Applied Epistemology

The term "applied epistemology" will be unfamiliar to many readers. Those who have encountered it are likely to have seen it defined in a variety of confusing or contradictory ways. There is even disagreement about whether applied epistemology exists, or whether, on the other hand, it is something that it would be desirable to bring into existence at some point in the future, if only we could work out what kind of thing it would be.1 In what follows, I will try to shed some light on these issues. I will argue that applied epistemology does indeed exist; there really are people researching, writing, and teaching in a field that deserves to be called "applied epistemology," although few of them are calling it by that name. Those who doubt that the subject exists are mistaken. Nonetheless, their mistake is understandable. There is, as I hope to make clear, not nearly enough of it at the moment. I hope and believe that epistemology is at a crossroads, as ethics was at the beginning of the 1970s, on the verge of taking an "applied turn" which will transform the subject for the better.