Books
- Open access under CC BY-NC-ND licence
- Paperback
- ISBN: 9780262056458
- doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/17114.001.0001
- Pub date: October 13, 2026
- Publisher: The MIT Press
- 202 pp., 6 x 9 in, 6 b&w figures
Epistemic autonomy worth valuing requires epistemic dependence on others, as well as on tools and technology.
In How We Govern Our Minds Through Others, J. Adam Carter and Neil Levy argue that epistemic autonomy worth valuing requires various kinds of epistemic dependence on others, as well as on tools and technology. Challenging the Cartesian ideal of self-sufficient knowledge acquisition, they show that epistemic dependence is both inevitable and beneficial. Self‑governance is mediated by social relationships and institutions; we manage our beliefs and attention through collaborations, trust, and the influence of others. What emerges is a reconceptualization of epistemic autonomy as deeply social and deeply scaffolded.
Integrating insights from philosophy, cognitive science, AI ethics, and media studies, the authors offer a positive, socially scaffolded conception of epistemic self‑governance. The topics they explore include epistemic autonomy in connection with hijacked attention, intellectual collaboration with others in group settings, artificial intelligence, first-hand insight, nudging and questioning, epistemic feedback loops, and adaptive control. Their arguments have ramifications for educators and designers of digital platforms, as well as those working in the emerging landscape of AI law, digital rights, and mental privacy.
Open Access
The open access edition of this book was made possible by generous funding and support from MIT Press Direct to Open. It is made available under a CC BY-NC-ND International licence and is free to read and download on the MIT Press Direct platform.
Funder
The book is an output of an AHRC Grant 'Epistemic Autonomy' (AH/W005077/1). We are grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for funding this collaborative project with the University of Glasgow.
by Professor Michael Otsuka, 2020 Uehiro Lecturer
Oxford University Press
How to Pool Risks across Generations makes the case for the collective provision of pensions, on fair terms of social cooperation. Through the insurance of a mutual association which extends across society and over multiple generations, we share one another's fates by pooling risks across both space and time. Resources are transferred, not simply between different people, but also within the possible future lives of each person: from one's more fortunate to one's less fortunate future selves. The book opens with an investigation of the longevity and investment risk that even a single individual on a desert island would face in providing for her old age. From this atomistic starting point, it builds up, within and across the chapters, to increasingly collective forms of pension provision. By joining together, it is possible to tame the risks we would face as individuals each with our own private pension pot. A collective pension can be justified as a 'social union of social unions': an enduring corporate body, which is formed by agreements to pool risks, in a manner that involves reciprocity between the various individuals that constitute the collective. Even though all individuals age and die, a collective pension scheme remains evergreen, as the average age of members remains relatively unchanged, through the influx of new members to replace those who retire. It is therefore possible to smooth risks indefinitely across as well as within generations, to the mutual advantage of each.
Published: 27 June 2023, Oxford University Press
