Emma•ism

In this episode, “You Can See Everything” (2026) is discussed. Elizabeth Holmes may be epistemically wronged because of an overextended prejudice against her status as a knower. This podcast considers a question of tesimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice as an application and critique of Miranda Fricker’s framework. The testimonial question is: what if hearers hold a stereotype about a speaker that is grounded in reality, and so is quite plausible and not exactly prejudicial, but is perhaps overextended? There's a basis in reality for the stereotype here, and without being prejudicial, or at least not substantially so, it still harms the speaker. The hermeneutical question is: can we see everything in her case except the epistemic injustice? Do we lack the collective interpretive tools to do justice to her epistemic situation?

But, even if we are committing an epistemic injustice against Elizabeth Holmes, there is an outstanding question… What responsibility do we have to ourselves as knowers and epistemic interactors who need truth to get by and make important decisions?

In this episode, Love is Blind Season 11 (Boston! 🍀) is dicussed in terms of applying the philosophical concept of dealbreakers. Drawing on Tom Dougherty’s account of deception and consent and Campell Brown’s idea that dealbreakers come in different strengths, I adk why some loes about who someone is feel like minor surprises while others feel like major betrayals. I look at what the Love is Blind experiment reveals about disclosure, privacy, and how much risk we are willing to take on choosing a life partner.

How should we enact the revision to the rare disease medicine evidence hierarchy that I proposed in my LSE dissertation? This podcast explains how. Loosely, there should be 4 review steps:

1. Confirm the Study is for a Rare Disease

2. What is the Mechanism Plausibility Rating? 

3. Future Plans for or Record of a Test of the Intervention (N-of-1 or Adaptive Bayesian)

4. Registry-Enabled Confirmatory Phase 

What should count as reliable evidence supporting medical inductions when traditional evidentiary hierarchies are epistemically inadequate? This dissertation argues that the evidentiary status of mechanisms, broadly understood as reasoning based on understanding of causal biomedical systems, in rare disease medical research should be raised. This is an epistemological claim about evidence hierarchies in medicine, and its defense will be grounded in philosophy of science analysis (specifically via theories of classification in philosophy of medicine, the Cartwrightian account of causation, and the nature of scientific induction) of case studies. Current evidence-based medicine hierarchies prioritize evidence generation that propounds biostatistical inductions based on historical naturalist reference class foundations. Generating biostatistical inductions is not an epistemically adequate method of evidence generation for rare disease because of epistemic limitations surrounding the ability to generate and the realistic epistemic power of developing a statistical induction in rare disease. The refinement of reliable research methodology and accurate inductions (epistemological progress) and therapeutic breakthroughs (pragmatic progress) in rare disease medicine depend on the contribution of mechanistic reasoning to evidence-based decisions rather than on statistically-enabled evidence generation.

In this episode, it is held that love isn’t real, or at the very most, it could exist, but we will never know for sure if we have experienced it or not. With romantic love, we continually lack certainty. Three conditions for the satisfaction of romantic love are put forth, with 2 being targeted with objections as part of the argument. So what if romantic love doesn’t exist? There are a lot of other outstanding aims in life.

In this episode, the game-theoretic and social choice-theoretic aspects of the popular TV series, “The Traitors” are discussed. Additionally, the asymmetric pliability of speech and accusation is explored. This is a special episode — a discussion with award-winning philosophy scholar, Euan Morgan.

Join Emma in conversation with London School of Economics classmate, Euan Morgan. Euan Morgan, award-winning philosophy scholar, takes us through his master’s dissertation, “Bending without Breaking: The Merits of Counterspeech.” The interview covers background on Speech Act Theory, Blocking as a counterspeech technique, Bending as a counterspeech technique, and the plausibility of unintentional bending as a form of counterspeech. Listen to the exclusive interview now!

It’s time to talk about my disseration. This short teaser introduces the dissertation episode series that explains my Master’s dissertation from the London School of Economics. The dissertation was titled, “Going for Gold: A Proposal to Raise the Evidentiary Standard of Mechanisms in Rare Disease Medicine.” The special dissertation episodes will be released as detailed below:

Parts 1-3 will appear in Episode 89 of Emma-ism. Part 4 will be Episode 90!

Part 1: Introducing the Project & Offering a Brief Overview of Evidence in Medicine

Part 2: Establishing a Need for Recalibration of the Evidence Standard

Part 3: Arguing for Mechanisms Driving Epistemological Progress

Part 4: Providing the Implementation Plan & Concluding Remarks

In this episode, Mathias Risse’s 2004 claim that “unless majoritarians present a more complete defense, it is irrational to grant majority rule its default status” is evaluated. It is argues that it is rational to grant majority rule the default status that it occupies. This is defended through disarming Risse’s 4 objections (argumentative content, preference intensity, omission of relevant information, proportionate consideration), proposing new ideal desiderata of a default aggregation rule, and a statement on practicality regardless of justificatory power.

In this episode, manipulability in the conclave voting procedure is discussed. Rest in peace to Pope Francis. This podcast comes as a discussion of the aggregation method used by cardinals in electing the next pope. The sequential supermajority voting system allows for manipulability at several levels, where there are clear cases when cardinals (voters) have incentive to falsify or misrepresent their preferences. While supermajority rule can seem to numbers-wise (dictated by ‘experts’ in the faith) give a strong mandate for papal infallibility, potential for manipulability seems to contradict that consequential mandate.