd> <p>This is another cluster virtue, related to being reasonable but also to the virtue of speaking out. There is something powerfully appealing in the sense of not only "<emph>I</emph> am right," but that "<emph>We</emph> are right." This is one of those potentially problematic dimensions of social epistemologies. As just discussed, one's personal sense of epistemic confidence is reinforced by the assurance that others around us believe the same things. This is normal and human, and it can have positive benefits. But often, collective beliefs and assumptions are so unquestioningly shared that they can become invisible <emph>as</emph> beliefs and assumptions — they are simply the way things are. It is only through concerted effort, or the intervention of questions or challenges from the outside, that these collective beliefs and assumptions can even be recognized as such, let alone opened up for examination and scrutiny.</p> <p>The social force in reinforcing these collective beliefs and assumptions and, in the converse, the effects of these collective beliefs and assumptions in strengthening a sense of social identity and solidarity, are very powerful. "Everybody knows that ..." is itself taken as a confirmatory argument. It is a marker of what is unquestioned, and what is unquestionable. Epistemic tribalism in this sense has the same features as other kinds of tribalism. "We believe ..." has a significant power over individual commitments.</p> <p>As I have just mentioned, it is often through encounters with others outside one's epistemic tribe that the invisible atmosphere of collective beliefs and assumptions in which one breathes can be pointed out; for others those beliefs and assumptions are not so obvious or self‐evident. To them, they may seem strange, clearly wrong, or even dangerous. Such encounters can be challenging, even threatening, but they are also an opportunity. In order for that opportunity to yield benefit, one needs to see such moments through not only an epistemic lens (an opportunity to test one's beliefs through a fallibilist challenge), but also a moral one: to see such encounters through the lens of respect and openness to points of view one knows will challenge one's own. Here, this virtue is closely tied to the virtue of open‐mindedness, which I will discuss later.</p> <p>Resisting group‐think can happen purely internally, through questions one asks oneself, and this kind of independence of mind is a virtue. But it is a related and separate enactment to express such concerns and questions openly within a group; to speak one's doubts. Of course, there are contexts (across the political spectrum) that actively discourage, even punish, expressing such concerns and questions. In such cases, saying something or posing certain questions can require something like courage, another "moral" virtue with important epistemic dimensions; in other cases it is simply pointless or counterproductive to even try, because no one is listening. Judgments about when, and how, and to whom, to express these concerns and questions are also phronetic determinations. Questioning such group beliefs or values can entail conflict with those with whom one shares a variety of valued social ties; and it can jeopardize personal relationships, even with friends and family, that are especially important to us. Facing up to that prospect can be highly discouraging. This challenge can be especially difficult for educators, who see our role as questioning orthodoxies and who may feel an obligation to pose certain concerns and questions as a way of fostering discussion and inquiry within the classroom.</p> <p>Other kinds of social context can encourage enacting the virtue of resisting group‐think through practices internal to the group. As a group works toward a consensual decision, they might welcome someone acting as a devil's advocate who vigorously questions any unexamined assumptions, any conventional wisdom, and any overhasty conclusions — doing all that they can to find flaws in the group's thinking. (Classrooms come to mind as one potential context.) Such a community of encouraging (and not just tolerating) such a pain‐in‐the‐neck requires a social and cultural context that views this kind of intervention as a desirable good, even when it is a nuisance; and it says something about the people willing to take on this critical role, and <emph>their</emph> persistence, ingenuity, and courage in going against the tide of what everyone else around them is saying. Here again, we see the interplay of moral qualities with epistemic processes.</p> <hd id="AN0184274062-6">Open‐Mindedness</hd> <p>Open‐mindedness is another cluster virtue, related on the one hand to listening, and on the other hand to reasonableness. One way to think about the virtue of open‐mindedness is in terms of a thin and a thick version: on the thinner view, one can be said to be "open‐minded" <emph>to the evidence</emph>, or open‐minded <emph>toward other people and their views</emph> (i.e., "the evidence" always has to come from somewhere). Here, open‐mindedness involves a <emph>willingness</emph> to consider other views, including those one knows differ from or are contrary to one's own; it is a willingness to <emph>hear others out</emph> and to evaluate their claims from a fallibilistic perspective (here open‐mindedness is also part of the virtue cluster of listening). Perhaps the others have a legitimate point. Perhaps one can learn from them. Perhaps one might change one's mind. And even if one does not change one's mind, one's original views can be strengthened by engaging counterarguments and so building up the evidence and arguments that support those views. This thin conception of open‐mindedness has moral content; it cultivates an attitude of tolerance, of respect for difference. It is closely related to the virtue of humility, as Rebecca Taylor points out,[<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref9">6</reflink>] and one might add to this other related virtues: generosity, curiosity, and patience, for example. Here again, a difficult and sometimes unproductive question is, "Which comes first?" Are we open‐minded <emph>because</emph> we have humility or curiosity, for example? When we think of these as related clusters, the influences run in both directions: humility can make us more open‐minded, but it is equally true that practicing open‐mindedness and hearing other people out might make us more humble about the certainty of our own beliefs. These virtues all have important social ramifications, over and above the significance of keeping an open mind and considering challenges to one's beliefs. Open‐mindedness in this sense is a key tenet of a liberal pluralist point of view.</p> <p>There is also a thicker conception of open‐mindedness, which can be harder to fulfill. This involves more than an openness to possibly disconfirming evidence or mere receptivity to contrary points of view; it means an active desire to seek them out; it means making an effort (at least from time to time) to explore the reasons and evidence that have drawn others to different conclusions from your own; it means working hard at trying to consider other points of view from the inside, as it were, in the most sympathetic terms possible ("Even though this seems strange to me, or even wrong, why might someone believe it?"). This thicker conception does not obligate one to accept or agree with those diverse or contrary points of view, but it goes beyond a liberal pluralist account of difference to a more active affirmation of difference and a greater commitment to going beyond mere tolerance to an obligation toward exploring and <emph>welcoming</emph> difference. One thing such engagements might produce is an awareness of the <emph>limits</emph> of one's ability to understand others, and the boundaries or presuppositions of one's own worldview.</p> <p>Here again, there is a strong social and moral strand to these thin and thick positions: they reflect two visions, differing to a degree, of how to manage a diverse society, how to address others not like us, how to promote empathy and sympathetic understanding, and how to overcome one's own stereotypes and blind spots. We try to be open‐minded, we work at it, because of a sense of obligation toward others, and because of a certain broader vision of society. At a time when the "echo chambers" of social media and other media relegate more and more people to a context of information and opinions that only reconfirm and reinforce what they already believe to be true, the virtue of open‐mindedness requires active personal advocacy and the preservation of those institutions dedicated to the representation of diverse views within an ethos of open and respectful debate. The long‐term survival of such institutions, including especially educational institutions, can no longer be taken for granted.</p> <p>This is also another case where broader social conditions affect whether and how the virtue of open‐mindedness will be exercised, and whether and how it can succeed. A general dynamic in society influences how people regard their differences, the practical opportunities to meet and interact with people very different from us, and the tone and spirit of these contacts — it is not only up to the desires and choices of the people involved. There are asymmetrical risks and burdens on various participants coming to these encounters; consequences for some of self‐revelation that are not the same as for others. The possibilities of trust and honesty in these situations arise out of a specific history of previous encounters — and these too can have asymmetrical consequences. Listening, a virtue essential to open‐mindedness, is itself not without risks and burdens that weigh upon some participants more than others.</p> <p>So, for example, open‐mindedness does not necessarily entail an obligation to consider and hear out <emph>every</emph> possible position (which would be impossible anyway); it is related to the virtues of fallibilism and criticality, not opposed to them. This raises the further question of how and when it is appropriate <emph>not</emph> to be open‐minded. Thinking relationally, for example, one might posit that one is less obligated to be open‐minded toward people and positions that are not themselves open‐minded. This is not only because of the relationality of how we learn and enact virtues, but because part of the reason for enacting virtues is out of a desire to build a society and culture in which they are more widely shared. Open‐mindedness in the sense of considering and weighing other views is harder when those views are not themselves susceptible to questioning (though we might still be open‐minded toward them from the standpoint of trying to <emph>understand</emph> why others hold those positions). We might wish that engaging others in the spirit of open‐mindedness would help stimulate a similar response in return; unfortunately that is not always so. At what point does this justify no longer making the effort?</p> <p>Part of the complexity here is the way that we sometimes talk about open‐mindedness and closed‐mindedness as if they were opposites. This partly derives from the open/closed metaphor itself, as with a door — it must be <emph>either</emph> one or the other. But if one thinks of these not as opposites, but as two ends of a continuum concerned with listening to and evaluating other views, then in practice we are always making phronetic judgments. Rejecting a view when you have good reasons for doing so is not being "closed‐minded"; nor does being open‐minded obligate you to listen to or consider every point of view. Critical assessment does not stand outside of the open/closed relationship; it is part of it. There are good and bad versions of open‐mindedness and closed‐mindedness, and you can go too far either way.[<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref10">7</reflink>]</p> <hd id="AN0184274062-7">(Self)disciplined Thinking</hd> <p>Another aspect of the cluster virtue of being reasonable is caring about the structure and form of reasoned thinking: the desire to "get it right" (or, at least, better) by respecting the processes of inquiry and following evidence to its conclusion. Precision, thoroughness, and carefulness in formulation, avoiding irrelevancies or casual opinions, are all related virtues in this context; but here again, these virtues have a moral, and for some even an aesthetic, component as well. Resisting the fast and easy answer, taking your time, and withholding premature judgment are moral virtues that speak to a certain kind of person, one for whom these same qualities are likely to show up in non‐epistemic contexts as well (for example, when they are cooking).</p> <p>The picture is not quite so simple, however, because careful, critical deliberation and taking time are not suited to all situations. Circumstances sometimes require "fast thinking" and not "slow thinking," and in those cases the very virtues of thoroughness and deliberateness can become counterproductive.[<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref11">8</reflink>] In cases where fast thinking is necessary, heuristics, approximations, informed guesses, and rules of thumb will often be more useful, rough and ready as they might be. Call this an attitude of "good enough" reasoning. This is not the full process of withholding judgment and action until all the facts are in, but it does reflect the use of experience‐based guidelines that are better than sheer guesswork and randomness. "Fast thinking" is not <emph>undisciplined</emph> thinking, but is in a sense a certain kind of (self)discipline — recognizing the particulars of a situation and acting accordingly. Here again, we see the need for phronetic judgments of what the circumstances and context can bear; these judgments are fallible and imperfect, but sometimes they are the best we have.</p> <p>The important thing, then, is learning to recognize the situations in which fast and slow thinking are, respectively, appropriate. The errors are to make fast judgments when care and deliberation are called for, or conversely, delaying or failing to decide out of a wish to take one's time when time is a luxury one does not have. The needs and priorities of other persons are often a key factor here; it is not always just up to us. As with other kinds of virtues, phronetic judgment often helps us recognize which virtues are appropriate to a specific situation.</p> <p>Social conditions beyond the specific situation can also affect the speed and pace of judgment, decision‐making, and action, and these can weigh on different people to differing degrees. Some people in some situations have the luxury of more time; others do not. Some can give a specific judgment or decision fuller attention; others must do the best they can and then move on. Other demands on people's time and attention vary by many dimensions of social class, gender roles and responsibilities, age, employment obligations, and many other factors — it is not just up their personal desires or preferences. When we second‐guess the bad or hasty decisions of others, we should keep such inequities in mind.</p> <hd id="AN0184274062-8">Truthfulness</hd> <p>By using the term <emph>truthfulness</emph>, I mean to indicate more than just a disposition toward truth‐telling. Truthfulness is itself a complex, interdependent virtue, part of the wider virtue cluster relation of how we speak. It starts with a certain respect for and aspiration toward believing and asserting what is true, but it is also a broader commitment to honesty and sincerity, including candor about one's motives and intentions, because in some situations even truth‐telling (or selective truth‐telling) can be deceptive. In many social contexts, "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" might not be an adequate guide for our responsibilities to others.</p> <p>It is therefore important to situate the epistemic value of "truth" within a social and communicative context. We make judgments about truth in the context of intersubjective dynamics around access to information, credible authority, and social processes of deliberation and decision‐making; the quality of those judgments depends only partly on what is in our heads and greatly upon the quality and trustworthiness of those intersubjective dynamics. At the same time, once we have arrived at what we think is a true belief, there is an additional undertaking to express it to others; openly asserting that we believe something to be true undertakes a responsibility to explain and justify it, if asked. But it also undertakes a responsibility for the <emph>effects</emph> of our saying something on others, especially (but not only) the young, who cannot yet fully make such judgments for themselves.</p> <p>Putting truth claims in this social and communicative context highlights the interpersonal responsibilities that accompany them, for understanding the influences others have had on us, and the influences we have on others. Even true statements can deceive or mislead; they can do damage to the self‐esteem or equanimity of others; they can bully or dominate; they can exacerbate social conflicts, biases, or stereotypes. In such cases, it is not enough of a defense to say, "Well, it's true!" It may be true, but other social and moral considerations also need to be taken into view: one does not just believe it, one has <emph>chosen to say it</emph>. This is where truthfulness in the wider sense of honesty and candor is important. It is always legitimate to be asked <emph>why</emph> you said something: motives, intent, one's awareness of the context, and the likely effects of what one is saying, are all subject to question. These are not entirely separable from the epistemic status of the claim itself, because these social and intersubjective processes are part of that claim. In this sense, the opposite of truthfulness is not lying; it is disingenuousness or intellectual dishonesty — playing the apparent truth‐game, but with other agendas at play. Lying is (usually) wrong, not only because it is uttering an untruth — one might do so through error or ignorance, for example — but because it is an act of intentional deception, with a particular purpose in mind. We need to identify and criticize that purpose, not just the lying.</p> <p>In fact, even a truthful person might, under dire circumstances, knowingly say something that is not true. In other cases, one might simply remain silent — withholding the truth. As with all of these virtues, one has to make a judgment — under <emph>these</emph> conditions, with this person or persons — is doing this or saying this going to be useful, constructive, and helpful? When might one say, this is <emph>too much</emph> truth for this situation?</p> <p>There are other virtues related to speaking, as there are multiple language games: as Wittgenstein realized, propositional truth‐telling is only one of them. ("Giving orders... Making up a story... Acting in a play... Cracking a joke... Translating from one language into another... Requesting, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying.")[<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref12">9</reflink>] Different virtues attach to different language games, and I cannot review all of that here, but in each of these cases, and others, there are moral as well as expressive obligations in terms of what and how one is communicating; there are different kinds of "honesty" and "dishonesty" that can be attached to each — and hence different kinds of "truthfulness" to which one aspires. Yet, clearly in these cases, "speaking facts" is not adequate to capture the range of purposes that might be in play.</p> <hd id="AN0184274062-9">Creating a Community of Responsible Belief</hd> <p>There are other communicative virtues, and virtue‐clusters, to consider; here, I am only trying to give a sense of how to see these working in relation to each other. It is a complicated model: not a list of discrete virtues to cultivate, but an interconnected web in which we cannot understand or characterize a virtue — and, significantly, learn to enact it — without seeing these interrelations, sometimes relations of tension, between these virtues and others. Wherever we start, we find ourselves returning again and again to related concerns: even the three macro communicative virtue‐clusters (listening, speaking, and being reasonable) have cross‐relations between them. And, central to my view, this interdependence extends also to how we see their intellectual, or epistemic, dimensions and their moral ones. All of this is crucial, in my view, for understanding how we can try to promote these educationally.</p> <p>There is a broader view of ethics underlying this project. It is not a perfectionist endeavor, where people who "have" virtues are thereby guided into always doing the right thing. Instead, this is a model emphasizing learning, making mistakes, and trying to improve. The clustered view means that there is almost always more than one virtue consideration at stake and that they do not always pull us in the same direction. Phronetic judgment means that we are constantly weighing competing considerations, often in conflict with one another. We are always looking for the "sweet spot" between doing too much and too little of a good thing, and rarely knowing for certain whether we have gotten the balance right. There are many circumstances in which we are trying to do the right thing, but are constrained by contexts that make doing so more difficult; or that make it more difficult to know whether we even <emph>are</emph> "doing the right thing"; or that make us doubt whether there is a clear and definite "right thing" to do. Often, we are simply doing the best we can.</p> <p>How can we make the classroom, the school, or the university a community of responsible belief, one to which learners will want to belong even more than the attractions of belonging to other communities that reject or undermine these virtues? This is a crucial issue for our time. It is clear to me that if educational institutions fail in this contest, there is not any alternative social force to rely upon. There are several conclusions that can be drawn from this discussion.</p> <p>First is creating the conditions of a positive and productive social epistemology, while being aware of the dangers of its "dark side." A community of responsible belief is a community that students feel part of and want to be part of. Here, the influences of peers, and the inherent pleasures of speaking with and listening to their peers, is a resource to our advantage. Pursuing this aim poses several challenges for educators, especially in a time when many other influences, such as the examples of popular political figures, what counts as "the news," and interactions on social media, all conspire to make this harder. How can we promote communicative contexts in which peer dynamics operate in line with and help to support the virtues described here (as opposed to working against them)? How can we consistently model those values ourselves? How do we weave these values into the subject matter, and our methods of teaching the subject matter, of our courses? How do we encourage a commitment to these same values <emph>outside</emph> the classroom setting, in extracurricular contexts, social contexts, and other contexts outside the school to which we do not have access?</p> <p>At the same time, social epistemologies have a dark side, of closed‐off discussions, of ignoring inconvenient truths, of echo chambers of mutually confirming prejudices. We need to recognize, and help students to recognize, the powerful motivations of identification and belonging that people can have within those communities: they can be closed, tribal, territorial and possessive, suspicious or contemptuous of others, and this can give their members a feeling of specialness and empowerment. We also must recognize that these threats and temptations exist even in otherwise relatively healthy epistemic communities. If we do not understand the social and psychological dynamics that underlie this intense sense of belonging, and our susceptibility to them, we cannot help young people resist them. Our challenge is to seek out equally powerful, yet more legitimate, ways of creating a sense of identification and belonging within the educational communities for which we are responsible.</p> <p>Second, we need to recognize the pedagogical implications of the complex, interdependent model of virtues discussed here. While there are certainly developmental considerations, and while we may need to start simple, the "virtue of the week" approach adopted by some advocates of character education does not represent a deep or mature understanding of what these virtues are, or how we learn to enact them. It is in recognizing and learning to deal with their interdependencies that we cultivate the phronetic capacity to balance and judge between them; this includes dealing with the tensions that can arise when we weigh different considerations that bear upon specific situations. Speaking positively, thinking of these virtue‐clusters as an interdependent web supports the idea that cultivating them is not training a set of discrete habits or dispositions, but initiating young people into a form of life — a culture and set of communicative practices — that is constitutive of our best aspirations.</p> <p>Finally, and following from this, virtues are not acquired or exercised through purely individual choices; they are constitutive of, and fostered by, communities that value them and reward them among their members. If we truly believe that these virtues are essential to a better epistemic and moral community, we must <emph>show</emph> that — and the benefits of that — in a way that will attract young people to these virtues. And a key part of making that case is to advocate for these virtues not only as desirable epistemic habits, but as inherently moral virtues, as well — since the quality of communicative and social relationships that they foster is essential to their appeal. Certainly, there are strong epistemic reasons attached to each of the virtues discussed here, and perhaps for some philosophers that should be enough to justify them. But most people do not think like philosophers, and I am suggesting here that in terms of persuading people, especially young people, of the importance of these communicative virtues, it may be the moral and interpersonal dimensions that are most appealing to them (think, for example, about the different kinds of arguments for open‐mindedness presented here). Both intellectual and moral justification are important, but pedagogically we may find that if we want more responsible believers, we sometimes may have to approach that epistemic goal "from the side," as it were.</p> <hd id="AN0184274062-10">Acknowledgments</hd> <p>This paper is part of a project on Educating Responsible Believers, funded by the Birmingham‐Illinois Partnership for Discovery, Engagement and Education (BRIDGE). My thanks to BRIDGE for supporting the project, and to the other members of the research team — Danielle Diver, Laura D'Olimpio, Ben Kotzee, Seunghyun Lee, Martha Perez‐Mugg, Jeff Standley, Nicolas Tanchuk, Rebecca Taylor, and Ruth Wareham — for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Thanks especially to Michael Hand for his detailed feedback.</p> <ref id="AN0184274062-11"> <title> Footnotes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Nicholas C. Burbules, "Why Virtue Theory Needs a Theory of Education" (invited keynote address presented at the annual conference of the North American Association for Philosophy and Education, Mundelein, IL, October 2022).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref3" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Nicholas C. Burbules, "Thoughts on Phronesis," <emph>Ethics and Education</emph> 14, no. 2 (2019): 126–137, https://doi.org/10.1080/17449642.2019.1587689.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib3" idref="ref4" type="bt">3</bibl> <bibtext> Nicholas C. Burbules and Suzanne Rice, "On Pretending to Listen," <emph>Teachers College Record</emph> 112, no. 11 (2010): 2874–2888, https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811011201108.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib4" idref="ref7" type="bt">4</bibl> <bibtext> Iris Marion Young, "Activist Challenges to Deliberative Democracy," <emph>Political Theory</emph> 29, no. 5 (2001): 670–690, https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591701029005004.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib5" idref="ref8" type="bt">5</bibl> <bibtext> Nicholas C. Burbules, "Reasonable Doubt: Toward a Postmodern Defense of Reason as an Educational Aim," in <emph>Critical Conversations in Philosophy of Education</emph>, ed. Wendy Kohli (Routledge, 1995), 82–102.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib6" idref="ref9" type="bt">6</bibl> <bibtext> Rebecca M. Taylor, "Open‐Mindedness: An Intellectual Virtue in the Pursuit of Knowledge and Understanding," <emph>Educational Theory</emph> 66, no. 5 (2016): 599–618, https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12201.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib7" idref="ref10" type="bt">7</bibl> <bibtext> For a contrasting view, see Danielle Diver, "Educating Open‐Mindedness through Philosophy in Schools," <emph>Educational Theory</emph> 75, no. 2 (2025), https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.70013.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib8" idref="ref11" type="bt">8</bibl> <bibtext> Daniel Kahneman, <emph>Thinking, Fast and Slow</emph> (Macmillan, 2011).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib9" idref="ref12" type="bt">9</bibl> <bibtext> Ludwig Wittgenstein, <emph>Philosophical Investigations</emph> (Blackwell, 1958), sections 23, 65, and 66.</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Nicholas C. Burbules</p> <p>Reported by Author</p> <p></p> <p>NICHOLAS C. BURBULES is the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Professor Emeritus in the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois, Urbana‐Champaign; email. His research focuses on philosophy of education, the ethics of communication, critical social and political theory, and technology and education.</p> </aug> |
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| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: The Communicative Dimensions of Social Epistemologies – Name: Language Label: Language Group: Lang Data: English – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Nicholas+C%2E+Burbules%22">Nicholas C. Burbules</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4956-5590">0000-0003-4956-5590</externalLink>) – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Educational+Theory%22"><i>Educational Theory</i></searchLink>. 2025 75(2):192-207. – Name: Avail Label: Availability Group: Avail Data: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us – Name: PeerReviewed Label: Peer Reviewed Group: SrcInfo Data: Y – Name: Pages Label: Page Count Group: Src Data: 16 – Name: DatePubCY Label: Publication Date Group: Date Data: 2025 – Name: TypeDocument Label: Document Type Group: TypDoc Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Evaluative – Name: Subject Label: Descriptors Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Epistemology%22">Epistemology</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Beliefs%22">Beliefs</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Attitudes%22">Social Attitudes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Communication+%28Thought+Transfer%29%22">Communication (Thought Transfer)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Evidence%22">Evidence</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Perspective+Taking%22">Perspective Taking</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Persuasive+Discourse%22">Persuasive Discourse</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Communities+of+Practice%22">Communities of Practice</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Learning+Processes%22">Learning Processes</searchLink> – Name: DOI Label: DOI Group: ID Data: 10.1111/edth.70005 – Name: ISSN Label: ISSN Group: ISSN Data: 0013-2004<br />1741-5446 – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: Like other papers in this symposium, this essay approaches the question of responsible belief through the lens of social epistemology: what are the processes by which knowledge claims, evidence, perspectives, and arguments get shared within knowledge-making communities? In this paper, Nicholas Burbules argues that these processes are essentially communicative, and that we need to examine the conditions that make such communication knowledge-productive. Among these conditions are the enactment of "communicative virtues": skills, attitudes, habits, and dispositions that are more likely to support responsible dialogue and deliberation about knowledge claims. In this argument, each of these communicative virtues is actually a cluster of interrelated qualities, not a laundry list of discrete items. Burbules explores how these virtues are learned and enacted in practice, not things that people "have" or possess. Finally, he discusses a number of potential candidates for consideration as communicative virtues. – Name: AbstractInfo Label: Abstractor Group: Ab Data: As Provided – Name: DateEntry Label: Entry Date Group: Date Data: 2025 – Name: AN Label: Accession Number Group: ID Data: EJ1465921 |
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