Dear all,

we warmly invite you to the next APSE (Applied Philosophy of Science and Epistemology) Reading Circle. The talk will be held by Natalie Alana Ashton (University of Sterling).

When: Thursday, 27.3.2025, 15:00 - 17:00
Where: HS 3A, NIG (Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien)

Creating a Strong Foundation for Neurodiverse Epistemology
Autistic people have had unprecedented success building effective epistemic communities online. A detailed analysis of the conditions and practices which produced and sustain these communities would be illuminating for both the epistemology of social media and the emerging area of neurodiverse epistemology. However, epistemology has only recently begun to theorise about marginalised groups, and many of its foundational principles are ill-suited to this work. In this talk I'll outline a planned project to develop a novel approach to neurodiverse epistemology, which challenges some of the fundamental assumptions of the early, exploratory literature, and lays the groundwork for a participatory methodology which can do real justice to neurodiverse communities.

Speaker Bio:
Natalie Alana Ashton works on the political and social aspects of epistemology, and is interested in how oppression and power effect political deliberation in the online sphere. In the past she has focused on theoretical issues (exploring how to integrate feminist standpoint theory and hinge epistemology, whether these views should be understood as relativist, and what that means). Her current work is on the practical applications of such views: what they tell us about social media legislation, platform design, and online communities.

Reading Circle (1-3 PM):

We will focus our discussion on an article by Natalie Ashton and a few pages of an interim project report (attached pdf):

Ashton, N.A. (2020). Scientific Perspectives, Feminist Standpoints, and Non-Silly Relativism. In: Crețu, AM., Massimi, M. (eds) Knowledge from a Human Point of View. Synthese Library, vol 416. Springer, Cham. https://doi-org.uaccess.univie.ac.at/10.1007/978-3-030-27041-4_5

Shaping Democracy in the Digital Age: Interim report of the 'Norms for the New Public Sphere' project. (Pages 3-6 and 20-22)

Link: https://newpublicsphere.stir.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/NNPS-Report-Full-Report-V6-2.pdf

As introduction to Natalie Ashtons approach, we suggest this short article:

Ashton, N.A. (2021). Why Twitter is (Epistemically) Better Than Facebook. Open For Debate. Link: https://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/openfordebate/why-twitter-is-epistemically-better-than-facebook/

As introduction to definitions of Neurodiversity, we suggest the introduction of this book:

Chapman, R. (2023). Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism (1st ed.). Pluto Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.8501594

For further reading regarding the topic:

Medina, J. (2013). The epistemology of resistance : gender and racial oppression, epistemic injustice, and resistant imaginations. Oxford University Press.

Ashton, N. (2019). Relativising epistemic advantage. In The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Relativism (pp. 329-338). Routledge.

Anderson, E. (1995). Feminist Epistemology: An Interpretation and a Defense. Hypatia, 10(3), 50–84. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.1995.tb00737.x

Please send a quick message to vinzenz.fischer@univie.ac.at if you are planning to attend the Reading Cycle!
Feel free to bring your lunch!

Feel free to share this invitation with anyone who might be interested!