But ‘epistemic status’ and ‘trustworthiness’ are not the same thing! A well written investigation into a very speculative area that adequately explained its uncertainty could have weak epistemic status but be very trustworthy; an dogmatic piece of rhetoric could be written by a zealot whose epistemic status was one of complete confidence, but for whom third parties should not trust at all.
In a shallow search, I haven’t managed to find a definition for “epistemic status”. Could you define it?
The impression I’ve gotten over my time on the forum is that authors use it to indicate to the readers how much thought, research etc. has gone into the post, in order to inform their credibility assesments of its contents.
The epistemic status is a short disclaimer at the top of a post that explains how confident the author is in the contents of the post, how much reputation the author is willing to stake on it, what sorts of tests the thesis has passed.
But ‘epistemic status’ and ‘trustworthiness’ are not the same thing! A well written investigation into a very speculative area that adequately explained its uncertainty could have weak epistemic status but be very trustworthy; an dogmatic piece of rhetoric could be written by a zealot whose epistemic status was one of complete confidence, but for whom third parties should not trust at all.
In a shallow search, I haven’t managed to find a definition for “epistemic status”. Could you define it?
The impression I’ve gotten over my time on the forum is that authors use it to indicate to the readers how much thought, research etc. has gone into the post, in order to inform their credibility assesments of its contents.
I am shocked that the first good definition I found is on Urban Dictionary: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Epistemic%20Status
This seems like “how much I’m sure of this” then, isn’t it?
Yes, I agree that’s very close