The hottest Epistemology Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Philosophy Topics

Michael Shermer LIVE with Coleman Hughes!

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 32 implied HN points • 14 Jan 26
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Experts will explore how skepticism, evidence, and reason help us tell truth from falsehood amid conspiracy theories, deepfakes, and post-truth politics.
  2. There’s an intimate live conversation and a casual post-show meetup in New York where attendees can ask questions and argue in good faith.
  3. Access is limited and behind a paywall — paid subscribers get exclusive presale ticket access, and there are monthly and annual subscription options.

Mixing Mental Arts

Polymathic Being • 56 implied HN points • 21 Dec 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Slowicism blends Stoicism and Taoism: tame your emotions with reframing and use Wu Wei, or intentional non-action, to stop automatic reactions.
  2. Slowing down and refusing to react to every outrage or piece of information clears space to think more deeply and prevents cascading bad outcomes.
  3. You need steady practice because these habits build flow, restore your agency, and create compounding improvements that make life calmer and more effective.

Ultrafinitism as arithmetic potentialism

Infinitely More • 25 implied HN points • 12 Jan 26
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Ultrafinitism can be fruitfully seen as a form of potentialism, which clarifies its philosophical commitments and lets us give a formal treatment of ultrafinitist theories.
  2. Models of finite arithmetic naturally extend step by step to larger models (M+, M++, and so on), presenting arithmetic as a growing structure even without committing to a single completed limit model.
  3. The potentialist view highlights that mathematical truth can depend on how a theory develops, and it provides a natural framework for discussing and adjudicating different ultrafinitist positions about mathematical existence.

Six Laws of Social Learning

In My Tribe • 896 implied HN points • 18 Dec 24
🚌 Education Epistemology
  1. We decide what we believe based on who we trust. Trust is built through communication, reputation, and personal connection, even if these aren't always the best indicators.
  2. Status-seeking can sometimes get in the way of truly seeking the truth. People often support ideas or beliefs to look good, rather than because they genuinely believe in them.
  3. Healthy debate and competition of ideas lead to better outcomes. It's important to allow different opinions to be heard and to stay open-minded, even when faced with contrary evidence.

Perhaps You Shouldn't Read This

The Algorithmic Bridge • 743 implied HN points • 07 Feb 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Reading can take away your ability to think for yourself. If you read too much, you might lose your original thoughts and feelings.
  2. Both reading and using AI are good, but doing them excessively has downsides. Just like you should drink enough water, you shouldn't overdo reading or rely too much on AI.
  3. It's fine to use AI or read books, but balance is important. You don’t have to do one all the time; a mix of both can help keep your mind sharp.
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A New Model of Memory: Representational Change and Representational Success

The Memory Palace • 139 implied HN points • 30 Apr 24
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Memory shouldn't be judged the same way as perception. Just because we can't remember everything perfectly doesn't mean our memory is faulty.
  2. Instead of thinking about memory accuracy, we should look at how well a memory represents something. This means we can accept changes in how memories are formed and recalled.
  3. Unique aspects of memories, like 'authenticity,' might not be the best standard to evaluate them. Instead, we should focus on how memories succeed in representing our experiences in various ways.

Good Memory

The Memory Palace • 79 implied HN points • 11 Jun 24
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Memory is often seen as less reliable than other ways of knowing, like perception. It doesn't create new knowledge but relies on what it's given, so it might forget important details.
  2. When we remember things, we can also remember them incorrectly or distort them. This means that sometimes memory can lead us to feel certain about things that are actually wrong.
  3. Despite its flaws, memory still plays an important role in how we understand our experiences. It can help us organize our memories, but we should be careful not to trust it too much.

Ultrafinitism

Infinitely More • 48 implied HN points • 12 Dec 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Ultrafinitism is the view that only relatively small or computationally accessible numbers truly exist, and extremely large numbers conventionally discussed by mathematicians are denied.
  2. This stance is different from general anti-realism because it accepts small numbers as unproblematic while treating very large numbers as ontologically different or nonexistent.
  3. A central challenge is the 'draw the line' objection: it’s hard to specify where feasible numbers stop and huge ones begin, and this makes concrete questions about enormous expressions difficult or undecidable.

Social Conservatism as 4D Chess

Richard Hanania's Newsletter • 2048 implied HN points • 11 Mar 24
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Social conservatives make claims about higher-order effects to justify their positions on issues like abortion and euthanasia, but these claims often lack evidence or are disproven by cross-national comparisons.
  2. Slippery slope arguments can be valid in limited contexts, but broad claims like legalizing prostitution affecting overall societal values need substantial evidence, which is often lacking.
  3. Government policies in free countries have limited influence on shaping culture predictably; the impact is often chaotic and hard to plan for, as seen by historical examples of social policies not aligning with expected cultural changes.

Sunday Strip: Paranoid lately?

Who is Robert Malone • 41 implied HN points • 28 Dec 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Sometimes what looks like paranoia is actually a rational response to real facts and information, so suspicion can be justified when evidence lines up.
  2. Those in power control narratives by steering questions and limiting criticism, so who you cannot criticize often indicates who is controlling you.
  3. Paranoia often springs from fear mixed with good sense, and you can either let it make you miserable or use it to make yourself stronger.

Issues in Philosophy of Memory 4

The Memory Palace • 59 implied HN points • 25 Jun 24
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. The philosophy of memory is growing quickly, with more conferences and research on it recently. People are exploring topics about how we remember and what memory means.
  2. The fourth conference on philosophy of memory will take place in Geneva in June 2024. It will feature key talks and papers from researchers from many different countries.
  3. The event will cover a wide range of memory-related topics, from how we remember to the connections between memory and emotions. It aims to inspire new ideas and discussions in the field.

Mountains Hanging by a Hair

What Is Called Thinking? • 18 implied HN points • 19 Jan 26
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Many detailed Jewish laws rest on minimal scriptural wording yet are treated as fully authoritative, justified by the claim they were handed down at Sinai and by longstanding communal acceptance.
  2. Oral law functions like hair growing from the body of the written Torah: it organically extends, elaborates, and depends on the text while creating a coherent whole where meaning arises from the system rather than isolated words.
  3. When legal reasoning is unmoored from communal acceptance and lived obligation it becomes mere intellectual virtuosity, so legitimacy ultimately depends on practice and social recognition rather than purely abstract derivation.

AI, or, Shifty Epistemics and Shaky Ontologies

Deep Fix • 491 implied HN points • 07 Jul 23
🕹 Technology Epistemology
  1. AI technology can lead to a breakdown in how we know and understand information, potentially causing chaos and confusion.
  2. The use of AI in an era of eroding trust and extreme ideologies may worsen division and extremism in society.
  3. Concerns exist about the worldviews and intentions of individuals, especially men, behind AI technology, with fears of their impact on society and humanity.

The Asymmetry of Destruction

Passing Time • 267 implied HN points • 29 Jun 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Creating something takes time, teamwork, and skill. It's a careful process that can easily fall apart with just one mistake.
  2. Destroying things is much easier and faster than creating them. Just a small action can ruin a whole system while building it requires collaboration and effort.
  3. In life and politics, it's often harder to prove false claims than to spread them. We need more people focused on building a better future instead of just tearing down what's there.

2.5 René Descartes

Fields & Energy • 259 implied HN points • 17 Jan 24
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. René Descartes believed science is connected and trying to find one truth could help explain other truths. He thought this truth came from the 'infinite perfections of God.'
  2. He had some important ideas in physics, like how light bends and motion is conserved. However, some of his ideas turned out to be wrong, showing that science takes time to improve.
  3. Descartes thought that studying nature could help humans control it, but his methods sometimes lacked support from experiments. He lived a relaxed life, which changed when he had to teach in Sweden and sadly got pneumonia.

Two visions of ultrafinitism intricately intertwined

Infinitely More • 25 implied HN points • 29 Dec 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. There are two ultrafinitist views: one posits a largest natural number, and the other accepts successor, addition, and multiplication as total but not exponentiation.
  2. Model theory tightly connects them: truncations of bounded-induction models produce finite-arithmetic models, and every finite-arithmetic model can be seen as a truncation of some bounded-induction model.
  3. Each finite-arithmetic model has a unique smallest extension to a bounded-induction model that makes addition and multiplication fully determined, so the two approaches end up sharing the same semantic landscape.

Bayes is not a phase

DYNOMIGHT INTERNET NEWSLETTER • 453 implied HN points • 27 Feb 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Bayesian reasoning is something we all use, even if we don't realize it. It's more about how we naturally think than some complex math.
  2. There are two types of uncertainty: aleatoric (random) and epistemic (based on knowledge). Mixing them helps us make better decisions.
  3. Arguing over which type of probability is 'real' is silly. It's better to recognize that life involves many messy decisions where formal reasoning can help, but is often complicated.

Ethics and Insecticide

Bet On It • 211 implied HN points • 07 Jul 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Insect suffering could challenge views about animal suffering. If we think insects feel pain, it might mean many everyday actions are wrong.
  2. Intelligence might affect how bad suffering is. The more intelligent a being is, the worse their suffering could be seen as.
  3. Concrete facts should guide ethical theories. It's better to start with real experiences and observations, not just abstract ideas.

Recent Media Appearances

Good Thoughts • 216 implied HN points • 20 Jan 24
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Recent public philosophy discussions cover effective altruism, longtermism, and synthetic a priori knowledge.
  2. Critical discussion on the reliance on supernatural forces in discerning philosophical truths.
  3. Rejecting the causal debunking principle in favor of relying on coherent philosophical methods for truth-seeking.

Math is not art

The Strategy Toolkit • 26 implied HN points • 22 Dec 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. You often need to leave your familiar life and roles to really discover who you are, because you can’t fully see yourself from inside your own island.
  2. Having a craft, job, or practical skill can sustain you but it doesn’t replace the deeper search for identity and meaning.
  3. Moments and changing perspectives can reveal unexpected beauty and mystery, so paying attention to how time and place shift perception helps you understand the world and yourself.

2.0 Aristotle, Plato, & Newton

Fields & Energy • 259 implied HN points • 13 Dec 23
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Aristotle and Plato have very different views on existence. Aristotle believes existence comes first, while Plato thinks consciousness creates reality.
  2. The Aristotelian approach focuses on observing nature to discover principles, while the Platonist starts with foundational ideas and deduces from them.
  3. Both schools of thought are important for science. Sometimes we discover new principles like Aristotle, and other times we analyze and apply ideas like Plato.

The Unreasonable Ineffectiveness of Effective Altruism in thinking about AI

Ulysses • 179 implied HN points • 05 Feb 24
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Knowledge systems using symbolic logic in natural language are heuristic and capture reality imperfectly.
  2. Validity of heuristics depends on the similarity between the original context and current application.
  3. Rigid deontological symbolic morality may fail in reasoning about new events like AI, leading to ineffective discussions and decision-making.

1.1 Calculation Versus Understanding: Why Care?

Fields & Energy • 319 implied HN points • 01 Nov 23
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Understanding is important, not just getting the right answers. If we want to make sense of our world and society, we need deeper insights and not just calculations.
  2. Ideas about causality and certainty have changed over time. What was once thought to be clear cut, like Newton's laws, has become more complicated with concepts like quantum mechanics.
  3. Political philosophy can be impacted by scientific ideas. If we believe everything is contradictory, it may affect how we think about power and society, sometimes leading to a focus on who holds power rather than what is right or wrong.

Why the Good Guys Will Usually Win

Eurykosmotron • 353 implied HN points • 09 Jul 23
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Good guys are likely to win and open-mindedness prevails over closed-mindedness across the multiverse.
  2. Prosocial communities are smarter and better at problem-solving than communities of distrustful individuals.
  3. In a diverse and open environment, good and open-minded agents are more likely to prevail and positively influence society.

Immanuel Kant—What can we know?

Ralph Ammer • 314 implied HN points • 01 Nov 23
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Immanuel Kant questioned how we can know things, diving into the roles of rationalism and empiricism.
  2. Kant believed that our mind shapes how we perceive the world, filtering and structuring our knowledge.
  3. Kant's idea is that we need both external observations and internal structuring through concepts to truly understand the world.

Ultrafinitism with a largest number

Infinitely More • 25 implied HN points • 19 Dec 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Ultrafinitism holds that only comparatively small or ‘feasible’ numbers exist, and finite arithmetic (FA) formalizes this by axiomatizing arithmetic with a single largest natural number.
  2. The full theory true in all finite truncation models is not computably axiomatizable, so FA is a distinct and simply stated theory rather than that inexpressible common truncation theory.
  3. Any model of FA can be interpreted inside a strictly taller FA-model where the former largest number attains much larger values (making previously undefined sums and products defined), revealing a potentialist hierarchy that, when iterated, yields models arising from truncations of bounded induction.

Solipsism>>Determinism

Bet On It • 196 implied HN points • 24 Jun 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Libertarian free will means you have real choices, unlike determinism which says you can only act one way based on past events.
  2. Your own thoughts and decisions feel real to you, and denying them goes against personal experiences and observations.
  3. Even though solipsism (the idea that only your mind is certain) seems crazy, it makes more sense than determinism, which asks you to ignore your direct experiences.

A Second Kind of Objects

Justin E. H. Smith's Hinternet • 345 implied HN points • 02 Feb 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Many short words can have different meanings in various languages. For example, the word 'kut' means very different things in Hungarian, Dutch, and Sanskrit.
  2. Exploring words like 'kut' can reveal interesting connections between different cultures and languages. It shows how language can be rich and complex.
  3. The idea of cross-linguistic homonyms helps us appreciate the diversity of human language and thought. It’s fascinating to see how one small word can connect so many meanings.

Can society be perfect?

In My Tribe • 486 implied HN points • 05 Nov 24
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Perfectionists believe society can be made perfect by following what they think are the right ideas. They think mistakes can be corrected easily.
  2. Anti-perfectionists believe that trying to perfect society often fails because of human flaws. They think it's okay for people to make mistakes and learn from them.
  3. Conservatives value traditions and experiences as important knowledge, while perfectionists sometimes discard traditions when they think they've found something better.

Hey, I plan to be back!

Inland Nobody • 320 implied HN points • 01 Feb 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. The writer has been focusing on weight loss and has lost a total of 237 pounds. They feel more energized and are looking forward to new experiences.
  2. They plan to write more frequently, with less emphasis on perfectionism. This means sharing ideas that are in progress instead of perfectly polished posts.
  3. The writer is moving from Galesburg to Chicago and will share thoughts on urbanism and philosophy related to their new environment.

Beyond The Appearances.

Trying to Understand the World • 6 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Thinking that an ideal model must be true and then forcing facts to fit it is a common and damaging habit across religion, science, and politics. That approach suppresses evidence and treats reality as an inconvenience to be reshaped.
  2. Mathematical economics and technocratic policy can become detached from material limits like production, supply chains, and everyday human experience. Redefining metrics or relying on models instead of practical judgement leads to bad policy and misleading claims.
  3. A pragmatic, evidence-first attitude that respects messy appearances and practical constraints works better in medicine, policy and conflict than grand, a priori systems. Humility and readiness to revise theories when facts disagree are essential to avoid ideological error.

Social Learning Links, 1/28/2025

In My Tribe • 318 implied HN points • 28 Jan 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Epistemology
  1. Barton Swaim discusses Cipolla's idea of classifying people into four categories: helpless, bandit, intelligent, and stupid. He argues that even well-credentialed elites can act stupidly, benefiting themselves while causing harm to others.
  2. Lorenzo Warby warns against the dangers of activism, suggesting that it attracts manipulative personalities who use power without accountability. This can lead to aggressive behavior and undermine responsible governance.
  3. Dan Williams highlights a debate about whether ordinary citizens can understand today's complex world and argues for giving more decision-making power to experts. This raises questions about the nature of democracy and who truly understands political issues.

Aristotle on Knowledge of the Contingent

Logos and Liberty • 59 implied HN points • 20 Apr 24
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Different philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, and the Sophists had varying views on knowledge - from belief in absolute truth to belief in only probable knowledge.
  2. Plato believed in knowledge of the fully real, while Aristotle expanded it to include knowledge of the contingent world of becoming and change.
  3. Aristotle's approach to knowledge, embracing the changing world and proposing methods for understanding it, laid the foundation for experimental science and intellectual progress.

The Pragmatists Handbook: Transjectivity

Divergent Futures • 2 HN points • 13 Sep 24
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Truth isn't just about what's real or what we feel; it comes from how we connect with the world around us. This idea is called transjectivity, showing that understanding comes from our interactions.
  2. The way we categorize things, like calling a chair a 'chair', is influenced by both what we see and how we use it. It's about finding what fits well in our lives, not just what exists independently.
  3. Our views and meanings can change based on our experiences and environment. This means that understanding truth is flexible and evolves as we learn and grow.

"Mary's Room" Is Not a Case Against Physicalism (But Physicalism Still Fails)

Ethics Under Construction • 15 implied HN points • 28 Dec 25
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. The knowledge argument shows you can know all the physical facts and still not know what an experience is like, so there is an epistemic gap between description and lived experience.
  2. Experiencing something (like red or sweetness) is itself a fact about that property, not an extra mysterious add-on, so leaving out experience misunderstands what those properties are.
  3. Physicalism can reply that the epistemic gap is just a different mode of presentation, but that misses the deeper point that subjective facts are immediate and foundational, so physical explanations are grounded in, rather than fully exhaustive of, experience.

Woe Should We Do?

Contemplations on the Tree of Woe • 1063 implied HN points • 06 Sep 23
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. The author wants feedback on what motivates readers to engage with the blog.
  2. Various deep topics have been explored in the blog, including book reviews, epistemology, economics, and more.
  3. The blog has provided valuable content, but the author seeks input on potential new topics to cover.

the puzzle without a name

Thicket Forte • 419 implied HN points • 08 Mar 23
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Life can feel like a puzzle where you don't have all the pieces or instructions. It's frustrating when things don't fit, and you might feel lost trying to figure it all out.
  2. Real progress comes when you discover new ways to understand or solve your problems. Each new insight can change everything and make life feel more complete.
  3. It's easy to think you've reached the end, but there's always more to explore and understand. Keep questioning and seeking out those hidden pieces, even if it feels challenging.

Philosophy is the mathematics of language

Wood From Eden • 816 implied HN points • 23 Dec 23
📖 Philosophy Epistemology
  1. Philosophy is the art of clarifying concepts and finding links between them.
  2. Philosophy is similar to mathematics in that it explores relationships between concepts, just as mathematics explores relationships between numbers.
  3. Concepts in philosophy change over time, making it a field that evolves constantly unlike mathematics which is built on stable concepts.