Descartes's Meditations
Descartes imagines this hypothetical entity might be deceiving him about everything, including basic mathematics.
What is the "evil demon"?
The third essential criterion for establishing a causal relationship, where the first two are association and time order.
What is non-spuriousness?
Allen argues that we have duties to protect this person's privacy.
One's own.
As defined by C. Thi Nguyen, this kind of space is one in which other voices simply are not heard.
What is an epistemic bubble?
In an experimental design, this group receives no treatment or manipulation.
What is the control group?
The possibility of being in this state causes Descartes to distrust his senses.
What is dreaming/being asleep?
This procedure for assigning subjects to experimental or control groups is the key tool for ensuring internal validity in true experiments.
What is random assignment?
Allen distinguishes between reasons to protect privacy based in self-interest and these kinds of reasons.
What are moral or ethical reasons?
As defined by C. Thi Nguyen, this kind of space is one in which other dissenting voices are actively discredited.
What is an echo chamber?
Nguyen argues the "post-truth" phenomenon is better explained not by mass irrationality, but by communities having divergent sets of these.
What are "trusted authorities"?
This is Decartes' main epistemic goal in the Meditations.
Finding certainty (or indubitable knowledge).
This type of experimental design lacks random assignment and instead uses predetermined comparison groups.
What is a quasi-experiment?
Allen argues that duties to protect one's own privacy are this special kind of duty, inspired by Kantian ethics.
A duty of self-respect.
Eli Pariser coined this term in 2011 to describe personalized information environments created by algorithmic curation
What is the filter bubble?
This fourth criterion for causality strengthens but isn't required for causal claims.
What is identifying the causal mechanism?
This famous phrase represents the one thing that Descartes thinks can't be doubted (in English or Latin).
"I think, therefore I am" or "Cogito Ergo Sum"
This procedure for selecting participants from a population ensures generalizability.
What is random sampling?
Allen argues that because my genome data is also my siblings' genome data, I have a ____ duty to protect my privacy for the sake of others.
What is a second-order duty?
Nguyen argues that escaping an echo chamber requires this method, inspired by Descartes's method.
What is a social-epistemic reboot?
While arguing with Allen, Marcus G. Singer rejects these kinds of ethical duties because he claims they are logically incoherent.
What are duties to oneself?
Descartes uses physical changes in this naturally-produced substance to show that we know bodies through the intellect, not the senses.
What is a piece of wax?
This Latin phrase, meaning "other things being equal," describes the condition necessary to isolate a causal effect.
What is ceteris peribus?
Allen proposes that corporations like Facebook should be viewed as "partners in ethical goodness" when they implement these kinds of policies.
What are strong privacy-protection policies?
Nguyen describes this phenomenon, named by philosopher Endre Begby, where exposure to contrary evidence reinforces echo chamber beliefs because members have been prepared for such "attacks."
What is evidential preemption?
Dubois and Renna identify this as the biggest methodological problem in echo chamber research
What is inconsistent measurement (or lack of agreed-upon definitions)?