Institutional Epistemology Workshop – INES 2025

18–19 June 2025

University of Helsinki, Finland

Invited speakers

Helen Beebee (University of Leeds)

Jessica Brown (St. Andrews)

Kevin Zollman (Carnegie Mellon University)

Programme committee

Samuli Reijula (University of Helsinki)

Säde Hormio (University of Helsinki)

Raul Hakli (University of Helsinki)

Institutional epistemology aims to understand the formal and informal aspects of social knowledge production, as well as the epistemic powers of institutions. The approach extends social epistemology by combining it with the perspectives of philosophy of science, social ontology, and political philosophy. Social knowledge production does not happen in an institutional vacuum. Focusing on the institutional rules and practices of epistemic institutions aims to uncover both the intended but also the unintended consequences of such practices. As social epistemologists have long argued, the boundary between social and cognitive is not clear. Institutional epistemology tries to take that point seriously.

The questions involved in institutional epistemology are rich and varied, including the following: What is the proper role of deliberation in social groups and institutions? Should all knowledge producing institutions be run democratically? How can institutions prevent and correct epistemic injustices? What are the institutional preconditions of epistemic catastrophes – can collective irrationality be mitigated by good institutional design? How can the epistemic performance of knowledge institutions such as universities, think tanks and media organisations be improved by careful design? In addition to studying the effects of institutional arrangements to the epistemic state of individuals, institutional epistemology studies the possibility of institutionally organised collective epistemic agents.

In addition to analysing concepts of knowledge and justification in the abstract, institutional epistemology studies epistemic rationality in real-world contexts. In this respect, institutional epistemology overlaps with recent work in feminist philosophy of science and epistemology, and more broadly, in socially engaged philosophy of science and political epistemology.

Relevant topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Institutional conditions for epistemic trust
• Social and cognitive diversity
• Disagreement, dissent, and polarisation
• Institutional arrangements of (un)reliable science
• Socially responsible science
• Group evidence and group belief for a reason
• Culpable and blameless group ignorance
• Institutions and epistemic justice
• Deliberation – Wisdom of the crowds – Groupthink
• The epistemic functions of emotions
• Bias and ignorance
• Propaganda, misinformation, and fake news
• Epistemic consequences of online platforms and algorithms
• Epistemic defence of democratic institutions
• The role of experts in democracy
• The science-policy interface

The workshop is jointly organised by the project Modeling the republic of science: Collaborative problem solving and collective rationality in scientific inquiry, funded by the Research Council of Finland (2020-2025, PI: Reijula), the project ​​The role of knowledge in collective responsibility for systemic harms, funded by the Research Council of Finland (2023-2027, PI: Hormio), and TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki.

If you would like to present at the workshop, please send an extended abstract (1000–1500 words), anonymized for blind review, to institutional.epistemology@gmail.com by March 10th, 2025. The papers can be purely theoretical, or they can discuss applied issues. Please provide your name and information about your institutional affiliation (if applicable) in your email, but leave all identifying information out of the abstract. The workshop is organised as an in-person event, but we may accept a couple of online presentations, so please indicate if you cannot attend physically but would be able to present remotely.

More information at www.institutionalepistemology.net