Evaluation of a PhD Dissertation on the Epistemology of Belonging

Today I had the pleasure of serving as an examiner for Marcelo Cabral’s doctoral dissertation, Prelude to an Epistemology of Belonging, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Marcelo’s thesis makes a solid and innovative contribution to contemporary epistemology. It stands out for three central reasons: first, it introduces the epistemology of belonging, an original framework that adds a normative dimension to community relations, extending well beyond the traditional social turn; second, it offers a functional and flexible characterization of epistemic communities, one that applies to real-world contexts such as online networks and institutions without sacrificing normative rigor; and third, it advances clear principles and norms for collective virtues, such as social inquisitiveness, thereby expanding virtue epistemology beyond the individual and providing practical tools for diagnosing and improving epistemic environments.

Marcelo’s dissertation is publicly available at the following link: https://doi.org/10.5463/thesis.1394